Remembering the Seahawks' Dominant 2015 Squad

When considering the best teams in Seahawks history, it's easy to put the three Super Bowl-bound squads from 2005, 2013, and 2014 atop the list. All three of those teams posted at least a 12-4 record in the regular season and earned home field advantage in the playoffs with the No. 1 overall seed in the NFC.

Revisiting the 2010s, Seattle dominated Football Outsiders' DVOA rankings, snagging three of the top five spots for the decade. The 2013 Super Bowl championship team was crowned as the best team of the decade, while the 2012 team came in fourth.

The Seahawks' 2013 championship team was the best of the last decade, according to @FO_ASchatz. https://t.co/5QRJbrClCl pic.twitter.com/sLZ3Ml3yES
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) June 23, 2020

But as indicated by Football Outsiders analyst Aaron Schatz, one team that didn't quite make it to the big game absolutely deserves to be included in the discussion. Though they missed making the Super Bowl for a third consecutive season, the 2015 Seahawks proved to be a special squad in their own right, coming in third place on the DVOA list.

Coming off a heartbreaking Super Bowl XLIX defeat, the season didn't necessarily start off well for Seattle, as Pete Carroll's club dropped the first two games to the then-St. Louis Rams and Green Bay Packers. After two wins against lowly Chicago and Detroit got the team back to .500, three losses in the next five games followed, dropping the two-time defending NFC champions to a 4-5 record.

Injuries also became a problem, as star running back Marshawn Lynch underwent sports hernia surgery in mid-November, sidelining one of the main center pieces of Seattle's offensive attack.

However, things started to click for the Seahawks in a Week 11 win against the 49ers. Fueled by Thomas Rawls' rookie record 209 rushing yards and a near-perfect three touchdown outing by Russell Wilson, they dispatched their division rivals 29-13, officially starting a five-game winning streak.

During that span, Seattle won a 39-30 home thriller over Pittsburgh, dismantled Minnesota and Baltimore on the road in back-to-back weeks by a combined 73-13 score, and walloped Cleveland 30-13 to improve to 9-5 with two weeks left to play. Even after losing Rawls and tight end Jimmy Graham to season-ending injuries, the offense kept humming.

With the exception of a Week 16 hiccup against the Rams, the Seahawks were near unstoppable in the closing two months of the regular season. They rounded from their lone defeat in December by finishing off with a 36-6 beatdown of the Cardinals in the season finale to lock up a wild card berth.

Over those final seven games, the Seahawks averaged a ridiculous 36 points per game offensively and wrapped up the year ranked fourth in scoring. Playing the best football of his career, Wilson threw 24 touchdowns and just one interception, with 11 of those scores going to receiver Doug Baldwin, who became the first receiver to post 1,000-plus receiving yards since Bobby Engram in 2007.

On the other side of the ball, the "Legion of Boom" defense finally found its groove, giving up just 14 points per game to finish atop the league in scoring defense for a fourth consecutive season. Earl Thomas finished with a team-best five interceptions, Bobby Wagner and K.J. Wright each eclipsed 110 tackles, and the tandem of Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril combined to produce 19.0 sacks and 57 quarterback hits.

Despite a slow start that knocked them out of the hunt for an NFC West title by midseason, Seattle entered the playoffs as the team nobody wanted to play. They drew a second visit to Minnesota in the Wild Card round, playing in sub-zero temperatures that made it difficult for either team to put points on the board.

Thanks to kicker Blair Walsh shanking a 27-yard field goal, the Seahawks survived the frigid temperatures for a 10-9 win, advancing to the Divisional Round for the fourth straight season. Next up? A date with the 15-1 Panthers, who earned the No. 1 seed in the conference behind MVP quarterback Cam Newton.

During the regular season, Carolina edged Seattle 27-23 at CenturyLink Field. But the Seahawks were a much different team than the one that dropped five of their first nine contests and came in confident they could pull the upset.

Unfortunately, nothing went right for Wilson and the Seahawks out of the gate. Trying to rebound from a slugfest the week before, they came out flat, falling behind 14-0 in the first quarter after linebacker Luke Kuechly returned an interception for a touchdown.

By halftime, Seattle trailed 31-0 and any thoughts of a third straight trip to the Super Bowl had all but disappeared. Carroll's team fought back valiantly after intermission, cutting the deficit to 31-24 with 1:41 to play, but it was too little too late.

Injuries certainly played a role in the team's inability to advance past the Divisional Round, as Lynch looked like a shell of himself upon his return and the losses of Rawls and Graham took away two key ingredients for Seattle's offense. If one or both of those players would have been available, the story might have ended differently.

Exhaustion was also a factor. Seattle had basically been in playoff mode since early November and simply ran out of gas, especially after having to recover from one of the coldest games in NFL history.

Though the end of the season was as bitter as the temperatures in Minneapolis, the Seahawks deserved a great deal of credit for overcoming a sluggish start to return to the postseason. Thanks to a sizzling second half spearheaded by Wilson and Baldwin, they should be remembered as one of the best teams in franchise history, possibly deserving the crown as the best non-Super Bowl winning team in the Pacific Northwest.