Writing an article on the biggest disappointment for a team that is tied for first place in its division is not the easiest of assignments. The fact that almost no expert had the Seattle Seahawks in that position before the season began makes it even harder.
Now, consider that their suspect quarterback leads the league in QBR, they have the best receiver in the NFL, a top-ten scoring offense and a top-ten scoring defense, and that ESPN’s Steven A. Smith recently declared them the best team in the league, and, well, you see the problem, right?
Where can we possibly look for disappointment? I suppose if you were one of the fans who felt certain rookie [Jalen Milroe would be](https://12thmanrising.com/seattle-seahawks-risky-jalen-milroe-moves-turning-disaster) starting at QB by midseason, you could consider his relative invisibility a disappointment. It is actually a stroke of great fortune because Milroe is a long way off from being ready to take over a successful NFL team.
The Seattle Seahawks' biggest first-half disappointment was not a player
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You might quibble with another player's first half – [Elijah Arroyo has yet](https://12thmanrising.com/seattle-seahawks-just-unleashed-shocking-breakout-star) to do much – Julian Love has been injured – but those cause only the slightest concern at this point. I suspect both those players will contribute in the second half of the season.
So where can I possibly look for disappointment?
There is not a single player or coach who I would consider a major disappointment for Seattle this season. There is, however, a game.
The first game of the season. Back when we didn’t know what this team was going to look like. Seattle lost a rather ugly contest against the San Francisco 49ers. The score was close. The stats were not.
San Fran dominated the Hawks on the field, outgaining Sam Darnold and company 384 to 230. The 49ers held the ball for 38 minutes and shut down Seattle’s new run game with ease. Seattle’s defense hung tough on several occasions and intercepted Brock Purdy twice to keep things close. And San Francisco’s sloppy play – they committed nine penalties to Seattle’s four – also kept things in check.
Seattle took a lead late in the game when Jason Myers connected on a 37-yard field goal. On the play before, Cooper Kupp came up just short of a first down that would have changed the complexion of the final minutes. It was the first in a series of heartbreaking plays that resulted in the loss.
A few minutes later, Purdy hit Jake Tonges for a go-ahead touchdown. Yes, you read that right. Jake Tonges. The same Jake Tonges who entered the game with exactly zero catches in his NFL career and was only on the field because San Fran had lost their All-World tight end George Kittle to injury in the first half. That Jake Tonges.
But the game wasn’t over. Sam Darnold moved Seattle all the way down the field, hitting Jaxon Smith-Njigba with a beautiful 41-yard strike down the left sideline to move into the red zone with less than a minute to play. Then, with the game there for the taking, Darnold was hit in the pocket and fumbled. San Fran recovered, and the game was over in the blink of an eye.
Losing that game was certainly disappointing at the time. But there were some mitigating factors. Preseason hype had the 49ers roaring back to dominance after an injury-plagued 2024, while Seattle remained a great unknown. It was possible, in the aftermath of that game, for fans to say, “Well, we didn’t win, but we hung right in there with the big, bad San Francisco 49ers. We were competitive.”
With a half-season of corroborating evidence now in hand, we can say that Seattle is probably a better team than San Francisco and should have won that game. It was at home. Kittle went out early. For a team merely seeking respectability, maybe a close loss isn’t so bad.
For a team chasing a division title and more, losing any divisional home game is bad. In hindsight, this loss is more painful than it was at the time because the NFC West is likely to go right down to the wire, and losing a home game in the division is not easy to overcome.
Last year, the eight division winners had a combined 21-3 home record against divisional opponents. One of the three losses came in the final week of the season when the Hawks went down to LA and beat the Rams. The Rams had already secured the division at that point and played mostly backups.
The other two division winners who lost to rivals at home last year were Tampa Bay (who lost to Atlanta) and Houston (who fell to Tennessee). Note that the runners-up in those two divisions had losing records for the season. In other words, the divisions were not especially competitive.
That is not the case in the NFC West this year. Seattle will likely be battling it out with both the Rams and the 49ers right down to the wire. The priority in a tight division race is to defend your own house.
Seattle failed to do that in Week 1, and it may come back to bite them in the postseason. It probably will not keep the Hawks out of the playoffs, but that loss could very easily cost them a home playoff game.
That is why in an otherwise charmed season, it is the biggest disappointment of the first half of 2025.