There may be no one solution for the Seahawks except the long, hard slog of slowly getting better.

That is not a statement you want to read.

It’s disheartening.

Frustrating.

Ambiguous and without a fruition date.

And it feels like letting the coaching staff off the hook – something nobody wanted to hear as Seattle was shellacked by the Rams, their playoff hopes (and the credibility of some idiot’s Super Bowl predictions) diminished to a sliver.

But it may be true.

I have a rule: our willingness to accept an explanation for our team’s problems varies directly with the perceived ease of fixing it. In other words, the simpler a perceived fix, the more interested we’ll be in pointing fingers there.

At the top of our popular “blame list”, therefore, usually sits Seattle’s coaching staff and offensive line. Perhaps that’s not entirely for no reason. The narrative of late is that Pete Carroll has lost the team, and the Jaguars and Rams losses have done little to stem the tide. Pete’s philosophies have downsides, like any philosophy does, and they are on full display at the moment. Yet the fact that Seattle’s coaching staff and offensive line are perceived by fans as being easiest to replace, doubtless plays a role in their status as Least Popular Elements of the Seahawks.

At the bottom of the blame list, typically, are injuries, execution, and Russell Wilson.

Not because they haven’t played a role, but because they’re harder to do anything about.

Nobody wants to hear the idea, especially, that Russell Wilson is partially responsible for the team’s struggles. That leads inevitably to the question of whether Wilson might need to be replaced (even though he doesn’t), and even the hint of going back to the awful, dark, years-long stagger of searching for a new franchise quarterback is repellent. Even in an ice-cold objective, by-the-numbers breakdown of Wilson’s play, all some folks hear is “Wilson will not lead us to another Super Bowl”, even if that’s the opposite of what’s being said. So we stick to the “easier” ideas, like switching out coaches (even though doing so isn’t necessarily easier).

I’m talking, of course, about scapegoat mentality. It plays a great role in subconsciously guiding our pointed fingers.

But it isn’t productive to ignore the myriad of factors that have played into Seattle’s almost-failed season.

1. Drops

How many drives have ended with brutal third-down drops by Seattle receivers? Jimmy Graham, touchdown machine that he became for a while, is responsible for seven or eight this year. C.J. Prosise and Tanner McEvoy shared two each in the loss to the Packers. Paul Richardson had three in a game. It doesn’t seem so bad until you learn to equate a drop with a stalled drive. When you do that, our offensive struggles this year take on a different character.

2. Injuries

Old? Overpaid? Over-the-hill?

How about injured?

It’s amazing the amount of talk about how the game has passed by a Legion of Boom that isn’t even on the field. People say Kam Chancellor has lost a step, but watch them pine for his return when he’s out for a few weeks. People jaw about how Richard Sherman has been giving up more in-breaking routes. Bet they want him back after watching quarterbacks no longer afraid to throw at Byron Maxwell and Shaquill Griffin (decent as they’ve been).

Injury also robbed Seattle of the most potent piece of Pete Carroll’s philosophy – the running game. Chris Carson won a 7-way starting competition in the preseason the same way Wilson won his back in 2012 – decisively. He was dynamic, complete, and the first sign of a true workhorse since Beastmode left town. 4.2 YPC before his injury. If anything was supposed to break this offense open, it was him.

And nobody talks about his injury as the top contributor that it is. Given the comical flop of our running game this year, could there have been a bigger contributor? How can you win winter games, or close, brutal, official-sabotaged contests, with no running game at all?

It isn’t satisfying, promising, or heartening to describe 2017 as an injury year. But there’s a very good case that that’s exactly what it is. Add K.J. Wright and Bobby Wagner to that equation against the Rams. You cannot overestimate the impact of these injuries piling on.

3. Russell Wilson

Russell Wilson is still a fantastic and special player, still holds the potential to win more Super Bowls, and should not be challenged as the franchise quarterback.

I’m getting that out into the open because, again, Wilson cannot be criticized without some people inevitably and instinctively worrying that his head is being called for. It’s not.

But Wilson absolutely deserves some criticism for his play since his master-class against the Eagles. Pete Carroll said as much today to Mike Salk, and Wilson himself has never been one to shy away from his culpability.

Slowly emerging into the blogosphere – very slowly, though a few national commentators have been on this point for years – is discussion of Wilson’s play against man coverage and Cover-4 schemes. It really shouldn’t be news that Wilson doesn’t consistently throw near coverage. Jacksonville and Los Angeles ran Cover-4 schemes against Wilson. Washington also played heavy man. So did Tampa last year. While the popular narrative is that these were all “comedown” losses for Seattle following exhausting emotional victories, they have one other thing in common: those opponents had the speed and quality at DB to discourage the conservative Wilson from a lot of passes and win the contested throws he did attempt. Those discouraged passes end up in the pressures-allowed and sacks-allowed column. It’s going to be worth examining (and I hope to get to it in the offseason) whether teams are actually regarding their secondary, not their front seven, as the key to defeating Wilson – especially a Wilson without a running game.

Again…none of this is satisfying right now.

Nobody wants to read that drops, injuries, Wilson, the offensive line, the lack of a running game, Pete Carroll’s philosophy, miscalculated trades, and simple on-field errors have all played a role in Seattle’s dropoff from their 2014 xenith.

Because there’s no fixing all that in one game.

There may be no one solution for the Seahawks except the long, hard slog of slowly getting better.

And while it’s a slog for us as well, it might be the truest explanation for the current state of the Seahawks.