The Seahawks, sitting at 3-3 after having given away three games with offensive turnovers, are in danger of falling under .500 for the first time since the middle of Mike Macdonald’s first season — over 30 games ago.

The danger is real, with Kenneth Walker III and the undefeated Chiefs in town for a Sunday night showdown that could become a beatdown if the Seahawks do not come prepared on offense for once.

A win over Kansas City is exactly what the Hawks need. They need to win with a good offensive performance, to show they are done bumbling along and turning the ball over. They need to win to give Sam Darnold confidence and prove that Macdonald’s faith in him is justified. They need to win to show they can beat one of the best teams in the NFL.

The Seahawks are somehow favored – despite the consistently poor play of the offense over the past four games, despite the fact that Zach Charbonnet is still not coming back, and despite a bunch of key defenders (DeMarcus Lawrence, Uchenna Nwosu, Nick Emmanwori) questionable.

Drew Lock also still has an elbow injury, which could be partly why Macdonald was so quick to back Darnold despite his bevy of game-losing interceptions in the past four games. Hard to bench the struggling starter when the backup is not healthy enough to supplant him.

Darnold and Brian Fleury need to get the offense moving in the right direction. If they can’t, Seattle will have no chance against Patrick Mahomes, Walker and company.

The Hawks have not given up a 100-yard rusher in two years, but Walker – the NFL’s leading rusher — might break that streak against his old team. It’s especially likely if Lawrence and Nwosu – Seattle’s top edge run defenders — are out or limited.

If Walker runs free, Mahomes will have all the time in the world to put up points.

Even if Seattle does put the clamps on Walker, Darnold and Fleury need to get their acts together.

Darnold said the offense spent the extra time after the Thursday overtime loss in Denver self-scouting and aiming to accentuate strengths and mitigate weaknesses. He is focused on being decisive and consistent and not making bad plays worse. He has had four games to accomplish all of that, and he has not yet. So we’re not overly optimistic right now.

Many expect the return of Anthony Bradford to boost the running game. The Hawks have faced a light box – perfect for running – 40% of the time. But it has not translated to success.

Abe Lucas and the guards (including Grey Zabel) have played poorly. The Hawks are running outside much more than they did in 2025 (51% vs. 31%), and they are not even getting a yard on those plays before the running back is hit. (Trends are courtesy of Hawk Blogger’s data.)

Defenses are not respecting their play action either. On early downs, Darnold is getting pressured 52% of the time on PA plays (it was just 29% last year). He cannot hit deeper passes on early-down play action because of it.

As we have mentioned several times during this four-game failure by the offense, Fleury has a lot of tells. One of them comes when Seattle is playing under center: Fleury is calling play action 92% of the time, and defenses are not falling for it.

We think Fleury needs to use more motion and misdirection to make that play action work. He also could run it out of shotgun more often.

As we also have said, Fleury needs to create better route combinations. Defenses are using Cover 2 and Cover 6 zone against Seattle twice as much as they did in 2025, making passing windows much tighter for Darnold. The Hawks also have done poorly against man coverage. Better route combos would help uncover more receiving options (every receiver is getting worse separation than in 2025, which is a reflection of poor plays).

Another bad trend: Fleury is throwing on third-and-short 63% of the time. Darnold also is not throwing deep balls very much – he has been pressured on 64% of his long throws.

It is hard to notice that Darnold is getting the ball out faster every week because quick pressure has messed up the rhythm. Of course, even when not pressured, Darnold has made some terrible decisions that have cost the Seahawks. And, unlike 2025, he has not made nearly enough big plays to offset those mistakes.

Matt Hasselbeck said on the Hawk Blogger podcast that Darnold is trying too hard. “He needs to look in the mirror. … Trust more. Come back to fundamentals. Go back to being simple. Protect the team by protecting the ball. … This is so fixable.”

We thought he would have fixed it against Denver, but that pass rush ate him alive and he threw the game away in overtime. Kansas City is an aggressive defense, but the Chiefs do not get a lot of pressure – so maybe this is the week Darnold is able to snap out of his funk.

Fleury has to help him. Per Hawk Blogger’s Value Over Replacement measures, most of the offensive players have regressed from 2025. There is only one person to blame when that happens: the offensive coordinator.

Fleury needs to break his tendencies in both run and pass, mix his play calls, use more misdirection, get AJ Barner involved again, set up better routes and help Darnold get the ball to his open receivers quickly.

As for the entire offense, Hawk Blogger listed a bunch of ways it could improve: (1) figure out how to beat man coverage (this is on Fleury), (2) protect the ball on runs, (3) block better on play action, (4) get the ball out quickly, (5) run less outside zone, more gap, (6) move Jalen Sundell to Zabel’s side more now that Bradford is back, (7) use shotgun more on early downs, (8) take out George Holani (who has given up 18 pressures) on passing downs, (9) help Lucas with chip blocks more.

The Seahawks are now given just a 1% chance of getting the NFC bye. Their playoff odds are 50-50 right now.

If the Hawks want to stay in contention for the playoffs, let alone have any shot at overtaking San Francisco for the bye, they need to turn around their offense and beat the Chiefs on Sunday night.