In typical Seahawks fashion, the organization came away with a thrilling 38-31 win over the Dallas Cowboys late Sunday afternoon.

Letting Russ Cook all day long, Seattle’s offense was electric for nearly the entire game, racking up five passing touchdowns and exposing Dallas’ inexperienced and outmatched secondary. It was their defense, however, that let the Seahawks down in this one, getting shredded through the air and almost allowing Dallas to rack up an incredible comeback victory.

In many ways, it’s hard to give the Seahawks a really hard time for this. Seattle won the game and is 3-0 on the year. However, this porous pass defense wasn’t just a one-game thing. Allowing roughly 450 pass yards and 28 points per game through three weeks, Seattle has shown that this is a repeating pattern which should have been addressed properly before the season even began.

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Starting 2019 by allowing washed-up quarterbacks like Andy Dalton and Matt Schaub to carve them up, the hope was that Seattle would recognize their issues on defense—particularly getting to the quarterback—and address it throughout the 2020 offseason. Doing exactly the opposite, Seattle not only failed to add a legitimate impact player on the defensive line, but they also weren’t even able to retain either of their best two rushers from a year ago (Quinton Jefferson and Jadeveon Clowney). Sure, they made upgrades elsewhere and hoped that a rotation would get the job done, but it’s becoming clear already (through three games) that opting to value the secondary over pass-rush was probably the wrong move for this franchise to make.

After all, Seattle’s secondary hasn’t been the vaunted “Legion of Boom 2.0” the media was hyping up (particularly because of the lack of a quality four-man pass-rush) and it has allowed opposing offenses to pick them apart as a result.

Sure, Quinton Dunbar (out against Dallas) has played decently and Jamal Adams has been a beast in the run game, but neither has moved the needle in a significant way against the pass. This shouldn’t be a surprise—not one player (sans maybe Aaron Donald) could alter this sinking ship by themselves—but it’s relatively disappointing given the draft capital required to trade for Adams.

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As versatile and energetic as he’s been on the defensive end, one of the main problems people had with the Adams trade in the first place was that he’s “just a box safety.” Able to blitz, rush off the edge, and play various defensive back spots, he’s obviously debunked this so-called theory in effortless fashion, but his detractors did have one thing right: Adams hasn't been great in pass coverage. No, that doesn’t mean he’s a liability—and he’s certainly improved the defense as a whole—but Seattle already had a great run defense. It’s better with him involved, but not two first-round picks better.

Bottom Line

I know Seattle is somehow undefeated when facing passers that throw for 400 yards or more in the Carroll/Wilson era, but this offense and their MVP candidate quarterback are bound to slow down at some point. When that point comes, it’s up to this defense to step up and I just don’t know if they can. And even if Wilson continues to cook near this level, he deserves more from the other side of the ball.