Seattle, WA
The Seahawks shouldn’t be taken seriously until they can beat top teams again
The Seattle Seahawks are just about destined to miss out on the postseason, and for the second year in a row it’ll likely come down to the rarely applied strength of victory tiebreaker.
With the Los Angeles Rams scraping past the Arizona Cardinals on Saturday, Seattle is on the verge of elimination and it could come as soon as Sunday. They would’ve been on the better side of the SOV tiebreaker situation had they beaten the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. They didn’t, which is all that matters, and that might cost them their season.
I cannot think of a more appropriate encapsulation of recent Seahawks football, if not the Geno Smith Era in totality, than these past three games.
Week 15: Blowout loss to the Green Bay Packers
Week 16: Competitive but close loss to the Minnesota Vikings
Week 17: Unbelievably ugly but narrow win over the Chicago Bears
Two different types of losses to Super Bowl contenders and the barest of margins to get past a checked out Chicago Bears team that’s currently on a 10-game losing streak. Te Seahawks typically beat bad teams and don’t beat any serious playoff contenders, whether within their own division or outside of it.
Since 2020, the Seahawks are just 3-17 against eventual division champions (usually Super Bowl contenders, with few exceptions). The .150 win percentage is an abysmal 28th in the NFL. This includes getting swept by the Rams in 2021, as well as the 49ers in 2022 and 2023. One of those “division champion” wins was the 7-9 Washington Football Team in 2020. This stat could actually get worse if they lose to the Rams again and the Atlanta Falcons don’t win the NFC South.
In that same time frame, they are tied for the most wins in the NFL against teams below .400. That stat could fluctuate depending on whether or not the San Francisco 49ers lose out this season. And even then, more than half of those wins were by one possession.
Yes, I included the 2020 division champion Seahawks to not isolate almost everything exclusively to the Geno Smith era. Beyond any other asterisks we could put on that unprecedented coronavirus pandemic season, those Seahawks were pretty damn inflated. They were a 12-4 team with a point differential more akin to a 10-6 squad despite playing the third easiest schedule in the entire NFL by opponent win percentage. Their only game against a serious Super Bowl contender that season was a complete humiliation against the Buffalo Bills. Against the only other playoff team they faced with a winning record, they went 1-2 versus the Rams and were blown out in the playoffs.
If we isolate to just the Geno Smith seasons, the numbers are grim. As things stand—they’ll be fluid given the possibility of beating the Rams in Week 18—Seattle’s strength of victory has been under .400 in all three of his years as the starter. Their four wins against teams with at least 10 victories are the P.J. Walker-led 11-6 Cleveland Browns in 2023, a genuinely excellent overtime win over the 12-5 Detroit Lions in 2023, Drew Lock’s career highlight against the collapsing 11-6 Philadelphia Eagles in 2023, and the 37-23 beatdown of the 10-7 Los Angeles Chargers in 2022. That’s it. The Browns, Chargers, and Eagles were very clearly not contenders and none of them won a playoff game. Detroit is Geno’s gold standard win surrounded by a stream of Ls that have ranged from blowout to “close but no cigar.”
You can rightly argue that the Seahawks were ahead of schedule given the expectations following the Russell Wilson trade. But I can just as easily counter that we’ve effectively seen the same sort of results with the Seahawks on either side of the trade. Exempting the disastrous 2021 campaign, they’ve been firmly entrenched in the NFL’s middle class of fringe playoff team/faux contender. My designation of the “Geno Smith Era” does not necessarily mean he’s been the main reason Seattle has struggled to beat top-tier teams; he’s had good games in defeat (see: Dallas Cowboys, 2023), horrid games in blowouts (see: multiple 49ers games), and unremarkable games where he neither elevated nor held the team back. We’ve seen the Seahawks defense capitulate repeatedly against elite opposition and the offensive line get destroyed, so it’s usually all-encompassing failure. However, if the organization decides to move on from Smith in 2025, whether justified or not, It’s hard not to think that the lack of signature wins will be one of the main factors.
I believe Mike Macdonald has generally done a good job in his rookie season as head coach and I am optimistic about his future. The end of Carroll’s tenure suggested stagnation and that nothing was going to improve unless he left. I’d also say, however, that citing Vegas over/under win totals as proof of exceeded expectations needs to come with the acknowledgement that the likes of the San Francisco 49ers, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, Minnesota Vikings, and even the Denver Broncos were all expected to do either much worse or much better than anticipated. If I were to tell you at the start of the season that the 49ers, Dolphins, and Jets would be bad/injured teams and that the Vikings would be pushing for the No. 1 seed, you’d probably readjust your expectations. With the way the schedule has turned out, I do not think it was unreasonable to believe the playoffs were possible. This is as weak as the NFC West has been in years and Seattle unfortunately fumbled fate right out of its hands.
