SEATTLE — As bad as you — dear longtime fan — felt last week watching the Seahawks implausibly implode against the Giants, it may be worth remembering you have felt that way before.
Maybe you just don’t remember.
The Giants loss is a reminder — for better or worse — that while the Pete Carroll/Russell Wilson era of Seahawks football has been the best in team history, it has not been without its foibles.
One of the more frustrating traits of the last decade has been the team’s propensity for the out-of-the-blue loss.
In every season since 2013, the Seahawks have lost at least one game when favored by eight points or more, and usually late in the year. The 17-12 faceplant against the Giants last Sunday as 11-point favorites continued that streak.
One occurred a year ago, a 27-13 loss to a 4-9-1 Arizona team, which was an eight-point underdog in the second-to-last game of the season.
But what the Seahawks have usually done in the Carroll/Wilson era is bounce back from seeming disaster.
In 2013, a 12-2 team was a nine-point favorite in the second-to-last game of the year at home against Arizona. A win would give them a chance to clinch home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
Wilson threw for just 108 yards — still the third-lowest total of his career — and the defense gave up a late touchdown in a shocking 17-10 loss against a team it had beaten 58-0 in the same stadium barely 12 months prior.
The Seahawks recovered and didn’t lose again, beating the Rams the next week to secure the division and the No. 1 seed in the NFC. A few weeks later, they turned in one of the most dominant Super Bowl wins of all time.
Carroll and Wilson (and Bobby Wagner and K.J. Wright) have traveled this path before. Not that Carroll wanted to hear about that this week as the team prepared for Sunday’s game against the Jets at Lumen Field.
“The storylines that you could pick out of it don’t have anything to do with how we want to prepare and how we want to focus,’’ he said.
Sunday’s game against the Jets is one that without storylines — which include safety Jamal Adams facing his former team — would hardly be interesting on its surface.
The Jets are 0-12 and the Seahawks are again a big favorite, listed at 14.5 points Saturday morning.
Last week showed the Seahawks are more vulnerable than maybe anyone really feared. While at least one Seahawk, cornerback Shaquill Griffin, said they overlooked the Giants, the game seemed to reveal some weaknesses in the Seahawks’ once-vaunted offense — specifically, an ability of opponents to shut down big plays — and that the defense is also still prone to some untimely breakdowns.
The Giants loss took away any last room for error if the Seahawks hope to win the NFC West and contend for the No. 1 seed in the conference — which this year is the only one that gets a bye to the second round.
The No. 1 seed seems almost out of reach with New Orleans at 10-2 and Green Bay at 9-3, though the Saints do have a couple of tough games left, including a date with the Chiefs on Dec. 20.
The Rams are 9-4 after their win over New England on Thursday night, a half-game ahead of the 8-4 Seahawks in the NFC West. The Rams hold the tiebreaker for the moment because of a win over Seattle last month.
The Rams play the Jets next, which means they will be heavily favored to be 10-4 when they play the Seahawks at Lumen Field on Dec. 27.
The Seahawks play at Washington on Dec. 20 against a team that, like the Giants, may be more dangerous than its 5-7 record would indicate. It has won three in a row, including handing the Steelers their first loss of the season Tuesday.
This was supposed to be the easy part of the Seahawks’ schedule, a four-game stretch beginning Nov. 30 against the Eagles against teams that heading into it had all won three or fewer games.
While the Seahawks got the win over the Eagles, the Giants’ game proved the folly of taking anything for granted in the NFL — even a game against a winless team.
The Jets could have beaten the Raiders last week if not for a disastrous defensive call of a blitz on the final play that gave an opening for Las Vegas to complete a touchdown pass with five seconds left and pull out a 31-28 win. That led to the firing of defensive coordinator Gregg Robinson.
“It’s not very fun, I know that much,’’ beleaguered Jets coach Adam Gase said this week of being 0-12. But Gase said he has been continually impressed with the character his team has shown. Three of the Jets’ last four losses have come by six points or less when they were at least a 7.5-point underdog in each.
“This group, they fight all the way to the end,’’ Gase said.
The Seahawks should expect the same from Jets again Sunday as last week showed the dangers of expecting anything less.
