Historically Inept Defense, Russell Wilson's Injury Put Seahawks 2021 Season in Peril

SEATTLE, WA - A visibly and audibly frustrated Quandre Diggs didn't have much to say following the Seahawks 26-17 loss to the Rams on Thursday night. But the few words the Pro Bowl safety did speak coupled with his despondent body language painted a clear picture of how bleak the team's situation is right now.

"We got s*** we need to fix, and everybody knows that," Diggs told reporters. "At the end of the day, you either do your job, or you’re not ready for this type of atmosphere. That’s just plain and simple."

Based on how the Seahawks performed under the lights on Thursday in a critical divisional matchup, it doesn't take much to prove this team isn't prepared to compete against playoff-caliber foes. And now, after dropping to 2-3 on the season and falling further behind in the NFC West race, a Swiss cheese defense on a not-so-ideal historic pace could be the least of their problems.

For one half on Thursday, building off of Sunday's win in Santa Clara, Seattle seemed to have turned the page defensively. After allowing nearly 450 yards per game in the first four weeks of the season, coach Pete Carroll's unit limited Matthew Stafford and a high-octane offensive attack to 175 yards, three points, and no third down conversions, forcing four punts and an generating an interception in the end zone courtesy of Diggs.

A 19-yard touchdown pass from Russell Wilson to DK Metcalf, who beat cornerback Jalen Ramsey on a skinny post midway through the second quarter, gave the Seahawks a slim 7-3 advantage going into the break. Set to receive to open the second half, everything was falling into place for a second straight win.

But as late Cardinals coach Dennis Green once famously said after his team coughed up a big lead in a loss to the Bears back in 2006, these Seahawks "are who we thought they were." As they exhibited for all the 12s to see once again in a brutal second half collapse, which has become commonplace in the first quarter of the schedule, they're undeniably the NFL's worst defense.

Failing to carry over momentum from the first half, one play seemed to alter the entire complexion of the contest for both teams early in the third quarter. With Los Angeles facing 3rd and 10 at its own 20-yard line, Stafford dropped back to pass and launched a deep ball down the numbers to speedy receiver Desean Jackson, who found himself between cornerback Sidney Jones and safety Jamal Adams.

With defensive tackle L.J. Collier blasting Stafford as he threw, the pass was underthrown. But as Carroll noted, this ended up being fortuitous for the Rams, as Adams wasn't able to turn back and track the football in the air and Jones was trailing several yards behind the receiver. Somehow reeling in the pass, Jackson darted to his left past the oncoming Diggs and picked up big yardage after the catch before getting pushed out at the Seahawks 12-yard line for a 68-yard gain.

"I didn’t really see it, I was on the other side," Diggs recalled. "I just started running when I saw the ball in the air. I didn’t really get to see it, I didn’t really look at it on the [Surface]. Those are the plays we got to have. We can’t have guys 3rd and 10 and we give up big plays like that. That’s unacceptable."

Two plays later, running back Darrell Henderson punched the ball in from five yards out and the Rams promptly had their first lead of the game. On the very next possession, the team's worst nightmare became a reality when Wilson hit his right middle finger on defensive tackle Aaron Donald's arm during his follow through on a deep ball to Tyler Lockett and suffered a bad sprain, eventually forcing him to exit and give way to backup Geno Smith.

As trainers looked at Wilson's finger on the sideline, Seattle's defensive implosion continued. Driving 82 yards on just five plays, Stafford hooked up with Robert Woods on a pair of 20-yard receptions, Henderson bounced a run outside to the sideline for a 29-yard pickup, and Tyler Higbee beat Adams - it wasn't a good day at all for the $70 million safety - on a corner route for an easy 13-yard touchdown to extend the lead to 16-7.

At that point, the Seahawks still weren't out of the game. In fact, Smith made things quite interesting by completing all five of his passes for 72 yards and a 23-yard touchdown to Metcalf to cap off a 98-yard drive after replacing Wilson, trimming the deficit back to four points.

Unfortunately, Smith's heroics were all for naught, as Seattle's defense got gashed again on the ensuing possession. Guiding his team 73 yards on just six plays, Stafford hooked up with Woods and Cooper Kupp on 24 and 33-yard completions to move deep into Seahawks territory and after another catch by Kupp set up first and goal, running back Sony Michel walked into the end zone on a two-yard dive to push the lead back to nine.

Smith led one more scoring drive, getting the Seahawks into field goal range for Jason Myers to make it a one possession game. To the defense's credit, Diggs and his counterparts responded much better this time, forcing the Rams to punt with a little over two minutes left to play. But it proved to be too little, too late, as Lockett tripped at the top of his route on first down and Smith was consequently intercepted by Nick Scott, all but ending the game.

While the Seahawks did put the ball back into Smith's hands with a shot to win the game, Diggs wasn't pleased at all with Seattle's defensive performance and justifiably so. Surrendering nearly 300 yards of offense in the second half alone and continuing to make the same coverage miscues that have plagued them all season long, they became only the fourth team since the NFL/AFL merger to give up 450-plus yards in four consecutive games. They are on pace to yield a whopping 7,664 total yards, which would obliterate the single-season record held by the 2012 Packers.

That's not company you want to keep, especially given the star power on the roster with Bobby Wagner, Adams, Diggs, and Carlos Dunlap starring on that side of the football. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand the group has greatly underachieved and the team needs more from those players to elevate the rest of the defense.

"It’s super frustrating because you can see what we did in that first half, we were locked in and guys were on their stuff," Diggs remarked. "I don’t know if it’s mental lapses, I don’t know what it is. Guys get comfortable that we hold a team to three points, and you get relaxed. It’s the NFL, you can’t do that. It’s a rivalry game, I would think everybody’s antennas would be up."

From a silver lining standpoint, the Seahawks will now enter a mini-bye with 10 days until they travel to Pittsburgh to play the Steelers, providing extra time for Wilson to heal from surgery and Diggs and the defense to regroup. With 12 games remaining on the schedule, steering the ship back on course towards playoff contention can still be done and the talent is on the roster to accomplish this goal.

But sitting in last place in arguably the NFL's best division, with Wilson being out at least three games impacting the offense for the foreseeable future, the clock is ticking towards midnight for Seattle to fix things. If players and coaches aren't able to find solutions to the problems ailing them, particularly for a historically porous defense, a season once viewed with great promise could get out of hand quickly.

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