Thomas Rawls, before the fall
Thomas Rawls, before the fall Corky Trewin, Seattle Seahawks

There will be no Super Bowl parade in Seattle this year. The Seahawks’ season ended in ignominious fashion Saturday at the Georgia Dome, as the Falcons beat the good men from Seattle 36-20. The occasionally inspired but mostly ramshackle jalopy that was this Seahawks season is now turned over in a ditch. Its wheels spinning as the engine runs, fuel leaking everywhere, driver and passengers staggering away, wondering what the hell happened?

Let’s autopsy this damn broken car:

• The broken axel on this otherwise workable Seahawks junker was of course whatever the hell was going on with the offensive line. And the tenuously repaired axel snapped in the NFC Divisional round when Rees Odhiambo was forced to come in for the injured Germain Ifedi. He proceeded to let Thomas Rawls get devoured by the Falcons defensive line and stepped on Russell Wilson’s foot leading to a game-altering safety. This needs to be fixed.

Does that mean moving on from Tom Cable? Probably only if he gets hired as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers (lol). Does that mean not starting two undrafted free agents at both tackle positions? Hopefully, although I don’t want to lay too much blame for this season at the unpracticed feet of left tackle George Fant, considering how egregiously inexperienced he was. I’d like to lay a decent chunk of blame on both Bradley Sowell and J’Marcus Webb, and a much larger chunk of blame on everyone in the Seahawks front office and coaching staff who thought that Webb and Sowell would qualify as sufficient protection for Russell Wilson this year.

• Michael Bennett was so good on Saturday, like a turbocharger on a great engine, and yet the Falcons did everything they could to take him out of the game. Despite having an offensive line that is, unlike the Seahawks’, capable of holding up in pass protection for more than one second, the Falcons game-planned around getting the ball out of Matt Ryan’s hands quickly. By speeding up the game, they minimized the impact Bennett could have, and force Steven Terrell to make decisions quickly in coverage. This strategy, to put it lightly, worked. The Seahawks defense was underwhelming all game long because by playing fast Atlanta was able to maximize the degree to which they were attacking the weakest links of the defense.

Also, apparently Bennett yelled at a reporter post game. I wish he didn’t, but I’m not gonna get worked up about it.

Also, yelling was Frank Clark after an altercation with Falcons running back Devonte Freeman. This I did get worked up about. Clark’s domestic violence history makes his on-field anger an issue that it wouldn’t otherwise be. I don’t really know what to do with this, except to link to Mina Kimes excellent piece on how to deal with the domestic violence history of Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill.

• Like the previously exceptional Honda Civic, which has, as the generations have gone on, gotten less perfect and larger for no particular reason, the Seahawks don’t have a perfect secondary anymore. The issue here has been a failure to restock the cabinets in the draft. I remember when Richard Sherman came off the bench for the Seahawks. And Kam Chancellor, and Walter Thurmond and Brandon Browner and Jeremy Lane (back when he was good) Byron Maxwell and DeShawn Shead. It seemed like if a Seahawks corner went down he would be replaced by someone way better. That’s no longer the case. As good as Neiko Thorpe and DeAndre Elliott were on special teams this season, they were not ready to play against a really good offense. And the less said about Terrell’s play in relief of Earl Thomas, the better. Where is cornerback of the future Tye Smith? I don’t know, but the future of the past is now the present and Tye Smith is not around.

The real lesson here is that while it seems like the Seahawks haven’t invested draft capital in their secondary, they have. Earl Thomas was a very high first round pick. Even if they slid in the draft, Kam and Richard were drafted, not found on the scrap heap. The Seahawks have to draft a couple guys this year to play the DB position even if DeShawn Shead can play next year. And if he can’t, they might need to invest a high pick on a DB for the first time since Thomas.

• There was some significant driver’s error on Saturday as well. Pete Carroll was driving his jalopy like it was the Maserati he had back in 2013. This meant taking a lot of low risk, low variance chances despite being an underdog on the road. Also, the metaphorical traffic cops were rude as hell, flagging an awesome Devin Hester return for a dumb penalty on Kevin Pierre-Louis. The Seahawks had to drive well, and get away with every infringement on Saturday and they did neither.

• The good news, though? The Seahawks window of being an effective car is not closed. We just gotta get this bad boy towed to the mechanic. The bones are still great. Seahawks have good skill position players. Thomas Rawls? He’s good. Jimmy Graham? That’s a good player. Doug Baldwin? Good! Lockett and Richardson? Good when healthy and usually one or the other is so that’s good. Two of the coolest parts that fell off the car this year (Earl Thomas, Lockett) will be back next year. And they have a legitimately great engine in quarterback Russell Wilson.

The Seahawks window will be open as long as the team’s coaching staff stays intact and Russell Wilson is around. Look at Pittsburgh, who has won two titles with Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback and is back with a fresh defensive unit in the AFC Championship game. All four of the final four teams have great QB’s and have been written off at some point in the last couple of years. Do not write off the Seahawks heading into next year.

That said, don’t let them off the hook either. They were unlucky to suffer a season-altering injury to Earl Thomas, but by failing to go into the season with a reasonable answer on the offensive line they wasted a year of Russell Wilson’s prime. Worse, they risked shortening it by exposing him to injury for the first time in his career. The Seahawks must get better? Why? So that next season isn’t ending with an insufferable and overextended car metaphor. Instead, it must end with an insufferable Super Bowl parade made out of real cars.