Playoffs or not, Seahawks surpass preseason expectations

Before this NFL season got started, things were looking grim for the Seahawks.

Without their Super Bowl-winning quarterback Russell Wilson, it was looking like a dreaded rebuilding year.

Now the team is fighting to reach the postseason. And they’ll need a little luck to get there.

If the Seahawks win against the L.A. Rams on Sunday afternoon and the Detroit Lions defeat the Green Bay Packers later that night, the Seahawks will return to the playoffs for the first time since 2020.

"I was probably one of those people who kind of wrote the Seahawks off quite literally," says Michael-Shawn Dugar, a writer for The Athletic and co-host of the "Seahawks Man 2 Man" podcast. "I just didn't think that they would have a style of play that would lead to a double-digit win season."

Dugar was correct that the team's win column didn't reach double digits. He anticipated the team winning around six games and losing 11. Instead, the team has the chance for a winning record on Sunday.

Hanging over the end of the season is the reality of the United State's most popular sport. Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest after making a tackle during Monday Night Football. He was taken to the hospital where he remains in critical condition. The game was postponed, which is something that rarely happens in the NFL.

Dugar says that restarting a football game quickly after a player suffers a serious injury is normalized in football. This is compounded by the way some fans view players as commodities.

"Because it happened on Monday Night Football, the world got to see a glimpse of just how how gruesome it is and how normalized it is to think that these guys could still play after seeing that type of stuff," Dugar says.

Soundside host Libby Denkmann talked to Dugar about the highs and lows in the Seahawks season so far and his reactions to Damar Hamlin's collapse on Monday night.