Playoffs will prove if Seahawks are past their prime or biding their time
Jan 6, 2017, 11:24 AM
The Seahawks beat the Patriots this season but haven't won more than three games in a row. (AP)
(AP)
There isn’t a team with more talent than Seattle in these playoffs.
There isn’t a team with more turbulence, either.
That is the paradox of this team, and in some respects this Seattle season. The Seahawks still look like the conference heavyweight they’ve been. They just haven’t always played like it, and now they’re entering Saturday’s playoff game against Detroit with some nagging doubts tugging at the hope that Seattle can reach the Super Bowl for the third time in four seasons.
On the one hand, this is a team that won in New England in November just two months ago. However, this is also a team that never won more than three in a row in the regular season.
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The Seahawks have been good this year, but they’ve never sustained that level of play long enough to be considered great, and now they’re entering a postseason that will determine what we make not just of this season, but going forward.
Is this a contender that’s past its prime or a group of veterans biding their time?
We’re going to find out starting with Saturday’s game against a Lions team that is, at best, decidedly average.
The Lions are allowing opposing quarterbacks to complete almost 75 percent of their pass attempts, their rushing offense ranks third-to-last in the league and they’ve trailed in the fourth quarter of 15 of their 16 games this season. The fact that Detroit has come back to win eight of those games in which it trailed in the fourth quarter is a testament to its moxie. The fact that it has been behind in those contests speaks to its inability to control a game.
A win over the Lions wouldn’t validate Seattle’s season.
A loss, however, would say everything about the team’s direction.
That sounds strange, and perhaps even a bit harsh. After all, this is the playoffs, and there are 20 NFL teams that would give up anything up to and possibly including an appendage to have earned a fifth straight postseason berth as Seattle has.
But this season was supposed to be the year that Seattle came back rededicated, like Rocky Balboa after he was beaten by Clubber Lang. That was the Carolina loss in the divisional playoffs last year, a game in which the Panthers scored the first 31 points.
No more Super Bowl hangovers for Seattle. No more residual effects from a goal-line interception. No more futzing around for the first half of the regular season, either.
Then came a plague of injuries that was almost biblical. To the quarterback. The strong safety. The Pro Bowl defensive lineman. Most recently it was a pair of broken legs suffered by two of Seattle’s fastest players: receiver Tyler Lockett and safety Earl Thomas.
And now – ready or not – the Seahawks are in the playoffs.
They can’t run the ball a lick and the historically stingy defense hasn’t been exactly impregnable. But they’re still the Seahawks. They’ve got as much star power as any team in the playoffs and the hope that the playoffs will be where Seattle finds the consistency it never demonstrated in the regular season.
