Can Seahawks still get back in playoff mix?

SEATTLE – The Seattle Seahawks have lost four in a row for the first time in the Pete Carroll era following Sunday’s 28-16 defeat at San Francisco. It’s a skid that has exposed too many of this team’s warts. But was there hope to be found Sunday in the performance of Drew Lock? And are the playoffs still a possibility?

Seahawks beat reporters Bob Condotta and Adam Jude offer their thoughts on those questions and more.

1. What’s one thing the Seahawks have to fix to have a chance against Philly?

Jude: Any critical analysis of this Seahawks team has to start with the defense. It ranks 27th in yards allowed and 28th in points allowed, and just three teams have more missed tackles this season. Not good, any of it. The 49ers averaged 10.2 yards per play Sunday before their kneel down to end the game. The Seahawks invested heavily in this defense, and the early returns in the first half of the season were encouraging. Yes, the quality of opponents has a lot to do with the sudden downturn, but this is the NFL – and the Eagles offense is as formidable as just about any offense in the league. Pete Carroll on Monday hinted at some potential changes, and that should start with fundamental stuff – tackling, above all. There have been too many stretches lately where this defense is just noncompetitive, and that can’t continue.

Condotta: I’d agree with all of the above. One other thing they need to do to play like a Carroll team is run the ball better. Seattle had just 70 yards on 20 carries Sunday – 46 coming on back-to-back runs by Zach Charbonnet in the first quarter. After that, the running game was basically nonexistent – just 23 yards on 12 carries in the final three quarters. Seattle is now down to 92 rushing yards per game, 28th in the NFL and the lowest of the Carroll era other than his first season in 2010. That’s down markedly from last season’s 119.2 per game. Seattle’s average yards per carry of 4.0 is also down markedly from last year’s 4.8. Obviously, it wasn’t supposed to be this way with Seattle adding Charbonnet to Kenneth Walker III to give the team the kind of 1-2 punch Carroll has been seeking for years. Walker and Charbonnet seem to be running fine. But something obviously isn’t working, and it’s hard not to think how a really effective running game could have helped the defense over the last few weeks.

2. What are the chances Geno Smith plays against the Eagles? And what did we learn about Drew Lock in Smith’s stead?

Condotta: Carroll understandably is publicly hedging on Smith – both for competitive reasons and because it’s probably just hard to know for sure at this point. That Smith appears to have been fairly close to playing Sunday would seem to indicate he’ll make it back in time for the Philly game. That’s with the usual caveat of “barring setbacks.” But the good news is Seattle can feel more comfortable if it has to go again with Lock. Lock obviously has a track record with Denver, so it’s not as if he was a rookie being thrown to the wolves Sunday. That he hadn’t played significantly in almost 23 months obviously led to some questions about how he would respond. Lock wasn’t perfect – but that was also a most imperfect situation to be thrown into. The lack of a real running game and that the defense seemed to break down every time it was on the verge of becoming a game over the last three quarters added to the degree of difficulty. In general, how Lock played Sunday seemed a performance good enough to win a lot of games in different settings on different days.

Jude: Lock was as good as the Seahawks could have reasonably hoped, particularly given the circumstances. He hardly took any first-team reps in practice late last week, and going up against that 49ers defense is a challenge for any QB, especially one making his first start in two years. Lock, at this stage of his career, should get a real shot be a full-time starter in 2024. Whether that’s in Seattle or elsewhere remains to be seen. For now, this offense is better suited with Smith at the helm, and there’s reasonable hope that he should be able to play next Monday.

3. We’ve been through all this before with DK Metcalf. What’s the next step for him to be able to keep his cool?

Jude: Metcalf lost the benefit of the doubt with referees long ago, and opponents have been openly targeting him, trying to frustrate him and get under his skin. Niners coach Kyle Shanahan admitted as much after the game, and 49ers players openly celebrated Metcalf’s ejection. In this particular situation, Metcalf did have a right to be upset – Fred Warner blindsided him with a cheap, two-handed shove to the back of his head while Metcalf was on the ground. Ultimately, Metcalf needs to realize that he is just too valuable to his team, and can’t let these things escalate to the point that he gets kicked out of the game.

Condotta: One could at least argue that of most (all?) of Metcalf’s personal foul-related incidents, this one made the most sense – he said he didn’t know if Warner had the ball, and Warner did hit him from behind. And Metcalf knew at that point the game was over. That said, it just feels like a bad look every time it happens. Metcalf is a face-of-the-franchise-type player who has done many good things during his Seattle career. But each one of these incidents distracts from those.

4. Can this team get back in the playoff mix?

Jude: Not with the way this defense is playing right now, no. The Seahawks close out the season with three games that you’d like to pencil in as winnable – at the Titans, against the Steelers and at the Cardinals. Let’s see if Carroll follows through on his promise to make some changes this week, and what those changes are against the Eagles. At their best, the Seahawks are capable enough to win three of their final four games. But they’ve also proven capable of losing just as much too. It’s hard to get a real sense of what kind of performance to expect going forward from a team that’s been so inconsistent for so long.

Condotta: The seventh playoff spot and a schedule that eases some after the Eagles game make anything possible. And even the Eagles game seems a little more winnable with the way Philly has struggled of late – Seattle played Dallas and S.F. more competitively the last two weeks than the Eagles did. But a win over the Eagles may be what it will take. Losing that game and falling to 6-8 and then the pressure to have to win those last three – two on the road – becomes that much more intense, especially for a team that at that point also would have lost five in a row.