Winners and Losers from Seahawks vs. Bears: Is it time to fire Brian Fleury?

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Well that was a nice reality check.

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No, the Seattle Seahawks don’t have a “could’ve won if…” situation. They got their asses kicked by the Chicago Bears in a 34-17 game that was somehow both not as close and yet closer than the final score indicated. Seattle doesn’t get to play the “barely lost” game this time around. This was a thoroughly deserved win for the Bears and a humbling defeat for the Super Bowl champs.

It’s late at night and instead of prepping for Enemy Reaction, I’m here writing another disappointing Winners and Losers column on the cusp of midnight.

Seattle Seahawks Winners

Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the Seahawks offense

I repeat, Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the Seahawks offense. He has almost 1,000 yards receiving through eight games, and he was honestly cheated out of that because of a couple of “run plays” that were narrowly backward. There isn’t a better receiver in the NFL and Seattle is blessed to have him in the now and long-term.

Irv Charles balled out on special teams

Minus the one asinine penalty, which at that point likely didn’t swing the game, I see the vision for Irv as a special teams superstar. He downed a Michael Dickson punt inside the 10 (doing what Rodney Thomas botched), was in on tackles on kick return duties, balling out as a gunner, and he had a deflected punt which unluckily went for 45 yards. He’s worth a conditional 7th in 2028.

Zach Charbonnet being back is a personal win for him

Charbonnet had just 23 yards on six carries and it wasn’t like the offensive line was opening up too many holes. I think for him, it’s an accomplishment to be back on the field inside of 10 months after an ACL tear. That’s a lot of rehab and effort to go through to be available when a January injury of that severity can cost you all of next year. I want to highlight that for Charbs.

Seattle Seahawks Losers

Sam Darnold was horrendous

Outside of one deep shot to Jaxon Smith-Njigba for a touchdown, what did Darnold do well? Avoid sacks? No. Throw on time? Not really. Throw accurately on a consistent basis? Nope. The offensive line was bad and certainly Brian Fleury’s shelf life as an OC is now under question, but Darnold’s statistical downturn can be traced back to the four-interception meltdown against the Los Angeles Rams. With few exceptions (most notably and thankfully the NFC Championship Game), Darnold has leaned toward being an average quarterback at best for about an 18-game stretch. And if you think I’m being unfair lumping the Kubiak season with the Fleury games, he did not end the regular season well in 2025. The run game just got hot at the right time to replace some of the explosives lost in the passing game.

He touched the wrong quadrant in the back-end of 2025 but salvaged things with a great playoff run. He’s back to being in the wrong quadrant in 2026.

That was a showing worse than either of the Denver Broncos or San Francisco 49ers losses. We can likely shelve “start Drew Lock” while Lock is nursing his own injury, but at the very least he is not in any contract extension territory. He can play out his contract in 2027 or leave sooner than that if things don’t turn positively.

Brian Fleury is in trouble

That one-week reprieve where it looked like he found the magical potion sure wore off quickly. Why were the Seahawks taking an age and huddling up down by 10 in the 4th quarter? Why did they call so many run plays to the right side of the line? No urgency, no easy offense, no cohesiveness, no sensible gameplan. Once again they stalled out in the red zone because they burned first down on a doomed running play and took no end zone shot. I’m sure he interviewed well and knows ball extremely well, but there are a lot of great mathematicians who make terrible teachers. Fleury is not a great OC right now and the repeated dysfunction in situational football and in the general flow of the game is reaching untenable status.

Mike Macdonald moved on from Ryan Grubb after one season and he probably would’ve moved on sooner if he was not a rookie head coach. Fleury may not be here past the bye week with how ruinous the offense is. I can’t blame Fleury when guys fumble or when Sam Darnold goes into self-destruct mode unforced, but I can blame him to some degree when the offense as a whole doesn’t look well coached.

The offensive line was a mess

It’s not wholly unexpected when you have a backup left tackle and a left guard who’s now a right guard because the new left guard is Quenton Nelson. There was going to be a problem getting everyone organized. This is not a well-functioning unit even when healthy. Abe Lucas continues to struggle and it’s more of a concern about his physical health than anything else. Zabel got owned by Jeffery Simmons off the jump, and the Bears regularly got pressure with four. Forget about the run game woes.

