Who are the 2024 Seattle Seahawks?
Though Sunday’s game at San Francisco won’t tell us everything, it seems like a win or a loss will say a lot.
If Seattle loses a sixth-straight game to the 49ers, a team so full of promise after a 3-0 start would have lost five of six to fall to 4-6. That’s a difficult depth to swim up from.
Win, and suddenly the division title is within reach, and it’s realistic to wonder if the new coaching staff has started to figure out some things. Here are three keys to victory in Santa Clara on Sunday (1:05 p.m., FOX TV, KIRO Radio).
Coaches need to figure out some things
There were going to be some growing pains with the new coaching staff. Mike Macdonald is a first-time head coach — the youngest in the NFL. He’s worked with some great head coaches, including both Jim and John Harbaugh, but they aren’t standing next to him on the sideline. Macdonald, known as a defensive guru, brought in offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb from the University of Washington to essentially be the head coach of the offense. While Grubb may have the makings of a top NFL coordinator, he wasn’t going to walk into professional football for the first time in his life and have all the answers. The bye week, Grubb believes, provided an opportunity for the coaches to analyze the aspects of the offense that require more attention.
“I thought the staff did a really good job of diving into some of the details of where we’ve been, things that we need to execute better obviously, and then trying to build off some of the strengths as well,” Grubb said. “I thought that a lot of things that showed up were the obvious things — the turnovers and penalties — and I think it’s easy to talk about those and be like, ‘We can’t have as many.’ It’s another thing to try to dive into ways to try to create an environment that can improve those things. I thought this week we’ve done a really, really good job of that.”
Geno Smith must eliminate catastrophic mistakes
Smith is a solid quarterback who can lead a team to a Super Bowl if he has a Russell Wilson-level offensive line and a strong defense. He also must learn to avoid back-breaking mistakes like the 103-yard pick-6 in the LA Rams’ 26-20 overtime victory over Seattle on Nov. 3. Smith is an emotional leader who craves winning. While those are generally positive attributes, sometimes quarterbacks have to take a sack or throw the ball away to live for the next down or the next drive. Smith must avoid putting a big heap of pressure on himself to end a personal five-game losing streak to the 49ers.
“I think when you think about division opponents, these games matter the most, especially with the 49ers,” Smith said on Thursday. “They’ve been at the top of our division, one of the best teams in the league for a while, and if we want to be that type of team that we say we are, we got to go through teams like this and I have no doubt in my mind the type of guys that we have, the type of preparation we’re going to put in and really the way that we’re going to step on that field.
“I know that I’m going to step on it with that chip on my shoulder, that edge that I always have and I know my guys are as well.”
The offensive line must survive
Though defensive end Nick Bosa did not practice Wednesday or Thursday, it sounds like he’s likely to play on Sunday. The Seahawks would likely rather Bosa — who has 50 sacks over the past 3 1/2 seasons — remained on the sideline. The 49ers have not been as deadly to opponent quarterbacks this season, ranking 22nd with 22 sacks this season — two spots above Seattle’s 21 sacks. The unit must block well enough for running back Kenneth Walker III to gain enough yards so that Grubb will keep calling running plays.
Abraham Lucas, a full participant for the first time this season in Thursday’s practice, must return to doing Abraham Lucas things. The offensive line has been inconsistent this season, due in part to starting a fourth-string right tackle for most of the past three games.
“I thought he really took a step today and has looked really good out there and we continue to evaluate that and see where he is going to be if he can or can’t go and all those things,” said Grubb of Lucas, an Archbishop Murphy High School graduate. “But I thought the last two days he’s really taken big steps and steps like that are pretty typical of people that have been out for a little bit, but I thought he looked great.”
Macdonald’s “it is what it is” phrase about the right guard position on Monday was not exactly a ringing endorsement, but the team hopes Connor Williams at center and Anthony Bradford at right guard will continue to gel and improve. The team considered moving Williams to guard and likely inserting Olu Oluwatimi at center but quickly abandoned that line of thinking.
“I think the biggest part was we felt like we had made enough headway with Connor there,” Grubb said. “And also just moving a guy into a position like that, you may set him back further and instead of trying to continue to pour into the development piece. … We really just kind of were looking at it in terms of, ‘Alright, do we really want to take that big of a step backwards when we think we’re moving in the right direction?’”
The pick: While I think anything is possible in this game, I need to see if this team can reverse recent trends against the 49ers and the course of this season. San Francisco 24, Seattle 21.
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