Beating a 13-2 team like the Vikings is obviously much easier said than done, but the main point is that this recent stretch of Seahawks football has been largely defined by middling results. The quarterback has changed, as has the bulk of the roster and coaching staff, and the results have not changed a whole lot in terms of who they beat, who they lose to, and how they win and lose.
The hope is that Macdonald is coaching the next great Seahawks team, but we’re also basing that on the assumption of linear growth akin to 2010-2013, which is neither guaranteed nor always the norm. If anything, John Schneider’s 2025 offseason decisions (especially at quarterback) will tell us how he feels about the state of his own roster and whether the Seahawks are going to keep looking at competing in one-year increments, or if they may have to risk taking a major step back in order to be better in 2026, 2027, and beyond.
We’ll know when the Seahawks are on the cusp of breaking through to the upper floors again when they show they can win tough games against the best, including within the NFC West. Note that I didn’t say “consistently beat good teams” in the headline, because only the absolute elite like the Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens, and Buffalo Bills can do that on an annual basis. The Seahawks of the past five seasons have scarcely shown that, and the lack of playoff success and appearances accurately reflects who they’ve been and what they are right now.
(All stats via Stathead)
Next month the Seattle City Council could take up legislation to make street closures an official tool to prevent gun violence. This comes after residents near Aurora Avenue North created barriers to block vehicle access to their streets last week, in an attempt to keep drive-by shootings from flowing into their neighborhoods.
Councilmember Debora Juarez represents North Seattle’s District 5 and has championed the proposal, which she said was submitted to the Council during Bruce Harrell’s mayoral administration but then stalled.
Juarez said city agencies including the transportation department close streets for various reasons already, and should add criteria around public safety.
“If we have the wherewithal and common sense to protect pedestrians and bike riders and safe crossing for kids at school, we sure as hell can protect communities from stray bullets and gun violence and shootings in their neighborhoods,” she said.
A resident of the Aurora neighborhood whose first name is Jake, he asked that his last name not be shared, told the City Council Tuesday that a bullet recently struck his house, outside his 6-week-old infant’s bedroom. He said the Seattle Police Department characterized the recent gun shots on Aurora as mostly related to prostitution and gang violence.
“The city is allowing unchecked prostitution, human trafficking, and related violence” on Aurora, he said.
RELATED: Seattle’s traffic deaths are climbing. One City Council member wants an audit to find out why
Juarez said she is working with Councilmember Eddie Lin, who chairs the Land Use Committee, as well as Councilmember Bob Kettle, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, to introduce emergency legislation that could take effect upon passage by the council and approval by the mayor.
Where city code allows road closures for construction or to protect the public from various hazards, the new language would allow the police chief to recommend closure of a street or alley to prevent criminal activity. Juarez said the closure could be temporary.
“If the chief of police tells you there’s criminal activity, there’s a serious uptick in gun violence — let’s put up these barriers for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days,” Juarez said.
But she noted that officials will have to be careful not to simply push the violence onto other streets nearby.
“If you pull a string here it’s going to show up over there,” she said. “Those are the policy questions that have to be hashed out.”
RELATED: Seattle City Council approves new police contract, boosting pay and expanding crisis response
In a joint statement with Juarez on Friday, Mayor Katie Wilson called the violence along Aurora “alarming and unacceptable.”
But she said the barriers installed by residents needed to be replaced with “temporary traffic calming treatments to reduce cut-through traffic and address the access needs of those living in the area” as well as access for emergency responders and trash pick-up. According to KOMO, city crews replaced the metal planters with staggered, concrete barriers on Friday.
Juarez said she wants the city to act with urgency to address the residents’ concerns. She said the legislation could be heard in the Public Safety Committee on June 23.
SEATTLE – Transportation officials are warning travelers to prepare for heavy traffic congestion and significant delays as massive construction closures hit highways across the region and light rail lines this weekend.
Major highway closures this weekend
What we know:
The Washington State Department of Transportation said major construction projects are taking over several regional corridors from Friday, May 29, until the morning of Monday, June 1.
Crews are squeezing a large amount of work into a short spring window so they can pause construction during Seattle’s “summer of soccer.”
This means drivers will face concentrated traffic impacts now rather than disruptions spread throughout the summer season.
Here’s what is scheduled for this weekend:
- Kirkland (Southbound I-405): All southbound lanes will be closed from Northeast 124th Street to Northeast 70th Place from 11 p.m. Friday until 4 a.m. Monday for fish barrier correction work. Miles-long backups are expected.
- Seattle (Northbound I-5): Two northbound lanes will remain closed across the Ship Canal Bridge, further restricting traffic inside the city.
