Fatal Flaw Puts Seahawks Once-Promising Season, Playoff Hopes On the Brink

After getting manhandled by a more physical Carolina Panthers team in a shameful 30-24 defeat, the Seattle Seahawks find themselves on the outside looking in in the NFC playoff race thanks to their inability to stop anyone from running down their throats.

SEATTLE, Wash. - Just one month ago, the Seahawks sat in first place in the NFC West with a top-five offense led by Comeback Player of the Year favorite Geno Smith and a rapidly improving defense anchored by Defensive Rookie of the Year front-runner Tariq Woolen and a revitalized front line, looking every bit the part of a surprise Super Bowl dark horse in the NFC.

After having their face masks gashed in by the lowly Panthers in a crushing 30-24 loss at Lumen Field on Sunday, however, all of those positive vibes that resulted from a four-game winning streak have vanished into thin air faster than a scoop of Ben and Jerry's melting on pavement in Arizona.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon or football savant to know what ails this suddenly downtrodden Seahawks squad that has lost three of their past four games to fall out of the playoff picture. If you can't stop the run when you know it is coming, you're not a playoff-worthy team, and right now, coach Pete Carroll's defense offers as much resistance against opposing ground attacks as a dam constructed of single-ply toilet paper.

Botched run fits. Poor pursuit angles. Failure to get off blocks. Missed tackles in open field. As Ryan Neal frustratingly lamented after another harrowing defeat at home, there isn't one specific issue holding Seattle's defense back defending the run. All the ingredients for getting steamrolled can be checked off each week and Sunday was no different.

“It seems to be a combination of all of it, and that’s never a good thing," Neal said. "Things just keep popping out in places where they shouldn’t be popping out. Guys got to make the hits. Guys got to get the ball carrier on the ground and when it comes to the back end of the season, it turns into, ‘All right, we’re going to out physical you, and if you’re not going to stop it, we’re just going to keep doing that’. You see it across the league with teams that keep pounding the football, guys turning stuff down, or missed hits are happening because it’s late in the season. At the end of the day, we have to fix this, and we’ve got to bring it, and we know that, and everybody knows that."

For two quarters on Sunday, the Seahawks did a decent job slowing down D'Onta Foreman and a formidable Panthers rushing attack. Though they fell behind 17-0 quickly in part due to a Geno Smith interception that resulted in a quick Sam Darnold touchdown pass, they surrendered only 78 rushing yards on 22 carries in the first half, including limiting Foreman to 30 yards on 10 carries.

But Carolina possessed the football for nearly 11 minutes more than Seattle in the opening 30 minutes of action, converting on five of their first seven third down opportunities to extend multiple drives and pile up plays. As the second half dragged on, with defensive tackles Shelby Harris and Al Woods sidelined, the accumulation of body blows began to take a toll on Carroll's defense and the visitors began to bludgeon them with downhill gap runs using a trio of backs effectively.

Midway through the third quarter, after Smith and his comrades couldn't capitalize on a rare three-and-out by the Seahawks defense, the Panthers started stacking up body blows. Aided by a spectacular 18-yard catch by Terrance Marshall, who managed to corral Sam Darnold's pass between his legs, as well as a long scramble by Darnold himself, they drove the ball inside the opposing five-yard line with little issue.

Luckily for Seattle, coordinator Ben McAdoo bafflingly decided to call four consecutive pass plays near the goal line and Darnold couldn't complete a pass on any of those plays, leading to a fortunate turnover on downs.

But while the Panthers didn't score on that 14-play, 66-yard drive, the Seahawks started to show signs of breaking down defensively. Sure enough, after the offense once again couldn't get past midfield before punting, Foreman, Chuba Hubbard, and Raheem Blackshear went to work behind a bullying offensive line. Running the ball eight times on a 10-play drive, they rushed for at least six yards on six of those carries as they methodically punished their opponent into submission.

With the dam breaking as it has in many games earlier this year for Seattle, Blackshear capped off the drive taking a handoff from Darnold, slipped through a tackle, and cut outside to pay dirt for a back-breaking touchdown to push the lead back to 27-17 with under seven minutes left to play.

When asked what the Panthers specifically did to find such great success on the ground late in the contest, a befuddled Carroll was left grasping for straws.

"They ran their game. That's their running game." Carroll lugubriously responded. "We were trying to knock them back, and we couldn't get it done. We tried everything that we had to get it stopped, and we were not able to stop them."

Combing through Carroll's comments, much as was the case a year ago when he had to constantly field questions about third down woes on offense, it's clear at this point he doesn't have an answer to fix Seattle's clear and obvious Achilles heel. And the same results characterized by shoddy tackling and inconsistent execution in the trenches week in and week out speak for themselves.

Over the past four games, the Seahawks have inexcusably allowed nearly 210 rushing yards per game as opponents have gouged them on the ground at will. For the season, they have surrendered 2,086 rushing yards, 18 touchdowns, and a healthy 4.9 yards per carry, making them only the ninth team since the 1970 NFL/AFL merger to allow that trio of numbers in the first 13 games of a season.

For further historical perspective, Sunday's loss marked the seventh time Seattle had allowed at least 140 rushing yards and two touchdowns in a game this season. If they manage to do that an eighth time in the final four games, they will become one of only nine franchises to achieve the feat since the merger. That's not the type of company Carroll would like his team to keep.

Making matters worse, it's not as if the Seahawks have been facing elite competition either. Over the course of the season, while stars such as Raiders stud Josh Jacobs have unsurprisingly torched them, they have also allowed season-highs to the likes of Falcons running back Cordarrelle Patterson (141 yards), Saints gadget quarterback Taysom Hill (112 yards), and little-used Buccaneers rookie Rachaad White (105 yards).

Even on Sunday, Hubbard set a season-high in a secondary role alongside Foreman with 74 rushing yards and Blackshear had the best game of his rookie season with 32 yards on only four carries. It hasn't really mattered who is in the backfield. As long as teams can sustain lengthy drives early and control the clock, eventually Seattle's defense will initiate meltdown mode and begin trekking towards self-combustion.

Now sitting with a 7-6 record and barely clinging onto a playoff thread, life won't get easier for the Seahawks as they try to right the ship and salvage a season that has fallen off the tracks. Up next, the first place 49ers will bring dynamic do-it-all back Christian McCaffrey and their top-10 rushing attack to the Pacific Northwest looking to put a bow on an NFC West title two weeks before Christmas day. After that, two potential playoff teams in the Chiefs and Jets present a pair of difficult matchups.

"We have to get this thing turned, and we're still on it," Carroll declared. "Those are our issues going into the fourth quarter of the season right now coming up. It's a turnaround really fast against a really good club, and we have to get our act together."

As things stand, Seattle's story book season has drifted from Pulitzer Prize contender to unpublished fairy tale territory. Though there's time to correct course, unless Carroll and company magically find a panacea for their leaky Swiss cheese run defense over the next few days with their bitter rivals coming north, a once-promising campaign looks destined to completely fall off the tracks.

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