I'm strangely encouraged

While losing sucks, there were many things to like in the game tonight. The Seahawks battled their asses off. The defensive line and linebackers shut down the run (3 YPC). The offense was creative, had some positive running plays and displayed a quick passing game. 31 points will get it done against a lot of teams.

There were just a bunch of things going against the Seahawks. They started out short handed in the secondary and then lost their best corner very early in the 1st quarter. The Falcons have a great passing offense, which is a bad matchup for a depleted secondary, and made almost every throw and catch. Desmond Trufant intercepted a headshaking Russell Wilson pass that Trufant wasn't even watching. Pete Carroll had two highly questionable coaching decisions. Jeremy Lane had an INT bounce right off his hands. Honestly, other than Russell getting hurt, it's hard to imagine a worse start to the game than they had today.

They clearly aren't competing for a 1st round bye this year and a Super Bowl run is unlikely. However, if they can bring tonight's offense and effort to their remaining games, they can be right in it. Remember that they already beat the Rams and the Rams still have home games against New Orleans and Philadelphia at home and at Tennessee and at Seattle. It feels like 10-6 with a win over the Rams in Seattle could win the division.

The problem is that it's a little late in the season for things to just start clicking, especially when it still doesn't equal a win.

Maybe I'd be encouraged if I thought these small revelations would carry into next season, but every year things "click" late, and then we completely regress the next season, and have to learn the same lessons all over again. Enough is enough. It's too little too late, as seen in the score.

Sure, we could sneak into the Wild Care round, win that game, get smoked in the divisional round and it’s wash,
rinse repeat next year.

The O has a way of clicking only when it has to unfortunately. I'm more confident when the D gives up points early actually. Somehow, the O needs to play with that urgency even when the D is doing well.