Is it SB or bust?

What do we need to do to consider this season a success? Is this a Super Bowl or bust type year? Personally, considering that we took back the division, I would consider the season a success if we make the NFC title game.

With that said, it would be a lie to say I am not a little concerned for our future. We made a big commitment to winning now by trading those picks for Adams and Carson, Adams, Shaq, and more all have contracts expiring in the next 1-2 years. They will want to be paid big and we can't keep them all. With our top picks gone and cap space getting eaten, is our SB window closing? We will always be competitive with Russ and Pete on this team, but I am a little nervous for the future.

Put it all to bed and win it this year. That's all I want is another Hawks SB win for Pete and Russ. So they can finally put to bed the demons of that pick on the 1 yard line.

Divisional round at worst. I could be OK with that if the loss is in a hard-fought effort.

The Adams deal was huge by way of the what he cost the Hawks future . I gave up thinking about SB hopes before post season many years ago . Getting out of the SF game in the injury cursed stadium in AZ worries me more right now .

I think getting to the Super Bowl would be a big accomplishment. I think they need to take the next step and win at least 2 playoff games.

xray":6v2vu0wx said:

The Adams deal was huge by way of the what he cost the Hawks future . I gave up thinking about SB hopes before post season many years ago . Getting out of the SF game in the injury cursed stadium in AZ worries me more right now .

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Hawks haven’t drafted well for the most part in recent years.

The strategy now is, trade picks and raid other teams unhappy players and hope they fit Carroll’s scheme.

Fingers crossed!

I'm waffling between making it to the divisional round or the NFCCG as being what I consider a very good season. Hard to say. We certainly don't need to make the Super Bowl to consider the season successful, but it would obviously be nice.

I have a hard time looking at it on a season-be-season basis. If Russ starts clicking, and the defense keeps up the progress, it'd be hard to be pleased with anything less than the NFC Championship.

I see it as the Hawks should win at least 1-2 more 'Owls during Russ's tenure. Anything less would be a disappointment (especially for Russ).

I wonder about the front office's ability to keep Russ after his current deal if they don't make a significant bid for a championship in the next couple of seasons.

I'm always a SB or bust, moreover, I'm a Lombardi or bust type of fan. Since 1976, the only time an NFL season has ended in which I achieved total satisfaction was in February of 2014.

Realistically, I think we survive our first round game but will lose in the divisional round or the NFCCG. I can't see anyone stopping the Packers.

RiverDog":1iuh7dey said:

I'm always a SB or bust, moreover, I'm a Lombardi or bust type of fan. Since 1976, the only time an NFL season has ended in which I achieved total satisfaction was in February of 2014.

Realistically, I think we survive our first round game but will lose in the divisional round or the NFCCG. I can't see anyone stopping the Packers.

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Erin folds like a house of cards if he has to play from behind. If we start off aggressive on offense and also blitz heavily and creatively at the beginning, we could take a nice lead and never have to look back.

Yes, it is. There's no reason to think they can't win it all with the pieces they have in place now, and the way they are playing in general. Many less talented teams than the Hawks have won the SB. This is the year they turn the corner. This isn't the time for half measures or timidity. If not now, when? Time to go all in!

Obviously I always want to win the Super Bowl. But there are varying degrees of successful seasons in the NFL. For this season to be a success for the Seahawks, I think we need to see some progress. We haven't made it past the division round since 2014. We need to at least reach the NFC title game for me to call it a successful season.

Every fan will have his or her own expectation on this question, and it drives much of the disagreement on this board.

Each milestone has it's own degree/level of satisfaction for me. My expectations are rather low, as this is a tough league in which to play. Winning means everything comes together at the same time (health, roster, execution, play-calling, coaching, refs, ball-bounce, etc.)

1. Have a winning season? Accomplished this year, and some teams didn't. My expectation at a minimum has been met.
2. Win the division. If there's a 1 in 4 chance based on the number of teams in the division alone, then getting it once every 4 years would an appropriate expectation. We've won it more often than that in the last 20 years, so I'm pretty happy with the regular season generally.
3. High seed in the playoffs. Always been nice to get a bye in previous years, but it hasn't happened often for us. We still have a chance this year, and I'll be thrilled with 1st seed, and quite happy with 2nd or third.
4. Win a playoff game. This puts us in the top of the league. If we make postseason, I expect to win one game to be satisfied as a fan. It's hard to win in the post-season.
5. Make it to the NFCCG. That's a bonus for me.
6. Win NFCCG and go to super bowl. Beyond any expectations in any year, but always what I hope for.
7. Win super bowl. Cloud 9. So very hard to do, especially with the same coach and QB. The dream of every fan, and never an expectation.

Winning the Super Bowl is the perfect outcome, but that doesn't mean anything less than a Super Bowl win is without value.

Some fans work themselves up with nonsense about "SB or bust" because they feel bad about enjoying "meaningless" wins. They really shouldn't be so hard on themselves.

