Some people are fans of the Seattle Seahawks. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Seattle Seahawks. This 2024 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: Seattle Seahawks.
Your 2023 record: 9-8, which would be the equivalent of going 4-13 in a real conference. An XFL team could go 9-8 if it had the Seahawks’ 2023 schedule, which included games against the Commanders, Giants, Panthers and two against the Cardinals. At least Seattle always took care of business against these Caleb Williams hopefuls and made the playoffs, right?
Ah, how could I forget. The Seahawks more or less missed the postseason because they couldn’t hold the fort at home against Mason Rudolph, perhaps the only quarterback in the league who could give Geno Smith a run for his money in the “worst and/or most embarrassing way to intentionally get hit in the head by another NFL player” department. Rudolph was a few weeks away from being Ben Shapiro’s football insider until he miraculously led a win against a Joe Burrow-less Bengals team in Week 16. All Seattle had to do was not dribble down its leg in front of its allegedly menacing home crowd to end the Rudolph redemption tour and be in the driver’s seat headed into the final week of the season. Instead, the Seahawks gave up 30 points to a Rudolph-and-Najee Harris-led offense, turning a Steelers team on life support into the 2001 Patriots.
Seattle maybe had two wins worth a polite golf clap all last season. Otherwise, the Seahawks lost to every team with even half a brain, getting smacked up by essentially every opponent that was actually trying to win in 2023. Their 9-8 record is about as meaningful as whoever won the Puget Sound Softball League last year. And even those guys didn’t have the benefit of playing P.J. Walker at home.
Your coach: Mike Macdonald. That’s right, Pete Carroll’s seat finally got hot enough for him to be fired (though still not hot enough for it to melt steel beams). What will a Seahawks broadcast even be now if FOX can’t suck up 20 minutes of airtime with gratuitous shots of Carroll aggressively chewing gum to compensate for the fact he can’t coach a defense anymore? Instead they got this guy:
First off, why is his face so close to the camera? Back the fuck up, man. At least Pete Carroll had some level of presence on the sideline. Macdonald has the charisma of a car salesman who wears his polos and khakis two sizes too small. He looks like he’s about to show me all the different angles I could use with my Toyota’s backup camera. He looks like the kind of guy who says, “Is there some kind of spice on this?” whenever he eats something with a sprinkle of black pepper. I’ll give Macdonald credit for this: In a league filled with nondescript men who get hired simply because of the cowardice of ultra-conservative owners, Macdonald stands out as one of the most generic-looking people I’ve seen in my entire life. He looks like an NPC they use to populate the sideline in a Madden game who now gets to be a real boy.
Anyway, in an era in which offensive talent and scheme are more important than ever, and having the right coach means you could drag even Brock Purdy to the Super Bowl, the Seahawks hired the Ravens’ defensive coordinator, but crucially won’t be bringing over any of the Ravens’ defensive talent. Mike Shanahan really didn’t have a nephew lying around somewhere? What about the guy who gels up Sean McVay’s hair every morning? Or maybe a random fan whose only job is to call the exact same plays as Mike McDaniel?
Here’s who is in charge of the Seattle offense instead:
I’m sorry, that is not “Ryan Grubb.” I’m looking at an alternate-universe version of Rich Eisen, who has fallen on hard times and just had his DUI mugshot hit social media.
And because NFL law requires at least one nepo baby on every coaching staff, Jay Harbaugh (son of Jim, nephew of John) will be coaching special teams. It will be the first time in his adult life that he hasn’t worked for his dad or uncle. If the plan is for the rest of the team to be so uninspiring that no one can bring themselves to care about the kicking and punting, this could be a home-run move.
