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The Seattle Seahawks are in serious trouble

By Sayre Bedinger

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What in the world is going on with the Seattle Seahawks?

I know, playing a road game against the St. Louis Rams and their talented defense and coming back for a tough home game against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers is no easy task for any team, but what has happened?

The Seahawks have plenty to be optimistic about as the season progresses, including a game against Jimmy Clausen and the Bears on deck, but I think this team at 0-2 (for the first time since they went 7-9 in 2011) is in some serious trouble to start this season.

Through two games, we’ve seen that the Seahawks’ defense is not the legion of boom unless the captain Kam Chancellor is around. I wonder if he’s feeling good about himself at this point in time…Chancellor’s absence — which doesn’t appear to have an end in sight — has been much more impactful to the Seattle defense than anyone could have anticipated.

Over the last two years, having lost Brandon Browner and now Kam Chancellor has significantly derailed the Legion’s train, and I think it’s going to prove to be detrimental the further along we get in this season. Seattle has to be begging Chancellor to return, but they also have no reason to give in to his recent holdout after handing him out a brand new contract within the last two years.

That’s a really sticky situation.

Offensively, the Seahawks look stale. They don’t appear to have featured Jimmy Graham in the passing game, which is a serious problem considering he was their biggest investment this offseason. Graham’s numbers through two games are probably right around the league average for a tight end, but Graham is not an average tight end. He should be putting up monster numbers.

His overall lack of inclusion in the offense against the Packers (1 reception) was absolutely terrible, but it doesn’t end there for Seattle…

The biggest problem offensively is the Seahawks’ offensive line, which is as bad as any in the league right now. And there are some really bad ones. Russell Wilson is often running for his life and not able to read defenses, especially coming off the play-action pass where he is typically so effective. He’s having to scramble around or run and try to get the first down himself rather than throwing the ball downfield.

So far this season, only Marshawn Lynch, Doug Baldwin, and Russell Wilson have received positive overall grades from Pro Football Focus, and the offensive linemen rank as the five lowest graded players on that side of the football.

Having a really bad offensive line and a defense that isn’t nearly what it used to be, Seattle has plenty of reason to worry, but like I said before, there is reason to be optimistic as well. This is a team thats core is battle tested. There is still a chance Kam Chancellor could come back at some point this season and give this defense a major boost.

Oh, and I have one more major concern. Richard Sherman — you know, the best cornerback in the NFL? — he’s playing really poorly right now. The Seahawks are asking him to do his usual duty and lock down one side of the field regardless of what receiver is over there, but he was out there getting punked by James Jones on Sunday Night Football.

There’s plenty of time for Sherman to turn things around, but right now, he’s the 2nd lowest graded player on Seattle per Pro Football Focus grades and is allowing 14 yards per completion on passes thrown in his direction.

I don’t think Seahawks fans need to panic this week, but over the course of a long season, things aren’t looking great. Hopefully they can make necessary adjustments and turn this thing around.

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