We all loved that win against the Rams last week and that will remain true whether we win this Super Bowl or not. Some enjoyment is better than no enjoyment, and there is even enjoyment to be had in terrible seasons if you can also play spoiler for a rival or see potential in your team that gives you hope for the future.

There have been many great memories over the years besides just the 2013 Super Bowl. Pretending that you feel the same way about every possible outcome other than a Super Bowl win isn't believable, but if I did believe it then I'd feel sorry for you.

Anything else will be disappointing. It always is. That's natural.

Once the air of disappointment wears off, I think it'll be hard to consider the season a failure, by any stretch. Another fantastic record, and we'll see what happens in the postseason.

I tend to not talk like that, because it implies if we don't win the SB, then we should tear everything down and start over from scratch. Obviously, we won't do that no matter what outcome. It's still the most successful regime in team history.

Erebus":fr0g6iev said:

Obviously I always want to win the Super Bowl. But there are varying degrees of successful seasons in the NFL. For this season to be a success for the Seahawks, I think we need to see some progress. We haven't made it past the division round since 2014. We need to at least reach the NFC title game for me to call it a successful season.

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Same

Just getting to the Super Bowl or winning it? I think one playoff win would be great. If we can win two that’s a bonus. If cards fall right I don’t think we can beat GB or NO. I could be wrong...we didn’t lose 5 in a row...

zchurch74":3p2476m4 said:

Just getting to the Super Bowl or winning it? I think one playoff win would be great. If we can win two that’s a bonus. If cards fall right I don’t think we can beat GB or NO. I could be wrong...we didn’t lose 5 in a row...

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:2thumbs:

I think the progression of the defense to an actual working component in the game is a factor in the season being satisfactory. As a previous poster said, we beat the Rams and that is no small task. They have always had our number and it has not been glorious.

For working points....I would hope for at least a Conference game to be decided in Seattle or New Orleans by both teams. Other than that, It was several hours of entertainment.

In my opinion, these are the four best teams in the NFC,

Packers.....12-3, #1 Offense 31.6 PPG, #16 Defense 23.5 PPG, +121 point differential
Saints........11-4, #4 Offense 29.9 PPG, #8 Defense 22.0 PPG, +119 point differential
Seahawks..11-4, #7 Offense 28.9 PPG, #13 Defense 23.2 PPG, +85 point differential
Bucs..........10-5 , #4 Offense 29.9 PPG, #7 Defense 21.9 PPG, +120 point differential

Standings and point differential taken from here,
https://www.nfl.com/standings/

Team stats taken from here,
https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team/_/t ... e/dir/desc
Yes, I use points per game instead of yards per game because I think ppg are a much better measure than yards when ranking offenses and defenses. I really don't care how many yards an offense racks up if they aren't scoring points, and I really don't care how many yards a defense is giving up if they aren't allowing points.

Packers, Saints, and Bucs all have top 5 offenses, and the Seahawks come in not far behind at #7. However, the Seahawks offense has taken a step or two back in the 2nd half of the season. The same can't be said for any of these other 3 teams in my opinion.

The Saint and Bucs both have top 10 defenses that have been consistently good for the most part (every team has hiccups) over the entire season. The Packers D has been consistently middle of the pack for the most part over the entire season. The Seahawks D started out absolutely horrible, but has improved tremendously over the past 7 weeks or so.

Interestingly, the Packers, Saints, and Bucs all have nearly identical point differentials at right about +120. While the Seahawks still have a very respectable point differential of +85, that still lags quite a bit behind the other 3 teams.

Obviously, there are dozens of others factors to consider, but I'm not going to get into each and every one in this post. To sum it up, at the end of the day, I keep coming to the conclusion that we are probably the 4th best team in the NFC behind the Packers, Saints, and yep, even the Bucs. Hopefully no one strokes out over that last one. I do think it's fairly close and I do think the Seahawks are capable of beating any of those teams, I just think it's fair to say that those teams are probably a bit better than we are.

So having said all that, back to the original question "What do we need to do to consider this season a success?"
The #1 priority of any team is to win the division. We've done that. There is some measure of success in that, in my opinion.

Next up would be winning a playoff game. At this point it looks like we're most likely going to be the #3 seed which would mean that we would be playing the #6 seed at home. Losing that game would be awfully disappointing and I think it would be fair to call that a failure. Winning would be some small measure of success, it's a playoff game after all, but this is one that we should win, so... yeah.

Then we have the divisional round. I think the most likely divisional matchups are Bucs@Packers and Seahawks@Saints. If we went into N.O. and beat the Saints in the playoffs, I'd have to consider that a pretty big success. If we lost that game I'm not sure I'd consider losing to a better team on the road in the playoffs a failure. As a Seahawks fan, of course it would be disappointing, but a failure? Not sure I could go that far.

Anything beyond the divisional round I'd have to consider a pretty big success, since as I've explained, I think we're most likely going to be playing better teams on the road going forward after the wildcard round.