Entering the final home stretch of the 2023 season in the midst of a slump losing four of their previous five games, the month of December could have major ripple effects on the Seattle Seahawks game plan in 2024 and beyond.
As things stand rolling into Week 14, following a difficult 41-35 loss to Dallas last Thursday night, Seattle sits behind two surging teams in Green Bay and Los Angeles for the final wild card spot in the NFC.
Following a huge win over the Chiefs, the Packers currently hold the seventh seed by virtue of a head-to-head tiebreaker against the Rams, who swept the Seahawks in a pair of divisional games earlier in the season.
With the schedule set to only get tougher with back-to-back games against the 49ers and Eagles in the next two weeks, the Seahawks have little margin for error from this point forward and at minimum must find a way to earn a split against the NFC’s top two teams.
Losing both of those games would drop them to 6-8 on the season, ensuring they would fail to win double digit games and putting them on the brink of playoff elimination.
After Seattle surprised with a 9-8 finish last season that culminated in a wild card berth, failing to return to the postseason would be a massive letdown for coach Pete Carroll’s team, especially after starting with a promising 5-2 record.
Collapsing in similar fashion to last fall when they lost five of six in the second half would likely guarantee substantial personnel and/or coaching changes with the franchise at a crossroads.
Over the next five weeks, no player or coach may be under more pressure and scrutiny than Smith, who hasn’t been able to replicate his numbers from a breakout Comeback Player of the Year season in 2022.
Though he signed a three-year extension back in March, with his cap hit set to balloon to $31 million in 2024 and his salary becoming guaranteed on the fifth day of the waiver period, the team may have a difficult decision awaiting at quarterback.
On one hand, as Smith demonstrated last week throwing for 334 yards and three touchdowns against the Cowboys, he remains more than capable of performing like a top-10 caliber quarterback.
He’s only a year removed from leading the league in completion percentage and finishing fourth in touchdown passes and even with his cap hit skyrocketing $21 million compared to this year, he will still only be the 12th-highest paid quarterback in the NFL next season.
But while Smith has played quite well in spurts, his second year as the starter in Seattle has been defined by inconsistency and regression.
Through 12 games, he has plummeted to 18th in completion rate, 16th in touchdown passes, and 19th in passer rating, all categories he ranked in the top five a season ago.
From an individual game standpoint, Smith tied Patrick Mahomes for the most games with multiple touchdown passes (12) last season, but only has five such games in 2023 so far.
After throwing his ninth pick of the year in Dallas, he also has nearly equaled his interception total from last season, which has contributed to his significant drop off in passer rating and QBR.