Seahawks head to Kansas City for game that could decide what rest of season looks like

SEATTLE – To find out where the rest of their season is headed, the Seahawks will first go to Kansas City, Missouri.

What happens there during Saturday’s game against the Chiefs figures to go a long way toward setting their direction. Kickoff is at 10 a.m. Seattle time.

Can the Seahawks pull off an upset that would turn their playoff odds from unlikely to likely, or at least avoid the blowout that the oddsmakers expect and take some momentum into the final two weeks of the season?

Or will the Seahawks falter in the wake of losing four of their past five, including three in a row at home? They’ll be without receiver Tyler Lockett and safety Ryan Neal because of injuries – team leaders playing as well as they have who leave huge voids going against a Chiefs team (11-3) tied for the NFL’s second-best record.

“It’s really important for us to go out there and get a win,” Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith said. “It’s a crucial part of our season. We’ve got three games left to figure out what we are going to do here.”

Not that anyone expects a win.

The Seahawks are a 10-point underdog, which would tie for the biggest spread against the Seahawks in the past decade.

The Seahawks were 10-point underdogs for a game against the Rams in Los Angeles in 2018. If there’s a good omen, the Seahawks played competitively in that one, leading entering the fourth quarter before losing 36-31.

The last time the Seahawks were more than a 10-point underdog came in 2011 – the year before Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner arrived – when they were 11-point dogs at Dallas, a game the Cowboys won 23-13.

“This is a great one,” Carroll acknowledged when asked about the challenge of facing the Chiefs, who have been regarded as a Super Bowl contender and are led by quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who may be the favorite for the NFL MVP. “This is arguably the best that the AFC has to offer. They will be playing for it to prove that.”

The Seahawks don’t figure to catch the Chiefs napping. For one, the Chiefs are coming off an uneven performance last week at Houston, needing overtime to stave off the 1-12-1 Texans 30-24 due in part to two lost fumbles.

While Kansas City has clinched the AFC West, it must keep winning to clinch the top seed in the AFC. The Chiefs are tied with Buffalo for the spot.

The stakes may be even higher for the Seahawks.

Their playoff odds have gone from more than 80% when they were 6-3 to 30%, according to fivethirtyeght.com, after losing four of five to fall to 7-7 and to the eighth spot in the NFC playoff ladder. The top seven teams make the playoffs.

An unexpected victory against the Chiefs would lift those odds to 67%, according to fivethirtyeight.com, and a loss would drop them to 23%.

A loss coupled with a win by Detroit at Carolina would drop the Seahawks to ninth on the NFC playoff ladder behind the Lions and to just 17%.

The Seahawks are tied with Detroit at 7-7 but have the upper hand because they beat the Lions 48-45 in Detroit on Oct. 2, giving them the head-to-head tiebreaker.

“Who’s to say?” Carroll said, acknowledging the perception of being an underdog. “We are going to go out there and try to get the ballgame. It will teach us a lot. We will know a lot more about ourselves when we play this football game.”

As much as staying in the playoff hunt, what the Seahawks must do is play well enough to feel good about themselves entering the final two home games against the Jets on Jan. 1 and the Rams on either Jan. 7 or Jan. 8. They hope to end what until the past few weeks had been a mostly feel-good season on a feel-good note.

When the season began, the playoffs seemed a remote possibility at best, with the Seahawks appearing to be rebuilding following the trade of Wilson.

Instead, Smith’s play, coupled with the quick emergence of a promising rookie class, had Seattle atop the NFC West at midseason.

Reality has hit with a resounding thud since the trip to Munich, and a loss to Tampa Bay kick-started the recent skid, one that has been marked by struggles running the ball and defending the run, and making just a few too many mistakes to pull out wins in the end.

The Dec. 15 loss to the 49ers ended any hopes of winning the division and encapsulated what has happened to the Seahawks since the 6-3 start. The 49ers capitalized on a turnover to get one easy touchdown and took advantage of a simple breakdown in pass coverage to score another.

Take those two plays out, and the Seahawks felt they could have won the game. But that underscores the thin the margin for error, a margin that will be slimmer on the road against the Chiefs and without Lockett and Neal.

Saturday brings the added complication of adverse weather, with a high temperature forecast of just 19 degrees, making this one of colder games in Seahawks history.

“We have to play a great football game,” Carroll said this week. “That doesn’t mean we have to kill them; we have to do right throughout. So that’s really what we are trying to do across the board – don’t give them this play and that play in a tight ballgame. It will make it harder to get the win.”

It already figures to be hard enough.