Your quarterback: Geno Smith, a.k.a Mr. Glass, a.k.a. Jaws. As a Dolphins fan, I have a particular interest in Geno Smith. Because I’ve seen this movie many times before, and it brings me a strange delight to watch people tiptoe around calling Geno anything other than wildly replaceable. Hell, I’ve made many of the same excuses myself. Geno is not the problem! This team just needs a real defense! The offensive line is what’s really holding them back! It doesn’t matter who is under center if you can’t stop the run! Seahawks fans and the organization itself will apparently go to great lengths to convince themselves Geno is the guy, when the two best seasons of his career have produced back-to-back 9-8 records in an incredibly watered-down NFC. If Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Team were here, they’d have already pulled Geno’s mask off to reveal Ryan Tannehill underneath. I’m sorry—I take that back. At least Tannehill has won a playoff game before. Geno may not be the problem, but he sure as hell isn’t the solution.
Seattle is instead in limbo, a team with a new coach and a lame-duck quarterback who almost definitely won’t be on the team next season. But in another masterstroke of roster-building, the next man up on the depth chart is former Commanders great Sam Howell. This is the most forgettable quarterback duo since last year’s Seattle twosome of Geno and Drew Lock. This team isn’t even trying as much as it is hoping Shanahan and McVay get bored and become consultants for the military or something.
What’s new that sucks: Why should anyone give a shit about what’s new here? The Seahawks are dripping with so much “Will they finish 8-9 or 9-8?” energy that they may as well have let Jeff Fisher get a one-year farewell tour with this roster before actually trying to build a real winner again. Seattle’s biggest free-agent signing was former Dolphins linebacker Jerome Baker. (Meanwhile, Miami happily signed the guy Baker is replacing—Jordyn Brooks—to a bigger contract, which is a little concerning.) George Fant is back to be a forgettable part of the offensive line. The secondary has been revamped, with safeties Jamal Adams and Quandre Diggs both being replaced by a combination of free agents and draft picks. At least Adams was captivating to watch in a “Is this car about to hit another car in the Costco parking lot?” type of way. It’s almost as if Rayshawn Jenkins and K’Von Wallace were brought in specifically to be boring.
The Seahawks couldn’t even do us the courtesy of making a baffling draft pick. They took a defensive tackle, a guard, a linebacker and a tight end with their first four picks. I know every team wants to be stout in the trenches, but god damn that is a boring four-round run. They drafted like an immigrant dad shops—coming back with only the most basic possible version of what they needed.
What has always sucked:
I am so fucking sick of this tweet and all it represents. Since 2012, Seattle has had eight seasons with at least 10 wins. In that time, they’ve only had one losing season, and even in that year they won seven games. All of this is to say for more than a decade now the Seahawks have been pretty consistently good, and at times even great, until coming back down to earth the last couple years to still over .500.
But are their fans normal about it? No!
They have to pretend like it’s such a BURDEN to watch a Seahawks game. These rain-soaked losers pound the RT button on a years-old tweet every Sunday because the Seahawks are within seven points of their opponent in the fourth quarter of a football game. Oh, your team that’s been really good for most of this century and wins more often than not had something flukey happen to them in an NFL game? Did you agonize over watching your team win? Should we throw a little party? Should we invite Bella Hadid?
What an insult to the actual suffering fan bases. I’m so sick of every single online NFL fan trying to latch on to whatever they can to pretend watching their team is such a miserable experience. You want to talk about struggle? I once watched a Miami Dolphins team quarterbacked by a literally retired Jay Cutler coached by Adam Gase. And yet Seahawks fans have the fucking gall to pretend that they are on some unique emotional rollercoaster every week. Even if I’m willing to admit that the Super Bowl 49 loss was brutal (but goddamn was it also hilarious), that was still the second straight year the Seahawks made the Super Bowl. And they’ve been in the playoffs six times since. Seattle fans—you are not interesting. Get off miserable fan Twitter. You have not spent a single damn second in the trenches.
