What We Learned from the Seahawks’ 2016 regular season

The Seahawks won 10 or more games for the fifth consecutive season, second only to New England in terms of active streaks.

In fact, the four teams in the AFC South have only four seasons of 10 wins or more combined since 2012, which is a long way of saying that Seattle’s body of work is pretty darn impressive.

Now that we’ve sufficiently praised that achievement, let’s take a closer look at some of the warts on this Seahawks season as we count off what we’ve learned not just in Sunday’s regular-season finale but during the 16-game schedule.

Three things we learned:

The Seahawks’ running game is more like a running joke.

Seattle gained 87 yards on the ground against San Francisco on Sunday. That’s about par for the course with the Seahawks this season as they averaged 99.4 yards rushing. That’s the lowest rate for Seattle since 2010, Pete Carroll’s first year as head coach. However, Seattle’s total from Sunday looks even worse when you consider that San Francisco had the absolute worst rush defense in the league this season. The 87 yards the 49ers allowed to Seattle constituted the third-lowest total by a San Francisco opponent this season. How bad are things? Well, Christine Michael finished as Seattle’s leading rusher and he was so good the Seahawks released him outright once Thomas Rawls was healthy. Now, there’s a question of whether rookie Alex Collins is better than Rawls given the results of the past two games. It all adds up to a situation in which Seattle will be going nowhere fast in the playoffs if it has to rely upon the run.

Seattle’s rush defense turns opponents into a running joke.

This is one thing the Seahawks have done consistently well this season. In fact, it might be the only thing they’ve done consistently well, allowing a league-low 3.4 yards per rush. The team that allowed the fewest yards per rush last season? That was the Broncos, who won the Super Bowl. A good rush defense is one statistical trait that often correlates with postseason success, so while Seattle’s offense has been a sore spot this season, the Seahawks’ run defense is the one thing you can bank on with this team.

The offensive line isn’t all bad.

OK. I saw you roll your eyes, but hear me out. Seattle gave up 42 sacks this season, the team’s lowest total since Russell Wilson’s rookie year in 2012. Usually, you would insert the qualifier that Wilson’s mobility averts a number of plays that would result in sacks of a less-mobile quarterback, but the injuries to Wilson’s ankle and knee severely hampered his mobility through the first half of the season. That’s not to say Seattle’s pass protection has been good. It certainly was not in the losses to Tampa Bay and Arizona, but when the line has provided adequate protection – as it did Sunday against the 49ers’ largely toothless pass rush – the Seahawks’ offense has become almost potent.

Three things we’re still trying to figure out:

How much is Earl Thomas’ absence affecting Seattle’s defense?

The statistics are actually pretty jarring. Over the first 12 games, before Thomas was lost for the season with a broken leg, the Seahawks allowed an average of 17.4 points. They’ve essentially given up one more touchdown per game since he went down, allowing 24.5 points over the past four weeks. It’s more than that, though. Seattle has yet to intercept a pass in that span. In fact, opposing quarterbacks had an average passer rating of 80.6 over the first 12 games. In the four games since then, that number climbed to 102.2. Let’s put that in perspective. A passer rating of 80.6 would currently rank No. 25 among all qualifying quarterbacks. A passer rating of 102.2 would rank fifth. Now, four games is a small sample, and Seattle is actually allowing fewer passing yards since Thomas went down, but the efficiency of opposing quarterbacks is enough to make you wonder just how significant his absence is.

Is Russell Wilson heating up?

Over the past two games he has averaged 300.4 yards passing and thrown five touchdown passes without being picked off. Even that doesn’t really tell you how truly blistering he has been because it was only in the second half of the Week 16 game against Arizona that he really turned it up. Over the past six quarters of play, Wilson has completed almost two-thirds of his pass attempts and has a passer rating of 118.2. If he plays like that in the playoffs, Seattle just might find itself back in the Super Bowl for the third time in four seasons.

Did one (long)-snap decision throw Seattle’s place-kicking into disarray?

Every missed extra point – and there have now been six of them for Seattle this season – is accompanied by a replay review to determine whether it was the snap placement or the kick’s trajectory that is to blame. The question of how closely related those two facts may be is now hanging over this season as Seattle’s place-kicking operation – once one of the most consistent elements of this team – has become a hold-your-breath affair since the introduction of long-snapper Nolan Frese this season. When Frese rocketed a snap over the head of punter Jon Ryan for a safety on Sunday, it seemed like the most errant in a long list of errant snaps. There were extenuating circumstances, however. Frese was playing with a high-ankle sprain, which had to be unbelievably painful. But while that speaks to his toughness, the fact remains that Seattle’s place-kicking has gone from rock solid to shaky in just four months.

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