RENTON — Instead of preparing for the NFC championship game, the Seattle Seahawks spent Monday cleaning out their lockers at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center.
Seattle’s season-ending 31-24 loss to the Carolina Panthers on Sunday in the NFC divisional playoffs meant the Seahawks fell short of their goal of reaching the Super Bowl for the third straight season.
And Sunday’s game, in which Seattle fell behind 31-0 in the first half before storming back in the second half, served as a microcosm for the Seahawks’ season. Seattle’s 2-4 start to the season put the Seahawks into a hole they were unable to escape from, despite a roaring finish to the season.
“Today is a pretty tough day, coming off the loss to Carolina, very disappointed about the outcome of the game and kind of the way it came down,” Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said during his season-ending press conference. “Obviously disappointed about the fact that they jumped out on us, and we were able to regain a shot at the game, but it was too late.
“Talking about and comparing this game and the season is kind of fitting,” Carroll added. “We struggled early. … By the time we got righted, we had taken our lumps and we’d put ourselves in a very difficult setting because Arizona had started so fast. So we were trying to catch up the whole time. It was very much like (Sunday). We were catching up the whole season.”
Just like Sunday’s game, the Seahawks sputtered out of the gate this season. The bulk of that slow start can be attributed to a Super Bowl hangover, as the Seahawks had to banish the memories of a last-minute goal-line interception depriving them from becoming repeat Super Bowl champions. Carroll acknowledged Monday that the hangover had a bigger impact on the season than he let on previously.
“I was trying not to bring it to light any more than I had to, because I was working with it the whole time,” Carroll said. “This was no surprise.
“We were actively working to clear our minds and to clear our focus and to get it right. It just took a while.”
But after the slow start the Seahawks came to life. They finished the regular season 10-6, winning six of their final seven games and outscoring their opponents 224-98 in the process. Seattle survived historically-low temperatures to beat the Minnesota Vikings 10-9 in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
Therefore, even though Seattle didn’t get back to the Super Bowl, the Seahawks may have a better taste in their mouths at the conclusion of this season than they did at the end of last season.
“I felt like for everything we’ve gone through this season, we had a lot of ups and downs,” Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner said. “We had a lot of guys just trying to get over what happened in the prior Super Bowl. For us to get through that and pull through that, and be in the position that we were this year, it definitely felt like it was good.”
What could end up being Seattle’s biggest development from the 2015 season was the elevation of quarterback Russell Wilson’s game. Wilson, in his fourth season, achieved new heights as a passer, especially in the final seven games of the regular season. He set new franchise records for passing yards (4,024) and touchdown passes (34) in a season, and his passer rating of 110.1 not only led the league, but was the 14th best in NFL history.
“It was definitely a journey,” Wilson said. “It’s a year that you battle and every year is going to be like that. I thought we had a great year, but not good enough. We had an opportunity to do something really special and we came just a little bit short. It’s a little bit disappointing, but at the same time you look forward to the next opportunity. You smile about that, there’s no way I can be upset because of the adversity that we faced and the overcomers that we have on our football team, the challenges we were able to defeat.”
The development of the passing game meant Seattle’s offense was no longer so reliant on the running game.
“I couldn’t be more excited about it, really,” Carroll said about the improvement in Seattle’s passing game. “We made so much progress in such crucial areas to come back and be anywhere near that kind of efficiency in the red zone and third down, and the targeting of our receivers and the high level of accuracy we had there.
“We can go down the field if we have to, we can throw the ball really quick and do all kinds of stuff,” Carroll added. “Russell showed all of the things that we would hope to see in really consistent fashion this year.”
As for that running game, Marshawn Lynch, Seattle’s stalwart ball carrier the previous five season, had an injury plagued campaign in which he played just seven games and managed just 111 carries and 417 yards* in the regular season. Meanwhile, undrafted rookie Thomas Rawls announced himself as the heir apparent at running back, gaining 830 yards before being knocked out by a season-ending ankle injury.
Defensively, the Seahawks remained the best in the business, allowing the fewest points in the league for the fourth consecutive season.
But in the end the Seahawks, both on Sunday and in the season as a whole, couldn’t overcome their slow start.
“(The players) kind of understood this season was one where we didn’t quite capture all the opportunities that were there,” Carroll said.
“More than you might think, everybody left here today with the thought of, ‘Let’s have a great offseason and let’s get this thing cranked up and let’s go,’” Carroll added. “They’re already thinking that way. They’re ready to turn the page and want to get going.”
Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/seattlesidelines, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
*—Correction, Jan. 19, 2016: Marshawn Lynch’s yardage total was incorrect in the original version of the story.
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