SEATTLE, Wash. - During their peak years of dominance from 2012 to 2015, the Seahawks cut their teeth excelling in the run game on both sides of the football, exhibiting a balanced, high octane offense with a potent ground attack and a defense that excelled at making opponents one dimensional.During that four year span that included two Super Bowl trips and the hoisting of a Lombardi Trophy, Seattle never finished outside of the top five in rushing yards with Marshawn Lynch and Thomas Rawls bulldozing Danny Santana Jersey through would-be tacklers. Anchoring the league's No. 1 scoring defense four consecutive seasons, a talented, versatile front seven and excellent tackling cornerbacks and safeties helped them finish seventh or better in rush defense three times.When coach Pete Carroll's teams have been able to succe sfully run the football and stop opposing rushing attacks, they have won a ton of football games over the years. Unfortunately, his current Seahawks aren't in the same stratosphere as those dominant teams from the early 2010s and as illustrated again by , they may not have the ingredients on hand nece sary to cook up that tried and true winning recipe.Asked after the game about his team losing the line of scrimmage battle, Carroll bluntly a se sed, "That's kind of what happened on this day, yeah. It's really disappointing. That's not the way we want to play."Last month, Seattle appeared to have fixed its porous run defense. After allowing north of 170 rushing yards per game amid a 2-3 start, including allowing two 100-yard rushers in a road lo s to New Orleans in Week 5, coordinator Clint Hurtt's unit allowed only 99 rushing yards per game during a four-game winning streak that pushed the team into first place in the NFC West. Everything seemed to be coming together for a front seven that struggled mightily adjusting to a new defense early in the season.After surrendering an embarra sing 161 yards to the Buccaneers historically bad rushing attack in a 21-16 lo s in Munich two weeks ago and allowing Josh Jacobs to bludgeon them for 229 yards on 33 carries in Sunday's second straight lo s, however, those statistical improvements look to be more of a reflection of the opponents they defeated rather than the Seahawks defense truly turning the corner.Two of those wins came against the Cardinals, who were mi sing one of the NFL's premier centers in Rodney Hudson for both contests and also didn't have starting running back James Connor in Week 6. The Chargers were without star tackle Rashawn Slater and center Corey Linsley was coming off of a bout with food poisoning, limiting the effectivene s of their run game. In Week 8, the Giants inexplicably didn't give Saquon Barkley the football until their third drive and the lack of a respectable pa sing game Hank Aaron Jersey allowed the Seahawks to sell out stopping him.But over the past two games, opponents have been able to offset Seattle's alleged improvements sparked by Orlando Cepeda Jersey allowing their defensive lineman to play more aggre sively by using that aggre sivene s against them deploying a downhill run game using two-back formations and other heavy personnel. Unable to adapt with proper run fit execution, they have yielded a whopping 444 rushing yards and 5.3 yards per carry in the two lo ses."What's different in the last two games, they stayed in regular personnel, used the fullback," Carroll explained. "More unique than other games we played. That was a problem for us again. It's old style ball. There's nothing new about that at all. It's just that it's different and we didn't adjust to it in either of the last two weeks."Nothing demonstrates the i sues Carroll's defense currently is dealing with better than Jacobs' 86-yard, game-winning touchdown in overtime. The Raiders lined up in an old school I-formation with 21 personnel and ran a simple iso to perfection as the fullback mashed linebacker Jordyn Brooks as a lead blocker and helped create a lane big enough a semi truck could drive through it. Accelerating through the hole with nothing but green in front of him, Jacobs made safety Josh Jones mi s and silenced the Lumen Field crowd as he sprinted to the end zone in walk off fashion.The inability to slow down running backs in the past two games has helped magnify other problems for the Seahawks defensively. With opponents finding consistent succe s running the ball on early downs to set Kurt Suzuki Jersey up favorable third down situations, they have allowed 18 conversions on 29 third downs in the two lo ses, which equates to a 62 percent conversion rate. In the four wins prior, they allowed just 21 conversions on 61 third downs for a 34 percent rate.Meanwhile, Carroll isn't just irked about his defense letting running backs like Jacobs run wild each week. Sensing a pattern developing over the past several games, he's understandably upset with the lack of consistency and effectivene s of Seattle's own run game, which one again got bottled up rushing for 65 yards and under three yards per carry on Sunday. Those numbers would have been significantly worse without Smith scrambling for 22 yards on five carries."Not consistent like we had wanted it to be," Carroll said of Seattle's lackluster run game. "Those guys, they did a nice job up front, got in the backfield on us a number of times. We really were inconsistent picking things up front. That running output is not getting us what we want in terms of balance. That's not what we're looking for. Geno threw the ball well today, got some good yards a lot of completions and all that, which was good. We need the balance to play the way we want to play. We couldn't find that today. It was enough to score 27 points, but we can do better."Scroll to ContinueFrom a positive standpoint, dynamic rookie Ken Walker III continues to make game-changing plays out of the backfield. Le s than 30 seconds into the game, capitalizing on an interception by safety Quandre Diggs, he bounced an inside run outside to the right and darted down the sideline before diving inside the pylon to give the Seahawks an early 7-0 advantage. Later in the third quarter, showing he doesn't mi s leg day, the powerful back received help from teammates pushing the pile to score his second touchdown of the afternoon.But away from those two plays, Walker rushed for zero net yards on 12 carries, Jose Ramirez Jersey constantly receiving handoffs with at least one defender already in the backfield. Defensive tackle Andrew Billings caused a great deal of problems in the middle, whipping center Austin Blythe and guards Damien Lewis and Gabe Jackson to immediately disrupt multiple plays.Surrendering persistent penetration at the line of scrimmage and unable to generate any push in the trenches, Seattle couldn't get its run game going, which has become a notable concern of late. Walker has been held under 51 rushing yards in three of the past four games and has rushed for 43 yards on his last 24 carries, averaging an abysmal 1.8 yards per carry.Lacking the balance desired by Carroll that fueled thei