These Seahawks aren’t as good as we thought they were, and they need to figure it out quickly

BALTIMORE — Perhaps the harshest truth to come out of the Seahawks’ 37-3 beatdown by the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday was uttered by cornerback Tre Brown, when asked what lessons could come from this debacle.

“We’ve got to take accountability,” he said. ‘We’re not as good as we think we are.”

That was amply evident as the Seahawks were trampled, dominated and at times thoroughly embarrassed by the Ravens. Seahawks coach Pete Carroll had billed this as a measuring-stick game, in which case the measurement fell yards, or maybe miles, short.

It was the sort of blowout loss that simply doesn’t happen in the Carroll era, except on exceedingly rare occasions that then force the sort of intense reckoning the Seahawks now face.

The 34-point deficit was tied for the second-biggest margin of defeat since Carroll took over in 2010, surpassed only by their 42-7 loss to the Rams in 2017. And it would have been the singular worst — the nadir of the Carroll era — had not the Ravens shown mercy in the final seconds and knelt down at Seattle’s 4-yard line.

“This was about as unfamiliar as we can get here,” Carroll said.

Bobby Wagner, whose career nearly spans the breadth of that time, said of the game, “It’s tough to process.”

Center Evan Brown did some quick processing and concluded, “We got [expletive]-kicked.”

Tough, but fair. The Seahawks were thoroughly outplayed on both sides of the ball, and squandered the two chances they had to regain some semblance of control of the game after a pair of second-quarter fumble recoveries.

Brown said Seahawks now need to “build off whatever you did good and fix what you did bad.”

That will require much more fixing than building.

With a (seemingly) improving defense and coming off a rousing win over the Browns, the notion was starting to gain steam that the Seahawks might have the makings of a Super Bowl run.

The acquisition of defensive lineman Leonard Williams early in the week was hailed as a sign Seahawks management believed they had enough of a chance to do so to perhaps mortgage some of their future in that pursuit. By the second half, when the Ravens ran roughshod over a Seattle defense that seemed to regard tackling as an optional activity, Williams might have wondered if it was all a dream, and he was back with the New York Giants.

In fact, only one team on the M&T Bank Stadium field looked to be of Super Bowl caliber, and it was the one that Lamar Jackson led with precision and flair. Also, the one that limited the Seahawks to 28 rushing yards and a mere six first downs.

The Seahawks were 1 for 12 on third down, which Seattle quarterback Geno Smith aptly termed “just not good enough. It’s terrible, and that’s not going to get us any wins. We have to correct that.”

Smith himself once again left a list of mistakes to correct as he committed at least two turnovers for the fourth game in a row. He threw an interception on a play in which he and Tyler Lockett clearly weren’t on the same page, and also lost a strip sack that was more indicative of a fierce Baltimore pass rush that the Seahawks’ offensive line seemed helpless to contain for much of the afternoon.

Carroll defended Smith, saying essentially that the defeat was a group failing.

“I think this is about our football team not answering the bell here,” he said.

To Tre Brown’s statement that the Seahawks aren’t as good as they thought they were, the pertinent addendum is: Can they become good enough to get where they want to go?

The somber postgame locker room was filled with expected platitudes about not letting one loss define them. It’s a fair point; even with the defeat, the Seahawks have the same record as the division-leading 49ers, 5-3. Their wins over Detroit and Cleveland are genuinely impressive.

But in getting exposed by a team that might prove to be the best in the NFL, it shows just what a gulf exists between the Seahawks and the truly elite. Their task now is to bridge that gulf in the ensuing weeks. Carroll prides himself on being a coach who can coax the best out of a team in the worst of times, and that quality will be tested.

A long list of questions percolated after Seattle was outgained 515-151 — 298 of them coming on the ground for Baltimore, which failed to reach 300 only because of those two late kneel downs. In other words, more than 10 times as many rushing yards as the Seahawks, a team which under Carroll regards the running game as the foundation of success.

It’s never a good thing when the media is scrambling through the record books in the fourth quarter to see where the Seahawks stood as far as worst franchise losses, most consecutive games with multiple turnovers, most rushing yards allowed and other markings of an afternoon poorly spent.

“I would like that this game was maybe a marker that this is where things shifted, and we came right back and got back on track, and we see us come back to who we are,” said Carroll, envisioning a world in which the loss is a galvanizing event.

Easy to say, much harder to execute. Carroll can at least point to the demoralizing season-opening loss to the Rams that was followed directly by an exhilarating win over the Lions, on the road.

“We’ll see,” Carroll said. “This is a big deal. I’ve got to do a good job with them. Hopefully with the leadership that we have, I know we will get the right message out there. Then, we’ve got to act on it. It’s a very big challenge. We’ll see if we can pull it off.” 

One of those leaders, Tyler Lockett, was asked bluntly after the game, “What happened out there?”

Replied Lockett: “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know.”

It was indeed hard to fathom. In eagerly anticipating this matchup midway through last week, Carroll had said, “This feels like a championship game again.”

But now that distinction, and goal, feels farther away than the Seahawks ever imagined.