By Rick Anderson

For the Grays Harbor News Group

The Seattle Seahawks’ playoff-clinching bid stalled (it’s too easy to say it was put on hold) beneath an avalanche of penalty flags in Sunday’s overtime loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

The loss didn’t prevent the Hawks from controlling their own postseason destiny. One win in their final two regular-season games should land them a berth in the National Football League playoffs.

Nor did it cause me to renounce one of my longstanding maxims about Seattle professional sports: Seahawks executives, for the most part, know what they’re doing. Their Mariners counterparts do not.

There were admittedly times within the past year when I doubted the first half of that equation. Like many Northwesterners, I believed the reconstruction of the Seahawks’ defensive unit following the 2017 campaign was too drastic.

While rebuilding in the NFL can be accomplished much faster than in Major League Baseball, a transition year that produced something along the lines of a 5-9 or 6-10 record seemed inevitable.

With their young talent progressing faster than anticipated, however, the Hawks own an 8-6 mark and haven’t been overwhelmed in any of their losses to date.

While it is difficult from this distance to determine if general manager John Schneider and his management team experienced a “Eureka” moment last year, such an epiphany might have occurred during Seattle’s second meeting with the Los Angeles Rams last year.

Although the Seahawks had expended a year’s worth of luck in upending the Rams in LA, the rematch in Seattle was no contest. The Hawks looked old and slow as the Rams cruised to a 42-7 triumph in a contest that was essentially over by the end of the first quarter.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Schneider determined during that game that retaining the old standbys for another year wasn’t going to cut it.

The 2018 edition of the Seahawks isn’t easy to characterize. If nothing else, the Hawks have given new meaning to the old saying about playing to the level of their competition.

They’ve been involved in shootouts against such high-powered opponents as the Rams and Carolina and low-scoring affairs versus more defensive-minded foes such as Dallas and Chicago. Only two of their wins have been particularly lopsided, but they haven’t been blown out at all. Their most decisive defeat has been an eight-point loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.

The constants during this roller-coaster campaign have been a revived running game, an improved offensive line and the stellar play of quarterback Russell Wilson and linebacker Bobby Wagner, among others.

On the negative side, the Seahawks have been self-destructive far too frequently. Their defense, while better than expected, bears few resemblances to the now-dismantled Legion of Boom.

There are those who believe that team chemistry has improved with the departure of outspoken veterans Richard Sherman and Michael Bennett and their reputed (but well-publicized) animosity toward Wilson.

I’m wary of buying into this proposition. I don’t know what has gone on in the Seahawk locker room. Neither does anyone else not employed by the team.

In good times, I believe that such edgy standouts as Sherman and Bennett provide an us-against-the-world swagger than can transform a good team into a great one. That same quality can be divisive if it turns to finger-pointing when the club is struggling. Clearly, All-Pro safety Earl Thomas’ constant wrangling about his contract before he suffered a season-ending broken leg did little to unify the Seahawks during the early portion of the season.

Jealousy is part of virtually every team from youth sports to the pros. I can see how Wilson, with his relentlessly upbeat, cliche-spouting public persona, could rub teammates the wrong way,

But any suggestion that Seahawks could function just as well with Kirk Cousins, Jameis Winston — or Colin Kaepernick, for that matter — at quarterback is absurd. He may not be quite the equal of Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees, but Wilson is one of the most versatile and durable QBs in recent NFL history — a clutch performer who usually finds a way to win.

His teammates don’t need to invite him to Christmas dinner as long as he’s respected within the locker room.

With a regular-season finale at home against lowly Arizona on the docket, I expect the Seahawks to make the playoffs. They have too many flaws to be a likely Super Bowl champion, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they win a playoff game or two.

That’s a lot better than preseason projections. With younger players gaining valuable experience, they should be well-fixed moving forward.

In theory, at least, the Mariners appear to borrowing from the Seahawk playbook in seeking a younger club during their current roster makeover.

That’s where the similarities end. I wrote a few weeks ago that the Mariners’ massive rebuilding effort appears to be more about cutting payroll than building a future powerhouse. Nothing that has transpired since — such as including 24-year-old All-Star relief pitcher Edwin Diaz in a trade to the New York Mets so they can rid themselves of second baseman Robinson Cano’s mega-contract in the same deal — has changed my position.

Nevertheless, if the M’s can hang on to their few remaining assets and eventually get around to making some moves that can improve their on-the-field product in the immediate future, their master plan could work.

In other words, the Mariners have to demonstrate that they know what they’re doing. Like the Seahawks.