Four Downs with Bob Condotta: Answering 4 questions after Week 7 win at Chargers

Another week, another win for your surprising Seattle Seahawks.

And when is the last time anyone really said that?

A team saddled with expectations of their own making for the last decade now is thriving in a season without any of them.

Can the Seahawks stay in first place? And what are a few numbers that explain why they are where they are?

Those questions and more are addressed in our weekly Four Downs review of the game that was with Seahawks beat reporter Bob Condotta.

So, can the Seahawks really win the NFC West?

Well, of course there’s a long way to go — 10 games remain in the new 17-game world of the NFL.

But as Russ … er, that guy who used to be Seattle’s QB always said, Why Not Us?

The 49ers on paper seem to have the best roster in the division. But is Jimmy G. really better than Geno Smith at this stage? Good quarterbacking makes up for an awful lot.

The Rams may be the defending Super Bowl champs, but they can’t run the ball and aren’t much better at passing it, two things that usually matter quite a bit.

And it’s hard to take Arizona too seriously right now other than as a team with a lot of good pieces but can never put them all together.

With the collapse of Tampa Bay and the fade of the Rams, there’s only one game left on Seattle’s schedule that you look at and go “yeah, they are going to have a really tough tome winning that one” — and that’s on Christmas Eve at Kansas City.

Just consider the next few weeks.

Yes, the Giants come to town at 6-1. But they also have had an awful lot of good fortune so far.

Each of their six wins have been by eight points or fewer, five of which featured a second-half comeback and four of which featured a fourth-quarter comeback. That’s got to end eventually, right?

Then comes another game at Arizona — hey, we saw how that went the first time — and then the trip to Munich against a Tom Brady-led Tampa Bay team that seems to be aging before our eyes.

It may be premature for Seahawks country to think about riding into the playoffs.

But it’s not outlandish.

Is Kenneth Walker III really that good?

It appears so.

Some scoffed when Seattle drafted Walker 41^st overall, many noting that good running backs can often be found in later rounds — a la, Chris Carson taken in the seventh — and that it doesn’t necessarily make sense to spend an early-round pick on a running back as a result.

Consider Walker the counterpoint to that argument.

Seattle drafted Walker for his durability and home-run ability, and he showed some of both Sunday. Walker had three runs of 15 yards or longer Sunday — or, more than the Chargers had as a team — capped off by his 74-yard TD that sealed the game.

He also played 52 of a possible 71 snaps, with his 74-yarder coming on his final carry of the game. If that’s not the Pete Carroll way to win games, I don’t know what is.

Many who argue teams shouldn’t draft running backs high point to economics and that paying big on a running back often doesn’t pay off. Conversely, Walker, has a cap hit this year of just $1.534 million. It’s hard to argue he’s not worth it.

Can the defense really keep this up?

OK, I was admittedly skeptical of Seattle’s defensive turnaround against Arizona given that it was just one game, at home and against a struggling offense.

But a second good game, on the road, against an offense that had some impressive numbers on its resume, makes it all feel a bit more real.

And there have been some pretty substantial tangible changes along the way — notably, allowing the linemen to be more aggressive at the point of attack and going with Ryan Neal as the other starter at safety alongside Quandre Diggs ahead of Josh Jones. Neal keyed Sunday’s win with an interception and helping to make the tackle on the Chargers’ fourth-down run on the first series. He finished with a team-high grade of 93.9 from Pro Football Focus.

We’ll see how the Seahawks fare once other teams have a chance to adapt to what Seattle is doing now defensively. But the Seahawks under Carroll have a track record of getting a lot better defensively as the year goes on, and this season seems to be sticking to that pattern.

And can the offense really keep this up?

Sunday marked a return to form for the offense after the 19-point game against Arizona.

Seattle has now scored 32 or more in three of its last four games and is averaging 26.1 points for the season. That’s not far off being on the list of the best offenses for an entire year in team history — the 2020 team, in which the Seahawks indeed Let Russ Cook for much of the year, scored the most points in team history at 28.6 per game.

But here are a few other stats that illustrate how prolific the offense has been so far.

— The Seahawks have punted just 21 times in seven games, far below the average for the fewest punts in a season. Seattle’s lowest average for fewest punts in a season is 3.8 in 1987, 2002 and 2020.

— The Seahawks are also now averaging 6.3 yards per play for the season after averaging 6.4 against the Chargers. The team record is 5.89 in 2014.

— And the Seahawks are now averaging 5.52 yards per rush. That would shatter the team record of 5.26 set in 2014 which was the best rushing season of Wilson’s career (he had 849 yards and averaged 7.2 per carry) and Marshawn Lynch’s last full and healthy year as a Seahawk.

In six quarters, we’ll be at the halfway point of the NFL season.

That seems like deep enough into the year at this point to conclude that nothing Seattle is doing is a fluke.