SEATTLE -- After the Seattle Seahawks' 34-31 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, coach Pete Carroll was asked about his team's inability to show any kind of consistency in recent weeks.

"I don’t know," Carroll said. "I keep thinking we’re going to do right, we’re going to do well."

Going into Saturday's game, the Seahawks' biggest reason for optimism was their potential playoff path. They needed to win the final two games against teams that were out of contention to secure the No. 2 seed in the NFC and a first-round bye.

Now that is no longer the case. The Seahawks have dropped down to the No. 4 seed. Three things need to happen for them to get a bye: They need to beat the San Francisco 49ers in Week 17. The Atlanta Falcons have to lose to the New Orleans Saints. And the Detroit Lions have to lose one of their final two games against the Dallas Cowboys or Green Bay Packers.

Unless all of those things happen, the Seahawks will be playing at home during the first playoff weekend. And a potential path to the Super Bowl will require three victories -- two most likely on the road.

The Seahawks are a resilient group, but this is looking like a season in which they might have too many obstacles to overcome.

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They scored three points on six possessions in the first half Saturday. Two weeks ago, the Seahawks turned the ball over six times against the Green Bay Packers. In Week 12, they scored five points in a loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And there have been six different games this season in which the offense has scored one or no touchdowns.

"To struggle like we did in the first half and then to do everything that we did in the second half to come back and give ourselves a chance to win the game and then not be able to pull it out, it’s an emotional roller coaster," wide receiver Doug Baldwin said Saturday. "I know that you guys think that we’re supposed to be robots and we just go out there and run these straight lines, but we’re humans. We have emotions. This game takes a lot out of us. We’re very passionate about what we do, so when it ends the way that it did today, it’s very draining and exhausting."

Russell Wilson was sacked six times and hit on 14 other occasions against Arizona. The offensive line continues to be the biggest thing holding the Seahawks back. At any given moment, it can just fall apart and hurt the entire operation.

To the Seahawks' credit, the offense caught fire in the second half. But it's impossible to know how this group is going to perform from week to week, regardless of the opponent.

"We have a lot of weapons on the offensive side, and we have to protect Russell," Baldwin said. "Russell has to get the ball out, and we have to catch it as receivers and run the ball efficiently and effectively. When we do those things, we’re pretty hard to stop. But we have to do those things in an effective nature and efficiently. That's what it boils down to."

Meanwhile, defensively, the Seahawks allowed the Cardinals to score on four of their final five possessions.

And for the first time since free safety Earl Thomas went down with a fractured tibia in Week 13, his absence might have cost them a victory.

The free safety in the Seahawks' scheme is responsible for taking away two routes: posts and seams. The Cardinals scored on an 80-yard touchdown when J.J. Nelson got behind Thomas' replacement, Steven Terrell.

"When you give up a post route, you don’t play very well," Carroll said. "That’s not good enough. That’s an 80-yard play or whatever the heck it was. It’s pretty fundamental for us."

And then there are the other injuries. Wide receiver Tyler Lockett (broken leg) is out for the season. Thomas Rawls suffered a shoulder injury Saturday. And it's unclear when (or if) running back C.J. Prosise will get back. Wilson has battled through injuries all season and clearly would benefit from a bye.

It'd be foolish to count the Seahawks out. They've shown time and again that they can take on obstacles. But since Wilson arrived, they've never had a season like this.

They'll take their shots in January, but in the end, there just might be too much to overcome to get back to the Super Bowl for the third time in four years.