The Seattle Seahawks (4-4) are in massive trouble after losing 34-17 at Lumen Field on Monday Night Football to the Chicago Bears (6-2). The reigning champions didn’t muster anywhere near enough on offense to take down Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams. The difference between the two teams’ offensive quality is staggering. For example, neither team ran effectively, but with Chicago they executed in key situations like third down (7-15) and in the redzone (4-4) on the way to scoring 34 points. Several times the Seahawks looked outmatched, tired, hesitant and short on confidence. Those are traits not associated with a Mike Macdonald defense, yet Caleb and head coach/play-caller Ben Johnson feasted on the dark side. Simply put, it was an ugly, ugly night for the much heralded defense and that’s not even talking about the dreadful offensive display, outside of Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

Scoring points is the name of the game and Chicago does it well under Caleb Williams – 30.8 PPG when he starts in 2026. Last season, Seattle gave up the fewest point. This season, they are still in the top-10, but just barely. When the standards fall even just a hare or two, opposing teams can and will take advantage, especially teams with as potent a quarterback and play-caller combo as the Bears possess. When they eventually score, the Seattle offense has two jobs. One, score the damn ball. Two, put together as long a drive as possible and allow the defense to recharge, and more importantly, make in-game adjustments. New offensive coordinator Brian Fleury failed both jobs spectacularly. In 11 Seahawks drives the offense went 5 or fewer plays on 8 of them. Now, 2 of the drives did result in touchdown, but the circumstances matter. One occurred on an up-tempo drive inside the 2-minute warning, when a Bears DB peeked in the backfield and JSN smoked him for a 43-yard TD. The other came as a result of a Colson Loveland fumble, where Demarcus Lawrence punched it out and made the recovery at the Bears 25, giving Sam Darnold and the offense a short field. Outside of those 2 very dependent situations, the offense was very poor. It was nice to see Zach Charbonnet back on the field after his torn ACL in the divisional round against San Francisco. Major kudos to him for working his ass off to get back as quickly as he has. He finished the night with 23 yards on 6 carries and 6 yards on 3 receptions, which is just fine considering he’s working back into game shape. The real question was how would 1st round pick Jadarian Price look after coming off the chest injury and 4-game layoff. Unfortunately, he didn’t show much life and finished with 29 yads on 10 carries and 8 yards on 2 receptions. It’s not quite time to sound the bust klaxon, but Price had to hit the ground running (literally) if the Seahawks had any hope of a repeat Super Bowl. So far, he’s been massively underwhelming. Seattle GM John Schneider has to take culpability for the failed pick if things continue to trend badly. Maybe drafting for need, at a position where you can find talent in later rounds, compounded with the fact Price wasn’t even the main back on his college team, which is a massive red flag. Expecting, and projecting, a part-time college player to step up in his rookie season and become an NFL bell cow is just bad process. And not a mistake a seasoned NFL GM like Schneider should be making. The decision to let Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III walk in free agency looks worse and worse each passing week, especially when his replacement isn’t up to the challenge.

The other dirty little secret (not really) is how dependent the Seahawks are on Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The guy is simply amazing and possibly unstoppable. He leads the league with 985 receiving yards and 9 receiving TD’s, and he’s 2nd with 64 receptions. If Seattle had to replace him with a league average WR the offense would be borderline unwatchable. Also, the difference between WR1 and WR2 might be the biggest in the NFL: JSN 985 yards vs. Cooper Kupp 203 yards. OUCH. Rashid Shaheed signed a 3-year, $51 million dollar contract in the offseason and was expected to have a larger role in the offense after being acquired midseason in 2025. So far in 7 games, he’s at 163 yards on 16 receptions and 0 TD’s. JSN has such a gravitational pull, with defenses slanting their coverage towards him, it should be easy to build an offense for the other pass catchers to get involved. Instead, Brian Fleury and Sam Darnold are only looking his way most of the time and giving everyone else the scraps. If the offensive imbalance doesn’t get righted then I fear this team might miss the playoffs completely.

Next up for the 4-4 Seahawks is a trip to the desert to face the 3-5 Arizona Cardinals, who are coming off an improbable win. Cardinals QB Jacoby Brissett was benched late in the third quarter, with former WSU QB Gardner Minshew II coming in to throw for 188 yards on 17/23 attempts and 3 TD’s. The bearded man provided a needed spark and led them to victory over the Dallas Cowboys. After such a sparkling performance, Matt LaFleur opted to name him the starter for their matchup against Seattle. Nothing less than a win for the Seahawks will do, if not changes need to be made immediately.