Also, Seattle’s biggest celebrity backers are Dwight from The Office, Dave Matthews, and Mina Kimes. Any person who loves these three people is someone you desperately avoid in any social setting. Hey man, wanna grab some beers this week? We can listen to Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King and maybe watch some NFL Live or The Office reruns. Sounds like something Mike Macdonald says in the break room to his horrified co-workers at Bellevue Honda.
What might not suck: When Geno Smith said, “They wrote me off, I ain’t write back though,” I was Meryl Streep pointing.gif at my television. I am rooting for him. And I’ve seen Dave Matthews in concert at least a dozen times.
HEAR IT FROM SEAHAWKS FANS!
Kelly:
It's over, isn't it? We will be dining out on that one Super Bowl until the 9.0 earthquake takes out the whole Pacific Northwest.
Alex:
The last notable D-line guy we drafted highly injured himself on an ATV before he played a down for the Seahawks, so I can’t wait to see what befalls Byron Murphy after he somehow fell to us this year. He’s already almost gotten blackmailed and extorted so the sky’s the limit!
Our fanbase is 99% “front-facing camera + Oakleys + front seat of an F-150 profile pic” morons from Lakewood who insist that we have to move on from Geno Smith because he “lacks pocket presence” which is Seattle suburbs for “isn’t white.” Ditto DK Metcalf whenever he gets a 15 yard trash talking penalty amidst another 100+ yard game of bodying DBs and insane catches, and these morons are all convinced we should trade him for picks because he’s “costing the team.”
Mike Macdonald looks like he doesn’t re-rack his weights after he’s done bench pressing and tips 5% at the bar. I’m SO fucking excited for him. Fuck me with a Russell Wilson pass at the 1 yard line.
I can’t believe I’m gonna spend the next several seasons missing our former “defensive expert” head coach who coached an asshole-bottom of the league defense for the second half of his tenure once his roster of Hall of Famers got bored of Will Ferrell cameos during Zoom meetings.
I wanted this e-mail to be a short one but there are so many dumb, annoying, stupid little things about this team that I couldn’t help myself. Who even cares anymore.
Tai:
I had Najee Harris on fantasy team last year and watched as his 35 yards and 0 touchdowns per game led my team to a dead last finish. Fast forward to the Seahawks last game of the year against Pittsburgh. I was at the game and watched as Najee Harris ran all over the Seahawks defense in a stadium half filled with Yinzers (who were surprisingly really nice). A friend from back east who is from Pittsburgh texts me to say, “At least Najee probably won you your fantasy league.” I literally wanted to punch myself.
Joey:
Pete Carrol is not just the most successful Seahawks Coach, he's the best coach of any team I have rooted for in my 37 years - Seahawks, Blazers, Oregon State, Mariners - and I was GLAD to see him taken to a farm upstate.
Half of the fanbase thinks they should win the division every year, and blames everything on Geno. The other half thinks our roster is filled with CFL cast offs, and the only chance to compete is to trade our next 15 first rounders to pick whoever next year's version of Drake Maye is, on the 5% chance they turn out to be the 'next Mahomes'.
No one likes this team. Devon Whiterspoon is the slot corner version of Bob Sanders - and is going to miss at least 12 games a season the rest of his career. Tyler Lockett is Imhotep before he consumes any of the jars. I am still mad about Steve Hutchinson.
Jeff:
Every year one of these submissions will invariably state that the worst person to watch an NFL game with is another Seahawks fan. If you watch a game with my brother in the room and the opposing team at any point takes the lead, even if its the opening drive, he will without fail throw his hands up in the air with complete indignation, declare the game to be over and stomp off. Even if they are up by double digits in the 4th quarter he will refuse to come back. What Im saying is that the aforementioned statement is completely accurate.
Jay:
Mike Macdonald painting over the murals of the (only) cool moments in Seahawks history is unintentionally a pretty good metaphor for how the rest of the league views this franchise: generic, forgettable, may or may not have even happened.
Submissions for the NFL previews are now closed. Next up: Jacksonville Jaguars.
