On the 30th October 2011, I travelled to Seattle from Vancouver to watch the Seahawks play the Bengals. They lost 34-12. It left the Seahawks with a 2-5 record and the future appeared pretty bleak. People were talking about ‘suck for (Andrew) Luck’. There was doubt about Pete Carroll, now one-and-a-half seasons into his NFL return. Where was this going?

A week later came the turning point. They went to Dallas to play the Cowboys, who had playoff ambitions. They lost 23-13 but the defense stepped up its game. They were tougher and harder to play against. An encouraging sign.

The following week they beat the Ravens (where this happened). Then they hammered the Rams. They blew a game against Washington before returning to form against the expensively acquired Eagles — destroying Howie Roseman’s ‘dream team’ roster in Prime Time. Big wins followed against the Rams (again) and Bears before two close losses ended the season on a slight dampener.

Either way, by the time the 2011 season concluded the Seahawks had established themselves as a developing force. The LOB era was coming together. They were a nightmare to play against. The foundations were there for future success.

I don’t think the 2024 group are quite at that stage yet — but it’s carrying a similar vibe. This is now three successive strong defensive performances. They may still drop the odd frustrating game between now and week 18, as they did against the Rams before the bye. But if the defense can continue playing at this level, it will provide similar hope for the future that the Seahawks can have another go at being a contender.

There are some things, though, that could hold them back.

Firstly — as important as the defense was during that 2011 season, Marshawn Lynch was arguably even more critical to their blossoming success. In Lynch, the Seahawks had a legit star. From the Dallas game until the end of the season — nine games in total — he ran for 941 yards and scored 10 total touchdowns.

The Seahawks couldn’t be further away from that level of running performance currently.

On Sunday against the Cardinals, every called run was a headache to watch. The O-line created no push up front. It felt like Ken Walker was exerting a ton of energy just to find a way back to the line of scrimmage. By the end the Seahawks had virtually given up running the ball — choosing to try and close out the game with Geno Smith.

It said it all that in a one-score game in the fourth quarter, in the rain, on the next series after Smith had thrown an ugly interception in the red zone, they came out throwing and nearly threw another back-breaking pick. Smith’s pass was inaccurate and luckily the Arizona player just couldn’t grab the ball before it hit the turf. What a let off.

Mark Sanchez on the commentary was practically yelling down his microphone telling them to run instead. What were they doing?

This is the thing holding back the Seahawks from generating even more excitement. In 2011 it would’ve been a classic ‘Beat Mode’ moment. A heavy dose of Lynch to finish off the contest, grinding out a long drive. The Seahawks don’t lack talent at running back but their total inability to run at any kind of level is holding them back. It didn’t cost them against Arizona but it could in future weeks.

I imagine this really bothers Mike Macdonald, a Harbaugh protégé. While he seems perfectly mild-mannered during interviews, the Brady Henderson article a few weeks ago uncovered an edge to Seattle’s Head Coach that isn’t outwardly expressed. He is delivering the kind of defense we’ve been waiting years to see — but the offense isn’t currently playing in a way to complement it.

If I had to guess, Macdonald probably feels like he won’t truly have delivered his vision for this team until the defense and running game go hand-in-hand. While the defense is progressing nicely, the running game is regressing at the same rate.

When you bring up the struggling run game, most people point to the O-line — which is fair enough. It was bad again against Arizona. It’s been bad all year. It needs major work.

Every single lineman received a bad run-blocking grade per PFF:

Olu Oluwatimi — 58.8
Christian Haynes — 58.2
Abe Lucas — 50.3
Charles Cross — 49.8
Laken Tomlinson — 40.1

However, this isn’t a problem exclusive to the Seahawks. A lot of teams have issues blocking. A lot of those teams still find ways to run the ball a lot more effectively than the Seahawks.

This tweet from Brock Huard was scathing in the review of Ryan Grubb’s inability to work out solutions to be able to find any semblance of running effectiveness — especially against a team in Arizona giving up 121.8 rushing yards per game (the Seahawks managed just 65 yards):

When I’ve discussed Grubb recently there’s been a lot of sympathetic replies in the direction of Seattle’s OC. Again, the O-line is a huge problem. We can all see that. Yet as Huard notes above, why are they so incapable of working around this to produce any kind of ground success?

