The Seattle Seahawks’ season is coming to an end after falling just shy of a playoff berth.
Seattle Seahawks place two on IR, make additions for season finale
Seattle needed help from others late in the year to reach the playoffs for a third straight season, but that help didn’t happen for the second year in a row.
The Seahawks do have a chance to make some history this weekend in their season finale against the Los Angeles Rams, just not necessarily the kind they would like to make. If they beat the Rams on Sunday, they’d be the first team to finish a season with 10 wins and miss the playoffs since the NFL playoffs expanded to 14 teams in 2020.
As the Seahawks wrap up a second consecutive year of coming oh-so-close to a playoff berth, former NFL wide receiver Michael Bumpus, co-host Stacy Rost and producer Curtis Rogers discussed what they felt were the biggest mistakes the team made this season during Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy.
An unfortunate whiff on the OL
In an attempt to shore up one of their biggest weaknesses, the Seahawks signed veteran center Connor Williams to a one-year deal at the start of training camp. Williams, who had also played guard during six prior seasons in the NFL, was thought of as clear upgrade for Seattle on the interior of the offensive line at the time. Pro Football Focus graded Williams as its fourth-best center in 2022 and its second-best center in 2023, but there was some risk involved with the veteran coming off a torn ACL suffered in December of 2023.
The deal ended the position battle that was going on at center between second-year pro Olu Oluwatimi and former UW Huskies standout Nick Harris, and Harris was subsequently traded back to Cleveland for a seventh-round pick in 2026.
Unfortunately for the Seahawks, the deal didn’t work out. Williams was inconsistent at best and notably had struggles with shotgun snaps. He then abruptly retired due to personal reasons during the team’s Week 10 bye. Oluwatimi took over at center and has started every games since.
“I know why they did it, because Connor was a veteran, he played multiple positions,” Bumpus said. “They’re thinking, ‘Hey, we can move him around if need be. We want Olu to learn behind Connor.’ And they didn’t know he was going to retire, but we’re talking hindsight, right? He did retire. He seemed like he would bring a veteran presence. From what I saw, it didn’t seem like he had that camaraderie with the offensive line. He would make a mistake (and) the body language would be bad. He just walked to the sideline, he didn’t seem like he really cared and kind of seemed like he was just going through the motions.”
“I always think about ‘how much better would Olu be right now if he were getting those reps earlier in the season?’” Bumpus added. “That was the second time they brought somebody in to compete with him. Nick Harris was there earlier, and then the year before they brought someone else in. It was almost like they tried to do everything to keep Olu from getting that starting job. So I got to go with Connor because you expected a lot from him on the field, off the field, in the locker room, and I don’t think you got much.”
An area where Seattle Seahawks could have done more
With Bumpus looking at the offensive line, Rost looked for less-talked about area where the team could have improved more.
“I always automatically go, whenever I talk about this team this year, to the offensive line,” Rost said. “I think you’re right (about center). I’m trying to think outside of that. Maybe really missing on tight end. I don’t know that that’s the single greatest mistake, but missing on tight end (hurts).”
The Seahawks reconstructed their tight end room quite a bit in the offseason. After Will Dissly and Colby Parkinson left in free agency, they drafted AJ Barner in the fourth round and signed veteran blocking specialist Pharaoh Brown. Seattle also re-signed Noah Fant to a two-year deal.
Bumps pointed out that there did appear to be a plan in place at tight end.
“I think they felt like Noah Fant is dynamic,” Bumpus said. “He’s better with the football in his hands then his hand in the dirt blocking, and I think they brought in AJ Barner thinking, ‘OK, we have a one-two combo.’ And then you bring in Pharaoh Brown to be the muscle.”
It didn’t work out as they expected.
“The season starts and Noah Fant is banged up, Pharaoh isn’t doing exactly what you want him to do, and AJ looks like a rookie at times,” Bumpus said. “I look at the combination and it makes sense. Dynamic Fant, growing AJ and bruiser Brown. It just didn’t really mesh.”
Offseason misses at linebacker
After Bobby Wagner, Jordyn Brooks and Devin Bush left in free agency, the Seahawks’ linebacker room was mostly empty. Their answer was signing Tyrel Dodson and Jerome Baker to one-year deals to be the new starters. Neither were on the team by mid-November.
Dodson and Baker were both dealing with injuries in the offseason and didn’t get much time with the defense throughout offseason activities and training camp before the season. The inconsistent play by both linebackers early in the season was oftentimes a subject of conversation for the struggling defense.
The Seahawks traded Baker in a deal for new starting linebacker Ernest Jones IV on Oct. 23. They cut Dodson, the team’s leading tackler at the time, on Nov. 11 and moved rookie Tyrice Knight into the starting lineup. Seattle is 5-2 and the defense has looked much improved with Jones and Knight starting together.
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“They did fix it. Ernest Jones, hopefully, is here for quite a while, and then Tyrice Knight filled in greatly after they moved on from Jerome Baker and Tyrel Dodson,” Rogers said. “But I think we all had big concerns about the linebacking group heading into the year, and it all kind of came true. That was that was tough to watch, and it took them a while to dig themselves out of that hole. … They were really good after they figured it out.”
Listen to the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Tune in to Bump and Stacy weekdays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.
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