Entering Week 7, the Seattle Seahawks continued their downslide in the national power rankings
after dropping their second game in a row to the Denver Broncos. Now, after an impressive, dominant victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, how much will the Seahawks bounce back in power rankings? Let’s take a look at five national media sites (NFL.com, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report (B/R), Pro Football Talk (PFT), and ESPN) to see where they rank Seattle.Let’s start with the lowest rankings. Despite the dominant
victory, PFT still kept the Seahawks ranked number 7. PFT did not provide much reasoning, although they did ask whether Seattle’s defense can repeat their same performance last week against Caleb Williams next week. B/R also ranked the Seahawks as 7th best, however this was two spots up from last week. B/R brought light to the dominant defensive performance by Seattle, however they also noted the flaws they have on offense – particularly the interception woes by Sam Darnold along with the struggling running game. It would be interesting how B/R’s ranking and analysis would have changed had they known about the recent trade acquisition of offensive guard Quenton Nelson.
CBS sports moved the Seahawks up one spot, from 7 to 6. Contrary to B/R, CBS Sports was positive about the running game, noting that the “running game came alive [and] that’s a must for this team’s offense to succeed.” ESPN also moved Seattle up one spot, from 6 to 5. In their rankings this week, ESPN talked about each team’s biggest offseason addition. This is awfully ironic considering Quenton Nelson being acquired just a few hours later. Nonetheless, for Seattle, ESPN mentioned running back Emanuel Wilson as the team’s best offseason addition. In their reasoning, ESPN notes that Wilson has helped keep the struggling run game afloat.
The highest ranking the Seahawks earned this week was from NFL.com who moved Seattle up two spots from 6 to 4. In their ranking, NFL.com explains that the team was able to put together the “blueprint the 12s know and love”, one consisting of a strong run game, Jaxon Smith-Njigba terrorizing the other team, and a defense that completely shuts down the opposing team’s offense.
Overall the national landscape seems to be cautiously optimistic about the team. The remaining doubts are all around the offense. It would be interesting to see how much any of these opinions would change with the recent trade for Quenton Nelson. Entering Week 7, the average power rankings between the five polled sites was 7.8. Entering Week 8, that average has risen to 5.8. Next week the Seahawks face the 5-2 Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football. Time will tell whether Seattle will be able to continue their positive momentum.
