Putting the Hap in Hapless: Seahawks Pile up the Errors (But Don’t Blame Geno)

The Seahawks owe a debt of gratitude to the New York Yankees. In the fifth inning of game five of the World Series last month, the most fabled team in major league baseball, with a $300+ million payroll, had a sequence of folly so intense that it threatened to rip a hole in the space-time continuum.

The Yanks blew a 5-0 lead by giving up five unearned runs — two errors and a brain fart — all scoring after two outs. They went on to lose the game and the series 4-1 to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The bleakness that has hung over New York has been so dense that some fans are just now hearing that Donald Trump won the election.

What the Yankees did was lower the floor for sports-team aggravation. For now, any strained lamentations about the profundity of random badness can be met with a cocked eyebrow and a wise retort: “Did you see the Yankees in game five?” End of discussion, let’s move on.

The favor done by the Yankees was welcomed by hapless teams everywhere. The invocation of universal human failure is a weak excuse, yes, but when you’re outta hap, any fig leaf will do.

The development was coincidental in Seattle sports to the current futility of the Seahawks, who seem on a run to lead the NFL in unforced errors. The numerous pieces of evidence include the fact that they are third in the NFL in total penalties. It’s not a direct analogy, because the debacle covers a half-season, and not one inning of one baseball game. Nevertheless, in explaining the inexplicable, no analogy can be discarded.

Last in the NFC West at midseason with a 4-5 record that began 3-0, the Seahawks have 88 total penalties, which did not increase Sunday because they did not play (blessed be the bye). The 8.3 average per game is remarkable. Lost yardage is harder to compare, because opponents sometimes decline penalties, owing occasionally to laughter.

On a different topic, the Seahawks Monday added to the accumulation of unforced errors by unexpectedly firing their leading tackler, linebacker Tyrel Dodson. No explanation yet, but it follows the jettisoning two weeks earlier of their other starter at linebacker, Jerome Baker, who was dealt to Tennessee. That means the off-season decisions by football boss John Schneider to deem Dodson and Baker better than veterans Bobby Wagner and Jordyn Brooks were busts. For those Yankees fans scoring at home, that’s Schneider 0-for-4.

Returning to the topic of football criminality, the list of transgressions is, by itself, not a primary indicator of team failure. Fans may recall the golden days in Seattle under coach Pete Carroll, when yellow was the featured accent color. Those Seahawks, who won a Super Bowl, regularly were at or near the NFL lead in flags. They merely shrugged, passing it off as CDVB (cost of doing violent business).

But the Seahawks under Carroll’s rookie replacement, Mike Macdonald, are not a particularly violent bunch, except on those occasions when they squabble with one another.

 This year’s team tends to favor offensive holds, in which they lead the league at a 2.1 per-game average.The habit speaks to this roster’s profound weakness, the offensive line, and the point of this epistle’s recommendation to fans:

Stop blaming quarterback Geno Smith for what ails the Seahawks. That includes you, Geno.

The most recent debacle was the ghastly 26-20 overtime loss at home to the Los Angeles Rams, ruining perhaps the last best chance to win once in the six annual games against NFC West foes. The Seahawks had 12 penalties for 95 lost yards, and Smith was sacked seven times for 46 more lost  yards. But what many Seahawks fans will remember is that Smith had three interceptions, neatly negating three near-brilliant balls he threw for touchdowns.

The worst interception was returned 103 yards for a Rams touchdown — a record for both teams — a searing memory that has small children around Puget Sound weeping at 3 a.m. Smith committed the QB sin of throwing in full back-pedal while being pawed by a rusher. The play’s failure was in pass blocking, not Smith’s reflex desperation.

Yet in his post-game media session, Smith felt compelled to apologize to his teammates, organization and city.

“They put a lot of trust in me with my decision-making, and when they put the ball in my hands, when my teammates played the way they played today and gave us a shot to win, I’ve got to make sure we do,” he said. “The mistakes that I made, they affected us negatively and really cost us the game.”

No, Geno. No need to apologize. A nice gesture, misplaced. Not at 34 after 12 NFL seasons.

Especially after leading a drive to a touchdown with 51 seconds left that tied a seemingly lost game, then doing nearly the same with the first possession of overtime. The drive reached the Rams’ 16-yard line, where the Seahawks needed one yard in two tries for a first down. They chose to run twice, failed twice, and the Rams took possession on downs. QB Matthew Stafford needed just four plays to go 83 yards for the game-winning TD pass.

“If we don’t get the ball right there, we don’t get a chance,” Stafford said. “The defense did a hell of a job getting us the ball back.”

Smith put the Seahawks in position to win a game they had no business winning, then the Seahawks lost the game they had no business losing because they went away from Smith and couldn’t execute a basic element of football — running for one yard.

The line’s failures are partly due to injuries. The sixth-round rookie draftee at right tackle, Michael Jerrell, is a fourth-string replacement who has no business starting in the NFL. Seems cruel to even mention him. Center Connor Williams and guards Laken Tomlinson and Anthony Bradford are below average. Only LT Charles Cross is holding up. A once highly regarded third-round draftee, guard Christian Haynes, wasn’t even on the active roster for the Rams game. Cumulatively, Pro Football Weekly ranks the group 29th of 32, and I shudder to think what’s happening with the bottom-three lines of the Raiders, Titans and Patriots.

In a game that emphasizes error reduction, the O-line is the one unit that requires the most repetition, cohesion, consistency and nuance, especially when the Seahawks operate so much from the shotgun formation. Those qualities are why the learning curve is steep and any problems are nearly impossible to fix with an in-season trade. No O-linemen were traded by anyone ahead of the NFL’s trade deadline last week.

As the Yankees established, even the best have streaks of serial screw-ups. The San Francisco 49ers, the Seahawks’ opponents Sunday, had a wild finish at Tampa Bay when the defense was penalized on three consecutive plays, which set up the Bucs for a game-tying field goal. But 44 seconds were left, which was enough time for QB Brock Purdy and the Niners’ quality O-line to hit on a 44-yard field goal and win, 23-20.

Basically, the Seahawks are stuck for the rest of the season. It’s hard to game-plan around a unit mostly incapable of consistency. Then again, fans have seen Schneider’s O-line evaluation weakness for some time now. Macdonald was hoping it was an anomaly, but it’s looking more like a tradition.

For which Smith needn’t apologize.