Is the Seahawks’ ship really back on course?

The holes have been plugged in the hull. The vessel has stopped listing to starboard. The engines are back up and running.

But is the Seattle Seahawks’ ship really back on course?

This is the week we find out for sure.

The Seahawks’ ship stopped taking on water courtesy of back-to-back victories over the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions. That reversed Seattle’s rough start in which the Seahawks started the season 0-2, getting Seattle back to .500 and within one game of the Arizona Cardinals atop the NFC West. The flashing red emergency lights have gone dark.

But this is the week we find out whether those holes in the hull were actually riveted shut permanently, or whether they were just filled temporarily by a jury-rigged combination of duct tape and paiper-mache.

Facing the Bears and the Lions was the NFL’s version of being confronted by a fleet of rubber dinghies. Both games were at home. Both games were against winless opponents. If ever the schedule makers did a team a favor this was the case.

But if Chicago and Detroit offered little naval resistance, this week’s foe, the Cincinnati Bengals, is a whole different beast. These undefeated Bengals are more like the USS Nimitz-led Carrier Strike Group Eleven from Naval Station Everett.

“Boy, we have a heck of a matchup coming up this week,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll acknowledged.

“It’s as well-balanced a team as we could expect to see,” Carroll added. “They’ve got numbers, stats, fast starts, good aspects across the board.”

Neither Chicago nor Detroit was equipped to give Seattle’s defense much trouble. Chicago, which was already offensively challenged, was playing without it’s starting quarterback Jay Cutler and its No. 1 receiver Alshon Jeffery because of injuries. The Bears essentially abandoned the passing game, and Seattle was able to record a shutout even the downtrodden Seattle Mariners pitching staff — minus Felix Hernandez — could have pulled off.

Detroit, meanwhile, was on the opposite side of the offensive spectrum. The Lions have no ground game whatsoever — Detroit is averaging a measly 47 yards per game rushing, which is dead last in the league. Once again the Seahawks could focus on defending one aspect of the opposition offense, and once again Seattle’s defense had little difficulty — with the exception of Detroit’s final drive which required heroics at the goal line from Kam Chancellor.

Cincinnati’s offense won’t be nearly as accommodating.

The Bengals’ offense has all the firepower of a 16-inch, 50-caliber battleship turret. Quarterback Andy Dalton is playing the best football of his five-year career. He has a 123.0 passer rating, which ranks second in the NFL only to the reigning MVP, Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers. He’s thrown nine touchdowns to only one interception. And he has one of the league’s most dangerous weapons at his disposal in receiver A.J. Green, who’s fourth in the league in receiving yards.

Cincinnati has a two-headed monster at running back in the speedy Giovani Bernard and the powerful Jeremy Hill, who have combined for 460 yards and six touchdowns on the ground.

Overall, the Bengals are chewing up 422 yards of offense per game, which ranks second in the league, and putting 30.3 points per game on the scoreboard, which puts them fourth. With Cincinnati moving the ball both in the air and on the ground, the Seahawks won’t be able to load up against the run or pass the way they did against the Bears and Lions.

“They’re loaded,” Carroll said of the Bengals. “I think they probably have more explosive plays than anybody in the league right now. They’re bold, they’ve been taking their shots with guys across the board that can make plays. Of course you see A.J. and you think he’s the only guy, but they have a really good group. The tight end is good, they’re all good. With that, Andy has been on the mark, he’s been hitting stuff, he’s been protected well.

“It’s a big problem, they’re making trouble for everybody and we’re going to try and minimize it as best we can.”

Cincinnati’s defense hasn’t been as dominant as the offense, but what the Bengals have done is get to the quarterback with 11 sacks in their first four games. That just happens to correlate to Seattle’s weakness, as Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson has been sacked 18 times, which ties for the league high.

“They fly around, they have tons of athletes on that side of the football,” Wilson said. “So we’re going to have to be on it. We’re going to have to trust our reads, trust our preparation in getting ready for that. The good thing about the blitz is when they blitz a lot and a lot of people come, it’s one of those things where you have a lot of green grass behind them and you can make a lot of good explosive plays. So we have to capitalize on those plays, not be scared of the blitz, invite it and just capitalize on it.”

The Seahawks are clearly aware of the challenge that lies ahead, and they don’t need to win this game. The victories the past two weeks pulled Seattle out of the must-win pit. Indeed, the Seahawks aren’t even favored in this one, going on the road to face a team that’s 4-0 and has won its games in convincing fashion.

But what the Seahawks must do is at least show that winning this type of game isn’t beyond their capability, that they belong on the same field with what looks like one of the NFL’s elite teams. Otherwise, their Super Bowl aspirations will be in danger of getting sunk.

Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/seattlesidelines, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.