I do think it’ll bring Grubb’s position into question at the end of the season unless things change. The most important thing for Macdonald as a young, first-time Head Coach is to have everything aligned to create his vision. Yes, a new staff needs time. At what cost though? Wasting time? Failing to have everything connected? At the end of the season they’ll need to decide whether Grubb can produce an offense to complement Macdonald’s developing defense. At the moment, you have to wonder whether they’re philosophically aligned — and if they aren’t, a change is very likely.

You can’t have a close game like Sunday where you’re winning for the majority of the contest, in bad weather, and you have 39 throwing situations and only 22 runs by your running backs. The Seahawks are attempting 37 passes per game, fifth most in the NFL. Their 22.6 rushing attempts per game are fifth fewest. This is not typical for a team led by a defensive-minded coach, coming from a Ravens/Michigan background.

How much of this is necessity and how much of it is indicative of philosophy and preference? If the Seahawks add two quality offensive linemen in the off-season, will the numbers above flip in terms of run/pass ratio? Or is Ryan Grubb always going to lean towards an aggressive passing offense?

Reports earlier this year suggested Arthur Smith was slated to be Macdonald’s offensive coordinator if he got a Head Coaching gig — but Baltimore’s playoff run delayed things and he didn’t want to end up out of work, so took the Steelers job. Pittsburgh is currently running the ball 34.3 times a game, second most in the NFL. They’re passing 28.4 times a game, second fewest.

The Steelers’ O-line isn’t grading particularly well and they’ve suffered key injuries to Troy Fautanu and James Daniels. Broderick Jones (53.2) and Mason McCormick (55.9) are playing poorly according to PFF, although Dan Moore Jr (71.0), Isaac Seumalo (69.7) and Zach Frazier (77.4) are fairing better but not at a spectacular grading level. Pittsburgh’s average grade for their five offensive linemen is a 65.4. That’s the exact same average as the five players who started for Seattle against the Cardinals.

The Steelers are finding a way to produce a ground game that is ranked eighth in the league. Seattle’s is ranked 28th.

It wasn’t an ideal situation to have a Head Coach accepting a job just before the Super Bowl, when the coordinator pool was already diminished. That’s no fault of Seattle’s, it’s just the way this thing works. They clearly interviewed a few people — speaking to the likes of Eric Bienemy, Tanner Engstrand and Grubb and seemingly trying to see if they could get Mike Kafka out of the Giants. Chip Kelly’s name was mentioned too. Going with Grubb, who’d been part of an inspired effort at the University of Washington, was a decent roll of the dice.

However, it might simply be that he isn’t going to be able to align an offense to match Macdonald’s vision. We’ll see what happens over the next few weeks. If the running game continues to stumble like it is at the moment, I suspect we might see a change. The Seahawks gig could be attractive too — you’d have full control of the offense and getting things right could lead to big opportunities in the future.

Pete Carroll accepted after the 2010 season that Jeremy Bates wasn’t aligned to his vision for the team and he made a change — bringing in Tom Cable and Darrell Bevell as co-coordinators. Macdonald might make a similar change.

Could they target a fired Head Coach (Doug Pederson? Brian Daboll?), go back to their original list (Mike Kafka? Tanner Engstrand? Chip Kelly?) or review new names? Scottie Montgomery is Associate Head Coach and looks after the running backs in Detroit. They’re doing pretty well. Marcus Brady is Jim Harbaugh’s passing-game coordinator in LA. Will Klint Kubiak be available, New Orleans’ somewhat highly rated offensive coordinator? Is Josh McCown ready for an opportunity after spending a year with Kevin O’Connell in Minnesota? Do they go internal with someone like Jake Peetz for the sake of familiarity?

Or do they retain faith in Grubb working this out and instead focus on fixing the offensive line? Is that merely enough?

Let’s not forget, the Seahawks didn’t have a great O-line in 2011 but they ran effectively. In the 2012 off-season, they were able to use their first two draft picks on Bruce Irvin and Bobby Wagner to take the defense to another level. It’d be beneficial not to be handcuffed to O-line draft picks and have the flexibility to keep adding to the defense if they can — either by finding veteran answers in free agency or by having a staff that can get more juice out of the players they already have (although I still think there are worthy O-liners in the 2025 class who could and should be targeted).

I think a few coaching tweaks will happen in the off-season regardless of Grubb’s future. That should be expected now that Macdonald and John Schneider have had a year to assess. At the end of the year, though, short of a really good run to finish the season, I think the future of the offensive coordinator will be one of the top three storylines — along with how they address the offensive line and what they do with the contract situations involving D.K. Metcalf and Geno Smith.