49ers stun Rams on Monday Night Football

Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Seattle has mastered the fine art of never playing complementary football. Early in the season, their offense thrived while their defense got gashed. Now, their defense is looking elite but their offense can’t string together more than two promising drives in a game. If you’ll recall, this is the exact same dynamic that doomed the team last season.

If you’re looking for culprits, head coach Pete Carroll has to be at the top of the list. Whatever he says, franchise quarterback Russell Wilson clearly wasn’t ready to return and Geno Smith would have given this team a better chance to win this week. That mistake plus a foolish pass-heavy gameplan doomed any hope of an upset in Green Bay despite an extraordinary defensive performance.

What’s most frustrating about this is that this remains a talented but underperforming team. There’s no clear favorite in either conference this season and it seems like all but a handful of teams could get hot and make a Super Bowl run. The dysfunction has crept in too deep for Seattle to be included among them, though. Making the playoffs even in a weak NFC field seems like a pipe-dream at this point.