Field Gulls
Last week, after the Seattle Seahawks bye, many national media sites quickly forgot about the Seahawks, either keeping them pat or moving them down their rankings. However, with the complete dismantling of the Washington Commanders on Sunday Night Football, plus the new addition of wide receiver, Rashid Shaheed, has the national media woken up to viewing the Seahawks as legitimate Super Bowl contenders?
Well, as the Sunday Night Football broadcast team said, had this beat down of the Commanders happened at 1 P.M. Eastern, people likely would have shrugged the strong victory for the Seahawks off. However, since it was in primetime, there is no excuse for the national audience to ignore how serious of a team this Seahawks team is. This weeks power rankings reflect that as well. All five national media sites polled (NFL.com, Pro Football Talk, Bleacher Report, ESPN, and CBS Sports) moved Seattle up, with three of them moving Seattle into the top six of the league.
Let’s start with the lowest rankings and make our way up. ESPN has been optimistic about the Seahawks all season. Despite this, they rank Seattle the lowest of the five national media sites polled. After having the Seahawks at 11th last week, ESPN has moved Seattle up to 9th . Looking forward at the rest of the schedule for the Seahawks, ESPN points to the two games against the Los Angeles Rams (who they rank ahead of Seattle at 5th) as the most important games left for Seattle. Curiously, for the Rams, ESPN does not list the Seahawks’ games as their most important games left on their schedule. Pro Football Talk (PFT) this week moved Seattle up from 9th to 8th on their list. PFT also moved the Rams up to 1st in their power rankings, and has the Seahawks as the 6th best team in the NFC, behind the Rams (1), Lions (4), Eagles (5), Packers (6), and Buccaneers (7). Despite this, PFT hammers down the point that the Seahawks cannot lose on the road . . . so will being a wildcard team really hurt them come January?
The national media site that moved the Seahawks the most this week was Bleacher Report, who moved Seattle up five spots, from 11 to 6. Bleacher Report calls Seattle the “best NFL team that isn’t getting mentioned as one of the best team in the NFL.” With Sam Darnold playing the best football of his career, with a top ten defense, and with only one game in their next five against a team with a winning record (the Rams), Seattle could be fighting for the best record in the NFC.
Both NFL.com and CBS Sports have the Seahawks in the top three of the league. NFL.com has been high on Seattle for a while, however CBS Sports, who moved the Seahawks from 7th to 3rd , are joining in on the Seahawks as contenders conversation. In their ranking, CBS Sports praises both Mike Macdonald and Sam Darnold on their...