This was supposed to be a strength and may yet be a strength when Charles Cross is back and we figure out Jalen Sundell’s injury, but right now they’re accomplices in the first-degree felony that is this offense.

Nick Emmanwori got picked on all night

A week after one of the best games of his career, it was a tough night for Emmanwori in terms of run defense and tackling. Between missed tackles, getting beaten on the touchdown to Luther Burden, and some difficult reps against Colston Loveland, this was easily one of his more disappointing outings. The screen to Kalif Raymond was the dagger and he was blocked out of the play. Ben Johnson made it a point to pick on him and he lacked any positive impact.

And the roughness penalty (again!) he picked up when the game was still reasonably in doubt was selfish and he needs as much criticism for that as we regularly gave Riq Woolen. He’s done that twice in less than a month and it’s led to points both times.

Rylie Mills’ training camp has not translated into positive regular season play

It wasn’t like the Seahawks run defense struggled or anything, but Mills entering the game is a signal to the opposition to run at him. He’s driven back by double teams too easily, struggles with his anchor, and isn’t offering enough as a pass rusher. This leaves Seattle essentially three-deep on the interior with Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy II, and Jarran Reed. I can’t imagine justifying more snaps for Mills if Williams has to miss time.

Special teams outside of Irv Charles was notgood

In fact, they were mostly bad. Rodney Thomas inexplicably took a punt downed at the 2 and slid himself and the ball into the end zone. The trajectory of that ball was going away from the end zone and the Bears gained 18 yards of field position before scoring a touchdown.

Jason Myers shanked a PAT and later had a short field goal blocked. Mike Morris committed a really silly late hit on a kick return that gifted the Bears terrific field position. Even Irv Charles, who had a great night, sullied it with his own silly roughness penalty.

Mike Macdonald has to own this complete unpreparedness

Coach Macdonald has won a Super Bowl and Seattle has won far more than they’ve lost in two-and-a-half seasons with him at the helm. This is as bad a three-phase effort as this team has put out. Maybe not since the Buffalo Bills blowout two years ago, or the Green Bay Packers blowout in primetime.

The defense gave up an opening drive touchdown, didn’t have a lot of answers for the intermediate play-action game, got caught out on the most pivotal third down of the game because they still can’t stop quick screens to receivers, and the poor discipline and losing their heads on personal fouls is a reflection of a coaching staff that does not have its players pulling together as one.

Coach has to own this as much as we would excoriate Pete Carroll for a similar display.

Seattle’s playoff hopes are not in peril but they are uncertain

Throw out the NFC East and probably the NFC South because those are poor divisions. Seattle is fighting to finish second in the NFC West and be at least ahead of one NFC North team, or else the NFC North could have everyone make the postseason. This team is not playing sound enough football to be trusted to beat literally any NFL team comfortably—just look at the mess that was the Los Angeles Chargers game—and cannot be favorites to beat the 49ers in a rematch. They need to prove themselves all over again because they’ve lost four of six and have looked discombobulated on offense and at times on special teams.

Relying on the defense to be superhuman every week is a losing strategy. This is not anywhere close to what we saw in 2025.

Final Notes

  • Tory Horton got his world rocked to start the game but he’s really not impressed with his catch-point strength. I noticed this last year and it showed itself again this year. Seattle may have to have a serious rethink about its WR group outside of JSN next season.
  • Jadarian Price seemed very hesitant to cut upfield on the few times Seattle actually created space. I’ll consider it rust combined with the issues along the OL. At least he didn’t fumble.
  • Byron Murphy II and Leonard Williams provided good interior pressure, but the edges were unsurprisingly unable to do a whole lot.
  • I think Nehemiah Pritchett should be splitting snaps with Josh Jobe. It was not a great night overall for Jobe in terms of pass coverage and Pritchett has been impressive every week. He may not be an outside corner based on how Seattle has used him, but he has the frame so why not get him some more opportunities. Likewise for Tyrice Knight to get more snaps, because he’s made enough strides to get back in the rotation.
  • It’s almost midnight. I’m tapped out. A lot more to write about on Tuesday and throughout the week. If Seattle gets to the bye at 6-4 then at least there’s hope. Anything less than that and I think they’re cooked, because they don’t have a lot of room for error the rest of the way.

Post-game analysis video

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