Ever since making back-to-back Super Bowl runs a decade ago, the Seattle Seahawks have spent most of their time hovering in that good-but-not-great area of the NFL hierarchy.

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Over the past 10 seasons, they have totaled nine winning records, six 10-plus-win seasons and six playoff appearances. But during that span, they haven’t advanced past the NFC divisional round. That makes them one of just four franchises – along with the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants and Chicago Bears – who haven’t reached the NFC Championship game in the past decade.

As a result, there’s been an argument in recent years that the Seahawks would be better served taking a step back and embarking on an all-out rebuild to replenish their roster with younger talent. The Detroit Lions had success with that strategy, using a draft pick haul from their 2021 Matthew Stafford-for-Jared Goff trade to turn a three-win team into a 15-win juggernaut that earned the NFC’s top seed this season.

However, NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah doesn’t see that as a realistic path for the Seahawks – especially considering the second-half upswing the team experienced this past season under first-year head coach Mike Macdonald – as he explained Wednesday during his weekly appearance on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

Sparked by a midseason defensive turnaround, Seattle won six of its final eight games and finished 10-7. That would have been enough to reach the playoffs in most other years, but the Seahawks ended up on the wrong end of an NFC West tiebreaker with the Los Angeles Rams.

“I just think there’s too much there,” Jeremiah said when asked about the idea of a rebuild. “Like, there’s too much to tear down to go all the way to the bottom. I don’t think they’re capable of going all the way to the bottom, and I don’t think they have any interest in doing that.”

As Jeremiah mentioned, the Seahawks have a strong core of players to build around.

For instance, Seattle has 12 players who finished among the top 30% of their respective positions in Pro Football Focus grading: quarterback Geno Smith; running backs Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet; wide receivers Jaxon Smith-Njigba and DK Metcalf; left tackle Charles Cross; defensive linemen Leonard Williams and Jarran Reed; edge rusher Boye Mafe; cornerback Devon Witherspoon; and safeties Julian Love and Coby Bryant.

In other words, from PFF’s view, roughly half of the Seahawks’ 2024 starters performed among the top one-third of players across the league at their respective positions.

In order to ascend and become a legitimate Super Bowl contender, Seattle definitely needs to bolster certain areas of its roster – none more so than the offensive line, especially along the interior. But Jeremiah believes those holes can be addressed in April’s NFL Draft.

If the Seahawks are able to do that, Jeremiah believes they can make meaningful strides on offense to pair with a surging defense that was among the league’s best over the second half of the season.

“When I look at some of their roster holes, I look at that interior of the offensive line – it’s a good draft there,” Jeremiah said. “There’s a lot of depth and there’s a lot of quality interior players. Getting an explosive, dynamic tight end into this offense? Check – there’s a bunch of them in this draft. … So I think they can make their offense look a lot different with what they could get in this draft.”

Listen to the full conversation with NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah at this link or in the audio player near the middle of this story. Tune in to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

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