Seattle Seahawks might wonder if their money has been well spent

If it is true you get what you pay for, then maybe Seahawks fans should have seen this coming.

No NFL team this year is paying more to its defense than Seattle, according to OvertheCap.com, with the Seahawks owing that side of the ball almost $92 million in 2017.

And only five teams are paying less to their offense than the Seahawks, according to OvertheCap.com, than Seattle’s roughly $65 million.

Of five offensive positions, Seattle ranks in the top 15 in spending in only one — tight end — with the offensive line coming in at 30th.

In the four defensive positions, Seattle ranks among the top five in spending in two — safety (second) and cornerbacks (fifth) – with the defensive line standing 11th.

Put another way, of the 12 highest individual salary-cap hits on the Seahawks, nine play defense.

So maybe it only makes sense that a defense that still has seven starters from the team that won the Super Bowl following the 2013 season ranks fifth in fewest points allowed this week at 13.0 per game while an offense that includes just two starters from the Super Bowl champs ranks 28th in points scored at 10.5.

Among those making that case this week as the Seahawks prepared for Sunday’s 1:05 p.m. game at Tennessee were many of the defensive players themselves.

“While they are still working themselves out we’ve got a lot of the same faces,’’ said cornerback Richard Sherman. “We have a lot of continuity on our defense and a lot of guys who have played a lot of high-quality and high-level football. So we would expect it to be on our backs. There are a lot of leaders on the defense. There are a lot of guys who have played championship-winning football, and we would expect nothing else.”

Not that they probably expected it to be on their backs quite this much.

The hope was that a healthy Russell Wilson would pick up where he left off in 2015, teaming with the likes of Doug Baldwin and Jimmy Graham to give Seattle a dynamic passing game while the running attack would revive itself this season with the return of a healthy Thomas Rawls and the addition of free agent Eddie Lacy and rookie sensation Chris Carson.

But while there have been a few bright spots through two games — mostly, Carson, who ranks eighth in the NFL in rushing with 132 yards — the offense, and particularly a rebuilt line that is still trying to find its best five, has mostly struggled. That has raised questions about whether it can complement the defense ably enough for Seattle to really be a Super Bowl contender.

Some, in fact, have wondered if it could get to a point where the defense would get weary of having to carry the offense.

Defensive players spent the week insisting that won’t be an issue.

“We don’t look at it that way,’’ said middle linebacker Bobby Wagner. “We are not focused on the other side of the ball. We have our own standards. We have how we want to play. We have our mindset and that’s what we are really focused on. I’m not going to play quarterback. I’m not going to play running back. I’m a linebacker and Kam (Chancellor) is a safety, and we are going to be the best at those positions as we possibly can.’’

And then they’ll hope that’s good enough.

Certainly, though, it figures to take a team effort to emerge with a victory Sunday against a dangerous Titans team that many NFL observers think could be due for a playoff breakthrough.

The Titans finished 9-7 last season in their second year with 2014 Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Marcus Mariota.

The Titans have a punishing running game, and Mariota typically is not easily forced into mistakes. And Tennessee’s defense, while statistically not too impressive, is known for its wide variety of pressures and blitzes. The Titans last year ranked sixth in the NFL in sacks with 40 and have four through two games this season.

And while the Seahawks mostly claimed they don’t see much value in comparing this season to past years, they don’t argue that this has just been a little bit of a slow start, like those of the last three seasons.

Seattle has been either 1-1 or 0-2 each of the past three seasons before then breaking out in game three. Last year it was a 37-18 win over the 49ers, in 2015 a 26-0 win over the Bears (the last shutout for the Seahawks) and in 2014 a 26-20 overtime thriller over Denver in a rematch of the previous year’s Super Bowl.

Each of those games came at home, though, where potent offense or not, the Seahawks remain as tough to beat as any team in the NFL.

The road, however, has lately been a different story — Seattle is 4-4-1 in its last nine road regular-season games dating to the beginning of the 2016 season and 4-5-1 when including playoffs. Including playoffs, Seattle has lost four of its last five road games, all by eight points or more.

The Titans entered the weekend as 2½-point favorites, making this the second time in three games this year the Seahawks have been underdogs. They’ve been underdogs just 13 times total since the beginning of the 2013 season.

This week might well begin to tell if that’s a role the Seahawks will begin to find themselves in more consistently. It all might ride on if the offense can show it can carry its share of the weight.