Will Seahawks lose enough games to win?
A comparison of 3 win-loss outcomes for the Seahawks
Fans will argue about the benefits of tanking versus fighting for the last wild card spot, but in the end nobody wins because the Seahawks are probably going to end up going 8-9 with another mid-first round pick regardless of what people are saying is best for the team. Below-average is Seattle’s most likely outcome and the least beneficial to the team.
BONUS: 6 players the Seahawks should trade
The Seahawks are close to being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs already, and even winning 6 of their last 8 probably still wouldn’t be good enough because the NFC is not a pushover conference this season. But winning feels good and losing feels bad, so the upside to barely missing the playoffs would be the times that the Seahawks scored more points than their opponents.
The Seahawks are 4-5. Would it be better it be better for Seattle to finish 7-10, 10-7, or 5-12?
This is a review of what the rest of this Seahawks season and the next offseason would look like based on three different outcomes over the next eight games. The only outcomes not covered are going 0-7 or 7-0, but those are highly unlikely to happen. Going 0-0-7 also isn’t covered.
Seahawks win 3-4 more games
Probability: Most likely
Final record projection: 7-10
Draft pick projection: 10th
What they’ll say: “We weren’t that bad, just need to get a little better!”
Based on what’s happened so far, it is most likely that the Seahawks will win roughly half of their remaining games even though Seattle might not be favored for the rest of the season:
5 road games, 4 division games, and the Jets are the only team that has a losing record but that’s going to be another tough matchup: 10 A.M. road game in New Jersey against NFL players.
The Seahawks could still win 3-4 more games. Nobody can predict what injuries will hit those teams (or Seattle), including at the quarterback position. Every season, there are Week 17-Week 18 QBs that you had either forgotten about or never heard of before. I wouldn’t be confident making any predictions for the last few games.
Is this what’s best for the Seahawks?
If the Seahawks win 7 or 8 games and end up with the 15th pick of the draft, that’s the least-exciting way to go into the offseason. And that’s probably what’s going to happen.
My rating on this outcome is: Most likely, least exciting
The Seahawks will win or lose games absent what we say, and based on how they’ve played, Seattle is headed for 7-8 wins. That’s just not pushing the team in either direction they would prefer to go in. Unfortunately, even winning 5 more games wouldn’t do that either, as 10-7 with a really bad conference record probably won’t be enough.
Seahawks win 5-6 more games
Probability: Least likely
Final record projection: 10-7
Draft pick projection: 21st
What they’ll say: “We were good, just need to get a little better!”
It used to be so easy for the Seahawks to go 10-7, now it seems unimaginable. The Seahawks would need to go 6-2 against the above schedule to win 10 games. Seattle going 4-4 against that schedule would be remarkable.
Is this what’s best for the Seahawks?
It is hard to argue against a morale boost, but the Seahawks could go 10-7 and still miss the playoffs. The 0-2 division and 1-4 conference holes they’re in now are going to hard to escape with that upcoming schedule and 10-7 probably isn’t good enough for an NFC wild card.
The upside? Winning feels good, losing feels bad. Everybody wants the scenario that has the most wins and as the Seahawks proved in 2012 and 2013, Seattle wasn’t suffering from their mediocre seasons in 2010 and 2011. It was improved play in the second half of 2011 that started to get the wheels turning with players that the coaching staff might be right.
My rating on this outcome is: Least likely, most exciting during season
Getting players to buy-in is important, but this Seahawks team winning 6 or 7 more games? We haven’t seen anything from them yet that would make that seem possible.
Seahawks win 1-2 more games
Probabiity: Not likely, not impossible
Final record projection: 5-12
Draft pick projection: 5th
What they’ll say: “Very bad, need to get a LOT better!”
There’s been enough good to think that unless Seattle trades away a bunch of players on Tuesday, the Seahawks are going to win about 7-8 games. But the “Pete Carroll safety 9-8 net” is no more. There is still the possibility that the Seahawks played their best football in September and maybe Seattle ends up with their worst season since 2009.
The upside? Not only is the upside obvious, losing is the outcome that has by far the most long-term upside for the franchise. The difference between picking 5th, 12th, or 19th is one thing, but the message that “We need to get a lot better, not just a little better”, is the main course.
That was also Pete’s weakness: Believing that the Seahawks were “almost there”.
The Seahawks don’t need to get a little better. They need to get a lot better and that’s true whether they go 5-12 or 10-7. So if Seattle can go 10-7 and not lose sight of the fact that the team needs to get a lot better, then that could be the best outcome. But it doesn’t have the top-5 pick.
My rating on this outcome is: Somewhat likely, most exciting during offseason
The other side to going 5-12 is that the two safest people seem to be John Schneider and Mike Macdonald, so their jobs don’t change whether the team barely misses the playoffs or gets a top-5 pick.
Seaside Joe 2044
Sorry, I swear I've been editing and I still had 2 typos: "Unfortunately, Seahawks could win 5-6 more games and still miss playoffs" is what I meant to write.
I’m always going to be in the anti-tank camp. There’s value to playing the games in front of you. Coaches will learn more about team by playing to win. This will help to make decisions in the offseason.