It’s very difficult to see Pete Carroll ever winning another playoff game unless he changes the way his defense plays. We’ve seen the same thing for six seasons now, which is enough to know it is more than just the players who are at fault.

Last Thursday in Dallas, the Seahawks’ offense finally snapped out of a two-month funk and looked like the unit we expected it to be all season, but the defense remained a broken record playing the same old sad-sack song.

The offense was surprisingly competitive against the Cowboys in the 41-35 loss, but Seattle’s slide continued as expected – now four losses in five games. And, with a terrible defense yet again, there is no encouraging sign the Hawks will be able to beat San Francisco and Philadelphia in the next two weeks to stop that skid.

The defense has been the league’s worst by the EPA measure over the past four weeks. Also, in the last four games against winning teams (Cleveland, Baltimore, San Francisco, Dallas), the Hawks have given up an average of 189.5 rushing yards.

The Cowboys scored on eight of nine drives, converted 8 of 14 third downs, ran for 136 yards and held the ball for 36 minutes.

Carroll’s defense is so stale that only the most dysfunctional offenses fail to exploit it. Frankly, it has been that way since 2018.

Since the Legion of Boom was dismantled after the 2017 season, the Hawks have used a ton of different personnel. John Schneider has made a bunch of trades to help Carroll on that side – Jadeveon Clowney, Quandre Diggs, Jamal Adams, Carlos Dunlap, Leonard Williams — and none of them have been enough to elevate the defense back to even a top-10 unit, let alone anything resembling the LOB.

Schneider and Carroll have remade the secondary five times over the past six years (going through seven primary starters at corner and five at safety) and still don’t have safeties that were as effective as Kam Chancellor and Earl Thomas once were.

Having tried so many different players and added plenty of good ones in a six-season span, it is pretty clear that scheme is a major part of the problem. Carroll has acknowledged that by moving to a 3-4 base. But the unit still struggles to stop even average offenses.

Aside from the poor run defense against good teams, the underneath zone continues to be far too vulnerable to good quarterbacks (an issue that dates back to the LOB). The safeties make no impact plays – neither of them proving worthy of the salaries they are paid. The linebackers are always in chase mode, making too many tackles 10 yards downfield. The pass rush rarely shows up when needed most, even when the secondary gives it an extra second or two.

So how does Carroll fix this unit – now and forever?

Brock Huard’s advice: “I know the hardest thing for a quarterback is a defense that is just a conflict defense – one that presses, one that changes looks, one that stunts, one that moves, one that pressures, one that makes you process, speeds you up, makes you think, one that has tight windows … and not gimme completions and wide-open spaces.”

So how do the Hawks create a “conflict defense”? Our ideas:

1 — Get off the deep safety. They play 10 on 11 far too often, with Diggs way too far from the action. Bring him (or his 2024 replacement) down into the box more and fill that under zone.

2 — Manufacture more pressure. This is a standard requirement for any defense that wants to control the game. The Hawks certainly miss injured Uchenna Nwosu, but they still should be better here, especially after adding Williams via trade at the deadline. Their line does not use a lot of stunts – instead relying on blitzers to confuse blockers and free up rushers on some plays.

3 — Vary their looks to confuse QBs. Drop mobile linemen into the zone at times. Overload one side pre-snap and then rotate guys to different areas at the snap. Blitz from different angles using different players. Play more man inside.

4 — Use the linebackers to attack, rather than react. Wagner is a liability when put into coverage and chase mode, but – as he showed early in the season — he’s still great when filling the gaps, going forward. Jordyn Brooks is a good blitzer due to his great speed.

5 — Get Riq Woolen to stop grabbing receivers so obviously. As Carroll said after Woolen had two long pass interference calls against Dallas, “He’s just gotta not be handsy. You know, that just means (those) little reachy, grabby things that guys can see and they can call. He did not have a big effect on guys; he wasn’t knocking guys off course much with his stuff. It was all pretty handsy type of stuff. He can clean that up. He just needs to be a little bit more in command of what he’s reaching for and grabbing for.”

Can the defense be fixed this year, in time to make a playoff push? It seems doubtful. As Huard said, the Seahawks are always playing on their heels. They never dictate, always reacting a step late, missing gaps and tackles, letting rushers and receivers run wild through the secondary.

Whether they make a cameo this postseason or not, Carroll needs to alter his approach to defense. Six years is far too long to tolerate this kind of poor play.

This is not USC or the LOB, where Carroll had superior players who could dominate in a vanilla scheme. He needs to get off his status quo and get creative, put his guys in better positions to succeed. If he can’t or won’t do that, he needs to retire.

Fans who want Carroll fired (a seemingly growing cadre) need to understand that team owner Jody Allen is not likely to do it, even though Carroll has won just one playoff game since 2018. So it probably is up to the coach to decide whether he wants to make the changes that can bring playoff wins.