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Seattle Seahawks

London may be calling, but Seahawks need to answer with a win to keep playoff hopes alive

Seattle Seahawks offensive tackle Duane Brown speaks in a media huddle after an NFL training session at the Grove Hotel in Chandler’s Cross, Watford, England, on Friday. The Seattle Seahawks are preparing for an NFL regular-season game against the Oakland Raiders in London on Sunday. (Matt Dunham / AP)
By Bob Condotta Seattle Times

LONDON – After taking the proverbial step in the right direction last Sunday, the Seahawks followed this week with a literal leap across the ocean.

The novelty of a trip to London – the Seahawks were one of the last NFL teams asked to make the trek for one of the annual games here in a series that started in 2007 – might obscure the importance of this game for Seattle.

Simply put, it’s a must-win for the Seahawks if they are to make anything of the 2018 season.

Win it and the Seahawks get to 3-3 and can rest during their bye next week – something they asked for following the long trip to London – and watch the carnage that will inevitably hit the rest of the NFC.

Lose it, and, well, at 2-4 the playoffs start to already become something that would take a rather Long and Winding Road – did you know that the Beatles are from here? – to find (the New York Times’ Upshot playoff calculator assesses Seattle’s postseason odds at 37 percent with a win over the Oakland Raiders and 21 percent with a loss, one of the biggest potential swings for any team in Week 6).

As Seahawks middle linebacker Bobby Wagner said this week, “I’m not trying to go into the bye week at 2-4.”

Maybe more important, a loss to a surprisingly middling Oakland team – who knew trading away one of the best pass rushers in the NFL the week the season began might impact a team’s pass rush? – would show that the progress evident in last Sunday’s 33-31 loss to the Los Angeles Rams was more of a mirage than a sign of things to come.

The Rams’ game elicited some mixed emotions in the Seahawks’ locker room.

A game in which Seattle was the biggest home underdog it had been since Pete Carroll’s first year in 2010 turned into one the Seahawks felt they should have won, and would have if not or a couple of ill-timed – and at least one of which in Carroll’s eyes, a hold on D.J. Fluker, didn’t need to be called – penalties.

Wagner, one of the few veterans left from the Super Bowl teams, shrugged and said, “I’m not into moral victories.”

But in one of the clearest signs yet that era has passed, there were others who if not accepting of a moral victory were at least content to see a silver lining.

“We feel like we’re turning a corner,” said left tackle Duane Brown, who is still less than 12 months removed from becoming a Seahawk. “I don’t think anyone expected us to be in that game going into it. We did – we expected to win. It came down to just a couple of penalties. The last drive that knocked us out of field-goal range, you get us right there and the game is ours.

“You’d love to win that game, but in saying that, we know what we’re capable of. That’s the best that the league has to offer right there with the Rams. We competed our tails off. We have a lot of football left and we know the direction that we’re headed in and we know where we can end when it’s all said and done.”

Carroll seemed almost giddy Friday talking about what he sees as the emerging identity of the team, one featuring an offense that has rushed for 158 yards per game the past three weeks – a total the Seahawks topped only once for a single game all of last season – and against the Rams was able to also hit some of the trademark “explosive plays” Carroll loves so much; and featuring a defense that if not yet as stout as the Legion of Boom days, is more than willing and able to lower the boom when it can, having forced 11 turnovers, more than all but one other team (you win a free cup of tea if you guessed the NFL leader in that category is the Cleveland Browns).

“We’re getting better and they can all feel it,” Carroll said. “We have set a style in motion a while back that we have kind of felt like we’re starting to capture now, that makes everybody feel kind of in a good way that we’re moving and we’re getting better. We had two off weeks the first two weeks (losses to Denver and Chicago). We didn’t play well. We’ve come back around, feel like we’re finding a little bit and now we need to see if we can keep going.

“It’s really about playing really tough and physical and running the football well and playing good defense. That’s what we’re trying to get done and we’re aware of that. We were really disappointed that it didn’t contribute to a win last week, but we still could feel the style, so that’s important to us and we’re going to try and make a big push here through the middle of the season, see if we can get going by the halfway point, and like you said, getting back to .500 is really important right now.”

The schedule hardly gets easier – Seattle has had two home games and has just one more until Nov. 15, following the bye with a trip to Detroit, then a home game against a Los Angeles Chargers team that has lost only to the Kansas City Chiefs and Rams, then another trip to L.A. to play the Rams again.

But at 3-3, the Seahawks could say they are, well, beginning to Come Together. At 2-4 they could probably just Let It Be.