We all probably could make a lot of money if we took the under on the Seahawks for the rest of the season.

After averaging about 27 points in the first five games – two of them giveaway losses – the Hawks have dropped to 17 over the past four as the offense has deteriorated amid dysfunction and injuries.

The only way the Hawks will be able to make the playoffs and potentially contend for another Super Bowl is if they get that scoring average up. But what are the odds we will see this offense be anything like it was in 2025, when it ranked second in the NFL at 29.2 ppg?

Think about all of the things that need to happen.

1 – Sam “Humpty Dumpty” Darnold needs to be put back together again (in body and mind) or Mike Macdonald needs to make the tough call to change to Drew Lock (if he too gets healthy).

2 – The offensive line needs to get whole and the new top five (with Quenton Nelson) need to play together ASAP.

3 – Brian Fleury needs to quickly grow up as a play caller.

Can Darnold turn it around?

Darnold will get three weeks in total to recover from the rib and quad injuries he suffered against Chicago in Week 8. Lock (with a bad elbow and oblique) is hobbling gamely through contests against Arizona and Las Vegas before the bye. He just needs to manage the scaled-down offense and not turn the ball over. The Seattle defense will do the rest.

Assuming the defense smothers Fernando Mendoza in his first start for the Raiders this week, the Hawks will be 6-4 headed into the bye. On the other side will be a pretty massive game at the 49ers, who are 7-1 as they face Dallas and Minnesota (with Kirk Cousins now at QB) before Seattle.

The Seahawks can afford only two more losses if they want to make the playoffs. A 10-7 record won’t do it with the way the entire NFC North is playing (.735 aggregate win percentage) and with the Rams heating up as well (three straight wins).

If Darnold cannot get his head in the game and play a lot more like he did in 2025, Macdonald will have to consider a move to Lock. Darnold has more upside, without question, but Lock has shown more savvy and quick-draw skill (third-fastest passer in the NFL) in his three games this season.

How long will the line take?

John Schneider and Macdonald clearly were so disappointed in the line that they were willing to shake it up at midseason – even knowing the acquisition of Nelson would mean a struggle for Grey Zabel on the right side as well.

“There’s a little bit of a learning curve with the new group and the new alignments,” Macdonald admitted on his radio show, before Nelson’s injury was known. “There’s a couple coaching points that are going to happen, and it should be fewer and far between from week to week.

“We should be growing at a pretty good rate here, but there are things that are going to happen inevitably with a new group and guys lining up next to each other, and we have to work through those things and try to minimize those as best we can.”

The problem is Charles Cross and Nelson are both injured. They might both be back for the game vs. the 49ers – a terrible matchup for them to play together for the first time and for Zabel to have to go back to right guard.

It takes at least four weeks of steady playing together for a line to create any chemistry at all. If the Hawks are lucky – really lucky — this unit might build a little cohesion by the time they play the Rams in Week 16 (six weeks from now). But it is more likely that this group will struggle for the rest of the season.

Can Fleury avoid Grubb’s fate?

Many think Fleury is the next coming of Ryan Grubb – a guy destined to be one and done as Seattle’s OC. Fans have been calling for Fleury’s head because he is the major change that seems to have created a cascading effect of incompetence, from the quarterback to the line to the receivers.

In his defense, he has faced a lot of adversity in his rookie year. His QB went down on the opening series of the season. Already missing his top running back, he lost his first-round pick for four weeks. His line has dealt with several injuries and the aforementioned changes.

But this is where Macdonald — in replacing Klint Kubiak, now the Raiders’ coach — might have screwed his team by hiring a guy with zero experience handling these challenges.

We think there are ways Fleury can help his quarterbacks. He needs to keep leaning into misdirection and mixing his plays, avoiding tells. Keep defenses off balance with motion and backside bootlegs, etc. Make adjustments based on the trends of each game. Attack a defense’s weakness – something he failed to do against Denver and Chicago especially.

He has shown he can do it in minor flashes, but he needs to put it together for a full game and maintain it across the rest of the season. It’s not just dumbing down the offense, like he did vs. Kansas City and Arizona. It’s having a comprehensive plan to put the defense off balance and keep his offense moving and scoring. It’s calling plays with purpose.

If he does that better than he has so far, this offense might be just good enough against lesser defenses like Las Vegas, Dallas, Philadelphia and Carolina. Assuming the Hawks win those four, they still need two more wins in four games vs. San Francisco, the New York Giants and the Rams (two games) to make the playoffs.

There is little room for error, even with a top-five defense leading the way. The offense has to get back in the game or Seattle will be sitting out the playoffs.