Seahawks should get back on track against lowly 49ers

The 49ers have averaged only nine points in their last five regular-season games against Seattle. (AP)

For the most part, all we’ve heard about this week are the fourth-quarter failures of the Seahawks, who have blown four leads in the last 15 minutes this season. They could have blown a fifth if officials hadn’t botched a non-call when K.J. Wright wasn’t penalized for batting the ball out of the back of the end zone against Detroit.

Whether it’s the offense or defense, Darrell Bevell or Kris Richard, something or someone’s to blame, but things should improve now that the schedule eases up in the next two weeks.

Three of the Seahawks’ four losses came to teams that are a combined 17-0. St. Louis is responsible for the fourth loss, and we all know how tough the Rams are every time they play Pete Carroll’s team.

Now the Seahawks face a 49ers team that has scored an average of nine points against them in the last five regular-season games. If the Rams are a bad matchup, the 49ers are a good matchup for the Seahawks.

Colin Kaepernick is an interception-throwing machine against the Legion of Boom, hurling nine of them in the last six meetings, including the NFC Championship Game two seasons ago. He’s not a very good quarterback for starters, and the Seahawks seem to be in his head, too. It’s a perfect combination for the Seahawks to perhaps double their season total of three interceptions tonight.

Flip it around and it sets up for a good night for Russell Wilson as well. The 49ers have recorded only nine sacks in six games, so the Seahawks quarterback should have more time to throw than usual; he’s been sacked a league-high 26 times this year and we’ve all seen him running for his life.

Here’s the problem: We can all continue to expect the Seahawks will show up as a version of the 2013 or 2014 team, but we’ve been hoping to see that all season, and we’re almost to the halfway point. This is the mystifying 2015 team that isn’t as good as the 13-3 team in 2013, and if it loses tonight, not as good as the 12-4 team from 2014 either.

Forget what we’re seeing on the field, I think something’s amiss in the locker room, and it contributes to the poor results. Whether it’s friction, jealousies, guys who aren’t as hungry, I’m not sure. But it appears to be along those lines because most of the players who have had success before are still playing prominent roles this year. At this point it’s just speculation and psycho-babble on my part, overly magnified because of their 2-4 record.

If the Seahawks lose tonight, we’ll know there are bigger problems than bad bounces and one play here and there as Carroll and the players keep citing as reasons for the poor start.

The Seahawks, even as bad as they’ve played, have the superior team. San Francisco rates 30th in the NFL in offense and 31st in defense. The 49ers are at home, which helps, and have played better the last two weeks, nearly winning against the Giants (hey, other teams blow leads in the last minute, too) and beating the Ravens last Sunday.

In those two games, Kaepernick looked like a competent quarterback again, particularly against the Ravens, throwing for 340 yards on only 16 completions. Steve Wyche of the NFL Network said it has helped Kaepernick to take more snaps under center than out of the shotgun.

So we’ll see how it plays out tonight. Will the Seahawks snap out of it, or will the 49ers bury them for good? I’m going somewhere in between, still unconvinced that the Seahawks can dominate a weaker opponent from start to finish but good enough to win and not cover the spread.

Line: Seahawks by 7
Prediction: Seahawks 24, 49ers 20
Season record against the spread: 3-2-1