By the simplest measure, wins and losses, the Seattle Seahawks did not get any better in 2023.
The Seahawks went 9-8 for a second straight year. The difference between 2022 and 2023 being that their record in 2022 was good enough for a postseason berth.
That was not the case this season, and Seattle will be watching the 14 teams still in the hunt for a Super Bowl title from home. However, after declaring that he intends to return to coach in 2024, head coach Pete Carroll insisted he felt the Seahawks had gotten closer to competing for the title again.
“Yeah, I do [feel that way]. It’s so clear,” he told Seattle Sports on Monday.
“We’ve improved. We’ve got some guys in situations that have helped us and we should grow and we should we should come together in even a more powerful way.
“This team’s got a future. This team has got a real future. And not everybody can say that. They don’t know. There’s nothing to keep us from thinking that. It’s an exciting outlook for the future, and we’ll see what happens
Carroll’s viewpoint is somewhat understandable, the Seahawks are a young team and saw several of their rookies make an impact in 2023, with fifth overall pick Devon Witherspoon making the Pro Bowl after a stellar season. Their other first-round pick, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, perhaps didn’t have the desired influence, though he did make some big plays down the stretch, while Zach Charbonnet showed sporadic promise as the number two back behind Kenneth Walker III.
Yet quarterback Geno Smith, in part due to missing two games through injury, saw a drop-off in almost all of his counting stats and efficiency metrics from his Comeback Player of the Year campaign of 2022. His completion percentage dropped dramatically from a league-leading 69.8 in 2022 to 64.7 this season.
Those dips came despite Smith ending the year seventh in Completion Percentage Over Expectation with a CPOE of 2.2, per NextGen Stats, and did not prevent him leading a league-high four fourth-quarter comebacks and five game-winning drives.
The dichotomy between Smith’s numbers and his accuracy and performance in the clutch is indicative of a quarterback swimming against the tide and having to overcome his supporting cast rather than being assisted by it.
