With the playoff spot still not clinched and the Cleveland Browns doing just about enough trash talking to piss them off, the Seattle Seahawks and Russell Wilson have the right kind of setting for another offensive explosion.
Few would have expected anything from the Browns as they travel to Seattle, but with the Seahawks winning four in a row while scoring 141 points through that run, while Wilson has one of the more impressive quarterback rating runs in NFL history, it’s hard to believe that Mike Pettine, maybe trying to make himself noticed so someone hires him when the Browns make him the next in a long line of coaches fired with nothing to show for their Cleveland experience, would seek to add fuel to that fire.
The Seahawks are coming home after two incredibly impressive and dominant road wins over the Ravens and Vikings, outscoring the two 73-13. They’ve scored 29 points or more in five consecutive games (4-1 in that run). And they’re going to try and prove this run can be sustained while they don’t have a starting or backup running back healthy. Marshawn Lynch is struggling to come back while Thomas Rawls is out for the season.
Wilson, who had a very difficult first half of the season, with just two games of a 100 passer rating or better and playing awfully in the loss to the Arizona Cardinals, has been scorching since then. Over the last four games he is completing over 75% of his passes, thrown 16 touchdowns to 0 interceptions and has a passer rating of 145.9. That’s beyond MVP numbers, but it’s only over four games, which helps skew some of his lower moments during this season.
The Seahawks are going to find it difficult not making the playoffs. Both them and the Vikings hold the Wild Card slots with an 8-5 record, while the teams chasing them are more or less in need to win out and for the Seahawks/Vikings to lose out, something that won’t happen, at least not to Seattle. No one is going to raise their eyebrows in surprise if they dominate the Browns and more, but a fifth consecutive win, with Wilson playing like this and the defense back to its finest, the words Super Bowl are no longer weird to utter in connection with the Seahawks.