- Seattle (Eastbound SR 520): Eastbound lanes and all connecting ramps between I-5 and Montlake Boulevard will close from 11 p.m. Friday until 5 a.m. Monday. Crews are preparing for a traffic switch on the Montlake off-ramp. Only transit and HOV 3+ vehicles will be allowed to use the Montlake Boulevard direct access ramps to eastbound SR 520 across Lake Washington.
- Issaquah/Snoqualmie (Westbound I-90): The eastbound SR 18/Snoqualmie Parkway on-ramp to westbound I-90, along with the westbound I-90 off-ramp to westbound SR 18, will close for paving from 9 p.m. Friday until 5 a.m. Monday.
Timeline:
The closures start Friday evening, with I-90 ramp closures beginning at 9 p.m., followed by the full I-405 and SR 520 closures at 11 p.m. All highways are scheduled to fully reopen to regular traffic by 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. on Monday, June 1.
WSDOT also said much of the work is weather-dependent and may be rescheduled if it rains.
Light rail disruptions
In addition to the highway gridlock, Sound Transit passengers will face major service disruptions on Saturday, May 30, and Sunday, May 31.
Maintenance crews are shutting down parts of the region’s light rail network to complete rail replacement through downtown Seattle stations and perform work on the Crosslake Connection.
During the weekend shutdown, the 1 Line will completely close between the Capitol Hill and Stadium stations. Simultaneously, the 2 Line will be closed between Lynnwood City Center and South Bellevue stations.
The Source: Information in this story came from the Washington State Department of Transportation and Sound Transit.
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Eight dead in Longview chemical implosion
Eight people are dead and three remain missing after a massive chemical implosion at a Longview facility. Rescue teams face chest-deep water and a caustic “white liquor” that is so corrosive it is eating through their personal protective equipment. The EPA is actively monitoring the area after 500,000 gallons of the material seeped into nearby neighborhood dikes.
LONGVIEW, Wash. – After a massive chemical implosion at a Longview paper mill killed 11 people, little is known about the victims.
Eight people are confirmed dead, and three others remain missing after a tank of white liquor imploded at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility on Tuesday, May 26. Eight others also suffered injuries, including chemical burns and inhalation.
Longview Fire Chief Brad Hannig confirmed in a press conference Thursday that crews recovered six of the nine workers who were unaccounted for following the implosion. Two workers who made it out of the site also died, making the death toll 11.
Search and recovery efforts are underway for the three victims who remain missing. Because of the toxic chemicals, the victims’ remains must be decontaminated before the coroner can begin the formal identification process.
Keep reading for details on what we know about the victims in the Longview chemical implosion.
Two victims identified
As of Thursday, only five of the 11 victims in the implosion have been identified by family members:
Jared Ammons:
Family and friends described Ammons as a “loving husband, devoted father, cherished son and caring brother.” He leaves behind his wife, two kids, and another child on the way.
Those who knew Ammons said’ his loss has left an unimaginable hole in their hearts. A GoFundMe is raising money for his family as they navigate the recent tragedy.
Gilbert Bernal:
Friends said Bernal was one of the best people they’ve ever met, and “was a Godly man in every sense of the word.” He was a grandfather and an electrician at the facility.
His GoFundMe said Bernal was loved by many and worked hard to provide for his family. The online fundraiser will go towards his family’s funeral expenses and other needs.
CJ Doran:
Doran, who was 26 years old, is described by friends as a selfless and deeply caring husband and father. He was “the spiritual leader of their family, the joy of their home, and the family provider.” A GoFundMe will benefit his wife and family during this troubling time.
John Forsberg:
Forsberg was a father of two young children who lost his life in the Nippon plant implosion. Forsberg’s family asks for privacy as they process this tragedy, with an online fundraiser going towards supporting his children and memorial-related expenses.
Braydon Finkas:
Finkas was an electrician at the plant, whose “sense of humor and kindness touched everyone who knew him.” He was known for his love of golf, brisket-making, breweries and his wife, Kaitlyn.
Rex Czuba, a friend who organized Finkas’ GoFundMe, said he would always be there to help and would never turn down a request from a friend or neighbor. “He was a really big part of the town,” Czuba said. “He really jumped in and became a part of the community so quickly.”
Unidentified implosion victims
What’s next:
There is still little information about the rest of the workers who were killed, hurt, or still missing following the chemical implosion. City officials or the Cowlitz County Medical Examiner’s Office will release details as they continue the recovery and identification process.
Massive chemical flush underway in Longview
On the second day of recovery following what the governor called the deadliest industrial tragedy in modern state history, the Department of Ecology is flushing a massive 500,000-gallon toxic chemical spill away from Longview’s water supply.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
The Source: Information in this story came from GoFundMe, the Longview Fire Department, the Associated Press and previous FOX 13 Seattle reporting.
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