SEATTLE — As it stands, the Seattle Seahawks are among the top seven teams in the National Football Conference (NFC), meaning they'd be in the playoffs.
The season is already a rousing success, with Vegas oddsmakers projecting this team for five or six wins.
Seattle has exceeded those expectations with five pivotal games left to play. Four games will be at Lumen Field and three will be against potential playoff teams.
The Seahawks are hanging on by the thinnest margins, though. Just a fraction separates the 7-5 Seahawks from the 7-5-1 Washington Commanders in the wild card standings. The division-leading San Francisco 49ers are one game ahead.
December is shaping up to be an important month for the Seahawks.
Same as it always was.
Game info
- Matchup: Seahawks (7-5) vs. Panthers (4-8)
- Time: Sunday, 1:25 p.m.
- Location: Lumen Field, Seattle
- Key Seahawks: Geno Smith (QB), DK Metcalf (WR), Tariq Woolen (CB)
- Key Panthers: Sam Darnold (QB), D'Onta Foreman (RB), DJ Moore (WR)
Trap game?
The next three games represent tough tests for the Seahawks. The Dec. 15 nationally televised tilt against the 49ers could decide the NFC West Division. Then Seattle travels to Kansas City for a Christmas Eve game they will be heavy underdogs in. A home game against the Jets, weeks after a quarterback change that invigorated the team, isn't easy either.
This is a long way of saying: There are all the elements of a "trap game" in place this week for the favored Seahawks at home.
If the Seahawks overlook the visiting Panthers, who are somehow still in play for the NFC Division with a lowly 4-8 record, it would be a costly loss with the team's margin of error for the postseason so slim.
Panthers still searching for a quarterback
Carolina has been one of the more aggressive teams in the quarterback market for a year now.
They've done so with little success. Its plan to upgrade the league's most important position started with trading three draft picks to the Jets for Sam Darnold, who flopped in his opportunity as the starting quarterback in 2021. The No. 3 pick in the 2018 NFL Draft had more interceptions (13) than passing touchdowns (nine) in 12 games.
The next offseason, Carolina aggressively pursued Deshaun Watson, who ended up signing a five-year, $230 million contract with Cleveland instead. The Panthers' next pivot was trading another draft pick for Baker Mayfield, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.
Mayfield flopped too, throwing seven touchdowns and tossing six interceptions in eight games this year. He didn't even average 200 passing yards per game in his brief tenure. Carolina released Mayfield on Dec. 5, paving the way for... Darnold to start again.
It's been a circuitous route at the quarterback position for the Panthers. Now the team is right back to where it started, except its moves resulted in four fewer draft picks. These will hurt their team-building efforts in future years.
Unless the Panthers make a surprising playoff run in 2022, the plan will assuredly be to draft a quarterback in the 2023 NFL Draft. Right now, the Panthers would have the sixth overall pick, according to Tankathon.
Maybe a fourth time is a charm?
Game prediction
Seahawks 24, Panthers 14.
This is another game that the Seahawks should take care of business at home.