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The Seahawks play Sunday to avoid what would be only the sixth 0-3 in the team's history. Only five of the 173 teams have already started the season with three straight losses.
Any other questions hovering over the Seahawks – Can they advance the game? Can Brian Schottenheimer find a way to get the most out of Russell Wilson? – will begin to become questionable if Seattle did not beat Dallas on Sunday.
"I will not give them a cliché (answer)," said linebacker Bobby Wagner this week to the importance of Sunday's game. "You do not want to be 0-3."
No, you do not want you to want to play the playoffs and the season makes sense, because the history of the NFL has proven time and time again.
Being 0-2 – as the Seahawks are now – is quite difficult.
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Since the NFL expanded to 32 teams and set up its current playoff format in 2002, only 11% of teams that started 0-2 have made the playoffs. One of them was the 2015 Seahawks. But already, there are only nine players left on this list, making it difficult to really feel in the same team.
But 0-3?
At that time, the Seahawks could simply forget it.
According to Oddsshark.com, 173 teams have started a season of 0 to 3 since 1980. Only five have participated in the playoffs. One of these came in the 1982 strike season – the Tampa Bay Bucs – when the NFL changed the playoff format and 16 of the 28 teams made the playoffs.
No team has done so since the Buffalo Bills in 1998, which were forced due to an injury suffered by Rob Johnson with Doug Flutie at quarterback position in mid-season. Flutie led a 7-3 final that allowed the Bills to become a wildcard game.
Five teams started 0-3 last year and only one managed a winning record – the Chargers, who started 0-4 before finishing 9-7.
The other four finished at 16-48 (and yes, the Browns accounted for 16 of those losses).
Of the 168 teams that started 0-3 in 1980 and did not play in the playoffs, the 1990 Seahawks moved closer.
The Seahawks are one of only five players in 42 years to start 0-3.
The other four are the first two seasons of 1976 and 1977, as well as those of 1996 and 2002 (the infamous 2-14 team of 1992 won their third game against New England, as it proved the difference in being able to write either Drew Bledsoe or Rick Mirer the following spring).
The 1990 team rallied to finish 9-7 and needed only a Houston team playing with a quarterback after an injury to Warren Moon who had to lose the last day of the season to qualify for the playoffs. Instead, Cody Carlson led the Oilers to a win and Seattle stayed home.
This Seahawks team had a similarity to this first: early struggles establishing an offensive identity after a dead season to talk about changing it.
It was the first year of the post-Steve Largent era – and also the first without Curt Warner – and coach Chuck Knox decided to implement some aspects of the race, at the time the new novelty, in the Seattle offensive. It was disastrous for Seattle to be excluded in Chicago on opening day, 17-0 (I think it's familiar?). During the third week, Knox had practically abandoned him to return to the team's former offensive and the Seahawks had lost, winning six of their last eight games.
But the harm was done, proving that Wagner was right 28 years in advance, that you do not want to be 0-3.
Seattle has started 0-2 twice in the last eight seasons of Pete Carroll – in 2011 and, as we noted in 2015 – both teams also started two road games before winning at home the third week.
The 2011 team, second in Carroll, recovered to finish 7-9, winning five of their last eight meetings.
In 2015, Kam Chancellor ended his loss after the 0-2 start, making the NFL's best defense – the last of four consecutive defenses in Seattle that would lead the least points in the mid-season league. more than a quick pass game leads to an 8-2 final.
But these were at different times – the beginning of the ascent and what was still basically the climax of the Carroll era.
Seattle is now either re-tooling – the team's favorite phrase – or rebuilding, the term used by almost everyone.
A Sunday defeat against a rather mediocre Dallas team would clearly show that it is more of a reconstruction than a reorganization.
And if that happened, then the questions would go to what the future reserves to Carroll – who is still two years old on his contract – and maybe even Wilson, who also has two years on his contract last week . that his long-term future with the team remains "uncertain".
Admittedly, there were still 13 games to show that the reconstruction could still be fast.
But with another game on the road next week in Arizona – the Cardinals look terrible, but a road match is a road match in the NFL – then a Rams tour then a trip to London to play with the Raiders . late very early for Seattle, making Sunday more important than any match in the history of the Seahawks.
"It will not be easy," said Wagner. "I think that's what kids learn – this game is not easy. Nobody is going to roll and let you win because you have Seahawks on your behalf. "
Sunday can prove that these are just Seahawks in name only.
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