The Seahawks never seemed like a Super Bowl contender throughout the first half of the season – they never even put together a complete game in a 5-2 start — and their 37-3 blowout loss to Baltimore in Week 9 proved it. There’s no Super Bowl in this team, even if John Schneider’s big deadline trade seemed to say the Hawks thought they had a chance.

The Baltimore debacle was a total team failure, from coaching to QB play to OL play to a million missed tackles on defense. As Jordyn Brooks said, they just did not come ready to play.

The Hawks are neither as good as their 5-2 record made some think nor as bad as this nightmare 34-point defeat would seem to indicate. They are still what we thought they were: a borderline one-and-done playoff team.

At 5-3, they are pretty much where we thought they would be – on pace for nine or 10 wins. They have gotten there a little differently than we projected. We thought a super-talented offense would carry a defense that would be shaky against the run but eventually stellar against the pass. Well, the defense had been stiffer against the run than we expected, until it gave up 298 yards to Lamar Jackson and his running backs and looked so much like last year’s unit.

It was a fine “how do you do?” for Leonard Williams, who arrived in time to take part in one of the most embarrassing defeats of Pete Carroll’s 14 seasons in Seattle. The defense had played much better than this for most of the season, so it’s tough to assign a “regression” tag to that unit after one bad game against one of the league’s best rushing teams.

The offense, however, is another story entirely.

The maligned line, considered a strength in the preseason, continues to struggle mightily. All of the magic that Andy Dickerson worked in the first few games seems to have worn off. The quintet – the seventh starting combo in eight games — was dominated by the Ravens’ physical front, unable to run block or protect Geno Smith enough.

And the quarterback continued to suffer for it. A real pattern has emerged: The more Smith gets harried, the more he fades – throwing poor balls and locking his eyes onto one receiver or one side of the field. He also seems completely unaware of the fact that he needs to get rid of the ball – an annoying problem that plagued his predecessor as well.

The offense has struggled for four games now, averaging just 15 points and turning the ball over eight times (all by Smith). Shane Waldron has to take a big share of blame for that. His plan against Baltimore was as vanilla as it gets. He used no QB movement, no misdirection, almost no plays that involved tight ends (1 for 3 passes).

He just had Smith sit back there like a statue with a target on his chest – and the Ravens happily chipped away at him, forcing a fumble and interception, sacking him four times, hitting him four more and batting three passes. It all added up to Smith’s worst passer rating (49.3) in 25 games as Seattle’s starter. Baltimore also held Seattle to 1 of 12 on third downs and 1.9 yards per carry. It was pure domination by the best defense in the NFL.

Waldron had some great plans and plays in Weeks 2-6, but the past three games he has done little to help his beleaguered QB and line. He looks great when plays work on early downs, but he seemingly has no answer when adversity hits – which has happened a lot. 

Plenty of fans want Carroll to move to Drew Lock. He should have in the second half in Baltimore. Seattle trailed 17-3 at halftime after Smith ruined a great opportunity set up by the defense by fumbling the ball back to Baltimore, which kicked the field goal Seattle should have had at the end of the half.

Lock’s mobility might have been a big boon against the Ravens, but Carroll is always loath to bench his starter. So don’t expect that going forward either, unless Smith keeps turning the ball over and ruins more great days by the defense like the one against Cincinnati. Carroll did not put this loss on Smith – certainly there was enough blame to go around the entire team — so it doesn’t seem like he is even contemplating a move there.

If the Hawks can get the running game functioning against Washington and the Rams the next two weeks, maybe Smith will regain his composure and the offense will get in a rhythm and keep it going against the good defenses they are going to face after that – Dallas, San Francisco, Philadelphia. It is frankly the only chance they have. It is on Waldron to make that happen.

The last two times the Hawks made a big trade to help them “go for it” and then finished the season poorly, the OC was fired. So Waldron should be feeling the heat for his unit’s ongoing struggles.

Smith should be no lock (apropos word there) to keep his job. A quarterback needs to elevate the play of those around him – and Smith has instead contributed to the failures with a bevy of turnovers. Granted, just one of the three losses (17-13 to Cincy) has been his fault – the line and defense carried enough share of the blame for the losses to the Rams and Ravens.

But Carroll and Waldron should be lighting a fire under him, putting the fear of bench splinters into him and telling him that more turnovers will lead to turnover at quarterback. Carroll preaches competition – there’s no reason Smith should be immune from that just because he has a big contract off a 2022 Pro Bowl season.  

In the big picture, we have seen enough now to know that Smith is just not good enough to lead the Hawks to the Super Bowl, not unless the defense plays like the dominant 2013-14 Seahawks and the OL starts overpowering opposing D-lines. Smith cannot elevate the guys around him. He is just one of the guys. Everything has to be clicking for him to play well.

So where do the Hawks go from here? They are not as bad on the whole as they showed in Baltimore, but they certainly proved they are not ready to step up from playoff hopeful to Super Bowl contender. They still look like a one-and-done playoff team, at best, but to be even that they have to get their run defense back together and the offense has got to snap out of it.