After Inexplicable Wild Card Defeat, What's Next For Seahawks?

Winning 12 games in the regular season and entering the playoffs riding a four-game winning streak, the Seahawks were supposed to be playing deep into January. But for the second time in three years, they were knocked out of postseason play in the opening round, creating major questions for the franchise moving forward.

This season was not supposed to end this way for Pete Carroll and the Seahawks. Not this early, not on their home field, and not in such ugly fashion.

Taking a far more aggressive roster-building approach this past offseason, Carroll and general manager John Schneider eagerly put all of their chips on the table and transitioned into "win now" mode unlike any other point in their tenure in pursuit of a championship. The franchise traded away multiple first-round picks for safety Jamal Adams in July. When the pass rush struggled in the first half of the season, they dealt one of their few remaining draft assets to acquire defensive end Carlos Dunlap, further bolstering their front line.

Seattle didn't alter how it handles business exclusively from a personnel standpoint either. After lengthy discussions between Carroll, offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, and quarterback Russell Wilson last spring, the team was poised to finally put the ball in their star signal caller's hands and "Let Russ Cook." With Schottenheimer dialing up more pass plays than ever before, particularly on first down, he emerged as the MVP front-runner with an NFL record 16 touchdown passes in the first four games and the Seahawks raced out to a 5-0 start.

Fast forwarding three months later, however, it's hard to fathom how a season that began with such promise for Wilson and the Seahawks imploded into flames and ultimately culminated with a 30-20 Wild Card defeat to the Rams on Saturday.

"It's really frustrating to be done. The suddenness of this, there's nothing like it," Carroll told reporters in his post-game press conference. "You just have to deal with it. So that's what we're going to do. We have meetings tomorrow, and we'll come back and try to figure it out a little bit more and put it in perspective. But, really disappointed in this outcome."

It's never easy to rebound from a defeat in the postseason. No matter what round a team loses in, that suddenness Carroll speaks of always exists. But after bowing out in the Wild Card round for the second time in three years - this time as a 12-win NFC West winner on their home turf against a foe they had beaten just two weeks earlier - this one will sting a bit more for the Seahawks.

Looking at this game individually as well as the season as a whole, there's plenty of blame to pass around for this latest early playoff exit.

For his part, Carroll continued to struggle with game management-related issues that have persistently cropped up throughout the season. First, midway through the second quarter, he made an inexcusable challenge on a play where Rams quarterback Jared Goff clearly wasn't anywhere close to passing the line of scrimmage before dumping off a 44-yard pass to running back Cam Akers. Officials quickly reviewed the disputed play and didn't overturn it, providing yet another example of the Seahawks wasting a timeout for no reason.

Then in the fourth quarter, trailing by 10 points with under 10 minutes left to play, Seattle planned to go for it on 4th and 1 at their own 34-yard line. On the previous play, guard Damien Lewis was injured and trainers came out to the field to tend to him, giving Carroll and Schottenheimer ample time to come up with a play. Inexplicably, they didn't get the call in until there was six seconds left on the play clock and rather than use a timeout, Jordan Simmons was flagged for a false start as the team rushed to snap the ball. After the five-yard penalty, Michael Dickson came on to punt.

Carroll's rationale after the game? While he considered using a timeout in that situation, he for some reason thought punting it back to Los Angeles wasn't a bad idea despite being down two scores with only nine minutes and change left to play.

"We thought we were going to get it off," Carroll explained. "Honestly, right there, I could have called time out. I realized, I could see it was going, and then I didn't mind that we were going to have to kick the football, because that was not a bad choice there. We just had to take it."

While Carroll bumbled once again in regard to clock management and in-game decisions, Schottenheimer struggled to find answers for attacking a stingy Rams defense from his perch in the sky box. As has been the case for much of the second half, two-deep safety looks took away the Seahawks' vertical passing game for the most part, and even with this being the third time the two teams have met since Week 10, the play caller didn't execute his role well enough to crack the code.

But at the end of the day, the buck truly stops with Wilson, who quite frankly hasn't played well for the better part of two months. Taking out a four-touchdown performance against the then-winless Jets last month, he threw eight touchdown passes in the second half of the season, barely averaging more than one touchdown per game during that span. His yards per attempt dropped nearly 2.5 yards, his completion percentage dipped five percent, and his passer rating plummeted nearly 30 percent.

Continuing his extended slump into the playoffs, Wilson endured one of his worst games on Saturday while being under non-stop harassment from the Rams' pass rush, completing just 11 out of 27 passes for 174 yards. While he did connect with DK Metcalf for a pair of touchdown passes, including a 51-yard bomb after scrambling to his left and launching a perfect downfield throw across his body, he also threw a pick-six to cornerback Darious Williams and seemed to be rattled from the opening snap. 

Indecisive and hesitant from the pocket, Wilson didn't look anything close to the quarterback who lit the league on fire in the first eight weeks. Making matters worse, with Metcalf and Lockett as the exceptions, he didn't get much help. The offensive line couldn't block anyone, even after Aaron Donald went out with a rib injury, while receivers dropped a few passes. Penalties were also problematic and played a big role in Seattle going 2-for-14 on third downs.

"It was a tough matchup for us. We didn't play great today," Wilson said. "I think that was the unfortunate part about it. The real unfortunate part is that's it. End of the season, and after all this time of putting in all the hard work in and everything else and how spectacular the season has been along the way. It's unfortunate we didn't get it done for the 12s and everything else."

Now the million dollar question is: where do Carroll, Wilson, and the Seahawks go from here? This was supposed to be the season where the organization got back to the Super Bowl. Or at least back to championship weekend for the first time since 2014. After Schneider rolled the dice to bring in Adams and Dunlap, there's no question this was the most talented roster they have had since those back-to-back title runs.

Therein lies the biggest problem for the franchise. While 12 regular season wins and an NFC West title are a big deal, this team had far greater aspirations and simply did not meet those expectations. As Adams bluntly said after the loss on Saturday, being ousted this quickly can't be viewed as anything other than a failure. This team was built for Super Bowl or bust.

Moving forward, the championship window isn't necessarily shut. The pieces will still be in place to potentially make another run next year. Most of the defense remains under contract, while Wilson will be motivated to rebound from the worst stretch of his career and will have Metcalf and Lockett back on the outside. For all of his flaws, Carroll has been as good as any coach in the NFL at getting his team to postseason football.

But given salary cap constraints from the pandemic, limited draft capital, and expensive, aging stars tied to their payroll, trying to improve the roster will be extremely difficult. Fair or not, even with an extension in tow, questions will persist about whether Carroll and Wilson are capable of leading this team back to the promised land. This may have been the best chance the Seahawks had to earn a second Lombardi Trophy and players and coaches will have to grapple with what could have been for quite some time.