Are Seahawks one of the "6 teams" that truly contend for Super Bowl?

If the 49ers don't qualify for the six, then why not Seattle? Seaside Joe 1542

I was recently at a Dodgers game and having a debate with a friend about why one league is more or less interesting than following another league. I prefer the NFL and no longer watch other sports and he thinks that the NFL playoffs and eventual Super Bowl teams are too predictable, that there are only about six “real” contenders going into the season.

I obviously don’t feel that the NFL is too predictable, but is it somewhat predictable?

Of the last nine Super Bowl champions, four of those teams started Tom Brady at quarterback, two started Patrick Mahomes, one started Peyton Manning, and two of the remaining three (2013 Seahawks, 2021 Rams) looked very much like contenders going into the season. Perhaps the closest thing to a “surprise” would be the 2017 Eagles as they had gone 7-9 in the previous two years and then lost Carson Wentz before the playoffs.

You could definitely argue that Manning was one of the worst quarterbacks in 2015, but going into the season there was plenty of reason to believe that the Broncos were going to be in the Super Bowl that year.

You will find more parity among the Super Bowl losers… but they are Super Bowl losers. Even among the last nine losers: Six teams that also won the Super Bowl in the same period of time.

And I know that the Seahawks didn’t have a lot of playoff experience going into 2013, but I know that I was personally picking them to win the NFC based on how they finished 2012 and for many people there was nothing surprising about winning their first Super Bowl championship. A lot of people were expecting the Broncos to win that game, but surely Seattle was one of the top-six contenders going into the season.

Who would be the top-six contenders going into next season?

That was a topic of conversation on Good Morning Football on Monday and Gerald McCoy said that generally players always know going into the year that there are maybe only about “six” true contenders and that winning your division doesn’t imply you are one of them, noting that his former Tampa Bay teammates may have made the playoffs in 2022 but they weren’t going to go any further than that. McCoy then said that he doesn’t think that the San Francisco 49ers, despite reaching the NFC Championship in three of the last four years, are one of those “six” teams.

Steve Smith responded in saying that he thinks the 49ers are a real contender because of their defense but also noted that the Seahawks could be a problem for them.

There seem to be four teams in the NFL that everyone can agree on: The Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles, Buffalo Bills, and Cincinnati Bengals.

Under the conditions of consensus, maybe those are the only four teams and it’s not even six teams. Put it another way, what if I wanted to make a bet with you about the 2023 Super Bowl winner and you could either choose the Chiefs/Eagles/Bills/Bengals or the field of 28 other teams.

I probably like taking the field whenever possible. But then I also remember that about 20 years ago it was often foolish to choose the field against Tiger Woods in a major tournament… and that was one versus 100+, not four vs 28. It’s hard to bet against Mahomes, let alone him plus Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, and last season’s best team (by far) in the NFC.

Just think of choosing a team to come out of the AFC alone: Would you bet on Mahomes/Burrow/Allen or the group that includes Aaron Rodgers, Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert, Trevor Lawrence, Deshaun Watson, and the Miami Dolphins? I don’t think that’s an easy decision by any means, but the fact that it is difficult despite being three vs. 13 kind of says it all.

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Now let’s say you do get to add two more teams to your list of the six “real” contenders: Do the Seattle Seahawks make it in over the 49ers, Cowboys, Jets, and others?

Level II: 49ers, Ravens, Cowboys, Chargers, Seahawks, Dolphins

Level III: Jets, Vikings, Browns, Lions, Jaguars, Giants

Level IV: Saints, Titans, Falcons, Steelers, Packers, Panthers

If you’re getting the impression that I feel “good” about my choices in making these levels, you’d be mistaken. I merely went with my gut and if you didn’t notice, went back and forth with an AFC team, then an NFC team, and then back again, etc.

Even of the teams that didn’t make onto any of these lists, the Patriots have a six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach, the Broncos and Raiders are at least going to be interesting to monitor early in the season based on their offseason changes, and the NFC has two teams (Bucs, Rams) that recently won the Super Bowl but seem certain to take a couple of steps back.

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For many teams in the AFC, their advantage is largely based in the perceived value of their starting quarterback (Herbert, Jackson, Watson, Rodgers, Lawrence, Tua all failing to be in the top-three of their own conference). In the NFC, it’s mostly just being “the best of a mediocre bunch” headlined by Jalen Hurts. We don’t have to wonder if Geno Smith is capable of leading the Seahawks to a better record than Mahomes, Allen, Burrow, or Rodgers.

We only have to ask if he’s good enough to get Seattle more wins than teams with Sam Darnold (?), Matthew Stafford (?), Colt McCoy (?) in the NFC West, then Derek Carr, Kirk Cousins, Jared Goff, Dak Prescott, Daniel Jones, Hurts, and several others in the rest of the conference.

But as Gerald McCoy said in the opening, winning your division may not be enough to become a contender for the only prize that actually matters.

Even going back to that list of the nine most-recent Super Bowl champions, the one outlier—the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles—won enough games to earn the number one seed and a bye week in the NFC. So it went beyond simply winning their division. Really the “win your division and you’ve got a chance” theory may have to stretch all the way back to the 2012 Baltimore Ravens (a team that had still gone 24-8 over the previous two seasons with a consistent history of winning playoff games) and the 2011 New York Giants (a team with a quarterback and head coach who had already won a Super Bowl together).

Could we have a surprise Super Bowl winner in 2023? Sure, why not! The Bengals came very close in 2021, and though you could make the argument for them that picking a quarterback first overall opens a door that would have otherwise remained closed, Cincinnati went much further than anyone expected based on a long and recent history of failures.

The Seahawks have posted seven winning records and five 10-win seasons in the last eight years, so having success in the regular season and the NFC postseason wouldn’t be as surprising as it would be for some of the contenders standing in their way right now. However, they’ve also failed to get past the divisional round in any of their past eight tries, so in the spirit of “baby steps” maybe that is an acceptable goal until it happens again.

Winning the division (which has only happened once since 2017) would be a great first step. Making it to the NFC Championship game is certainly something that I think Seattle is in contention to accomplish. If that happens, we can reassess their goals from there.