3 instant impressions after Seahawks pull off ugly 6-3 win over Bears

Three instant impressions from the Seahawks’ 6-3 win over the Bears on Thursday night:

Raising Arizona

The Seahawks are now the biggest Arizona Cardinals fans around come Saturday night. The win over the Bears ultimately didn’t have huge significance in the NFC West race as the Seahawks’ postseason hopes rest almost entirely on the Cardinals beating the Rams. If Arizona can help out, it would force a winner-take-all game in Week 18 between the Seahawks and Rams at SoFi Stadium. But the victory over the Bears guaranteed the Seahawks a winning record in Mike Macdonald’s first season. No matter how unsightly that performance was for Seattle or the losses earlier in the year that left them in this position, finishing above .500 will be an accomplishment worth noting about Macdonald’s first season in charge.

Take a bow, defense

The Bears are bad. Really bad. Their offensive line makes Seattle’s offensive line look serviceable. That being said, the Bears still have some good skill players on that side of the ball. But the Seahawks muzzled all of them. D’Andre Swift had 53 yards rushing. D.J. Moore caught six passes, but former UW star Rome Odunze had just one catch and another TD reception called back by a penalty.

And Caleb Williams was under duress all night. The Seahawks finished with a season-high seven sacks – the most since recording 11 sacks last season against the Giants. Leonard Williams continues to make a case for being an All-Pro with five tackles, three tackles for loss, two sacks and four QB hits. Devon Witherspoon was all over the place as usual. Uchenna Nwosu had his best game since returning from his quadriceps injury with his first sack of the season. The Bears finished with 179 total yards and Seattle got a turnover at the end on Riq Woolen’s interception.

Painful, painful offense

What can we take from this offensive performance from the Seahawks? There will be continued debate about offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb’s job security after this kind of outing where two field goals was the extent of the offensive output. Grubb seemed to never get in a rhythm with his play-calling and the trickle-down led to Geno Smith’s performance on the field. He was never able to push the ball downfield with consistency – there was one completion of longer than 20 yards – and finished 17 of 23 for just 160 yards. The run game that showed signs of promise in the first half disappeared in the second half when the Seahawks had the same amount of first downs as punts: three. The last time the Seahawks played a 6-3 game came in 2011 in Cleveland and that was a loss. At least this time, they will be celebrating a win.