By Matt Calkins

The Seattle Times

One thing NFL defenses do is sucker you into making a bad read.

On the field, this can mean luring a quarterback into throwing a pick-six. Off the field, it can mean tricking media into thinking you’re better than you are.

Given what quality offenses have been able to do against the Seahawks this year, I can’t help but think the above sentence applies. Their D has been football’s version of a “four-A” baseball player —master of the rest, but mastered by the best.

Up until the three-and-out it forced in the game’s final minutes, Seattle’s defense was an 11-man matador in a 36-31 loss to the Rams on Sunday. The Seahawks watched the Rams blow right past them on just about every drive.

Didn’t matter if it was running back Todd Gurley getting whatever he wanted on the ground or Jared Goff feasting on the secondary —the only way L.A. was going to give Seattle the ball back was via kickoff.

This has been a discouraging trend when you consider the Seahawks’ past three losses, which have come against the Rams (twice) and the Chargers. It’s expected that such teams, whose combined record is 16-3, would give Seattle a hassle, but this has been closer to torture.

In their first meeting with the Seahawks, the Rams managed 321 passing yards on 32 throws and 155 rushing yards on 30 carries. In their next meeting, they went for 318 yards on 39 throws and 149 yards on 23 carries. The Chargers, meanwhile, tallied 228 passing yards on 26 attempts, and 160 rushing yards on 22 attempts.

Without context, these are just numbers. With context, they’re not-so-flattering harbingers.

The 1-8 Raiders have the NFL’s worst record and give up a league-high 6.7 yards per play. In their three games vs. the Rams and the Chargers this year, the Seahawks have allowed 7.1 yards per play.

On the rushing side, the 4-5 Falcons are the league’s worst at 5.2 yards allowed per carry. Against the Rams and Chargers this year, the Seahawks have given up 6.2 yards per carry.

This is alarming for a D that seemed to be “back” after the win in Detroit three Sundays ago. This is eye-popping for a team that was among the NFL’s top five in scoring defense and total defense before the likes of Goff, Gurley, Philip Rivers and Melvin Gordon sunk their talons into them.

Perhaps the fact that Bobby Wagner is the only member of the Super Bowl team consistently playing for the Seahawks is catching up to them. Perhaps the likes of Kam Chancellor, Richard Sherman, Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril and Earl Thomas can’t just be replaced by the next man up.

I don’t know that anyone was naive enough to think this would be the same bulwark of a defense that won four consecutive scoring titles earlier in the decade, but there was a stretch in which it seemed to be doing a damn fine imitation.

Maybe the most distressing indication of this defensive decline is what the two L.A. teams have pulled off on two separate third and 15s. The first came by way of the Chargers at CenturyLink Field, when Rivers turned third and 15 into a 54-yard completion to Keenan Allen, which set up a touchdown run on the next play. The Seahawks led by one before that drive. They never led again.

The next one came when Goff turned third and 15 into a 35-yard completion to Robert Woods, which set up a touchdown pass two plays later. The Seahawks led by one before that drive. They never led again.

“We let some plays get away from us,” Wagner said Sunday. “We had some good plays, but when we had a bad play, it seemed like it hurt us. We just have to do better and keep going.”

No doubt about that last part. The Seahawks are still 11th in the league in total defense (346.9 yards per game), 14th in yards per play (15.8) and ninth in scoring defense (21.3) —but they’ve been nowhere close to that against the best. They are still plus-8 on the year in turnover ratio but have been minus-1 in each of their past two games.

This Seattle defense has shown plenty of potential, and is young enough that it can develop into something great. But this year it hasn’t gotten it done when it matters, or against the teams that matter most.