After a well-deserved weekend off following three games in 11 days, the 3-3 Seahawks are back to work this weekend getting ready for their Week 7 game in Atlanta. But before we turn our attention to that game, it's time once again to open up the mailbag and answer some questions from you, the fans.

As always, thanks to everyone who asked questions this week, and apologies if I wasn't able to get to yours this time around. And remember, the mailbag is always open for submissions at Seahawks.com/mailbag.

We begin, as is always fun to do, with the doom and gloom:

@HolliWinters28 asks, "Is the season over?"

A: No. In fact, there are still 11 games left in the regular season.

But if you're asking this meaning, "The Seahawks have lost three in a row, all is lost." Well, I'm going to disagree with you there too.

Yes, the last stretch of games has been disappointing, especially after a 3-0 start that had everyone feeling so good about the start of the Mike Macdonald era in Seattle. But it was never realistic that the Seahawks, or just about any team, is going to win every game, and even after some recent struggles, the Seahawks are 3-3, tied with the 49ers for first place in the NFC West, though San Francisco holds the current tiebreaker thanks to Thursday's win in Seattle. In other words, there is still plenty of time to get back on track and, without a big hole to dig out of, standings wise, there's still a great opportunity to make this season a success.

As Macdonald has pointed out a few times lately, the Seahawks aren't playing well enough to win games right now, but that doesn't mean they can't get there. While nobody wants to go through growing pains, it was probably inevitable that a team installing all new schemes on both sides of the ball with a new coaching staff was probably going to have its share of ups and downs. It's also reasonable to expect that a team bringing in new schemes will improve as the season goes along, and again, the Seahawks are in a pretty decent spot, standings wise, to make this a good season if they can indeed make that improvement happen.

I fully understand that it gets frustrating for fans to see your team lose three in a row, or to struggle to stop the run, or to turn the ball over like the Seahawks have, but I'd hold off on making judgments about any team six games into a 17-game season, especially a team adjusting to some very significant offseason changes.

@MrEd315 asks, "Which Seahawks team are we going to see moving forward—the team that won three in a row to start the season or the one that's on a three-game losing streak?"

A: My best guess? Neither.

As mentioned in the last answer, the Seahawks underwent a ton of change this offseason, meaning they're playing under a new coaching staff and using new offensive and defensive schemes. They were able to do enough early in the season to get some wins, and they weren't able to pull that off the past three weeks. Going forward, the Seahawks expect to be better in all phases, but regardless of how the rest of the season plays out, they'll be a team that is evolving throughout the year, meaning wins in upcoming games might not look a lot like the first three wins of the season, just as any losses could very well look different than what we saw the last few weeks.

Again, the Seahawks would have loved to skip over any growing pains and just hit the ground running for 17 straight games, but that's not really realistic for any team under an entirely new coaching staff, so rather than hope the Seahawks can get back to what helped them win the first three games, the better goal should be to grow and evolve into a team that can win a lot more games the rest of the season.

John from Tacoma asks, "On the Top 50 players poll, why is there not a place for a write in? How is Steve Raible not listed as a choice?"

A: I love Steve Raible, he's a franchise icon who has called some of the biggest moments in Seahawks history as the team's longtime play-by-plan man, and someday there will be a great case to be made for him to go into the team's Ring of Honor.

But we're talking about a Top 50 Seahawks Players list here, not a Top 50 Seahawks Icons or Figures or whatever else you want to call it. You'll notice coaches and executives aren't a part of this either, and I can guarantee you that if you ask Raible, who has a great self-deprecating sense of humor, he would be quick to point out that his career as a player only doesn't stack up to those receivers who were included.

As for the lack of a write-in option, I wasn't part of creating the voting process so I don't know if that was ever considered, but I will say that all the different criteria to get on the ballot created a pretty thorough list of 163 players.

• Started at least 45 games
• Voted to an AP All-Pro or NFL Pro Bowl team
• Won Seahawks Man of the Year or the Steve Largent Award
• Currently leads a career major statistical category, such as Most Receiving Yards in a Career
• Part of an iconic moment in Seahawks history

And if you read all of that and don't know what we're talking about, it was announced during last week's game that, as part of next year's 50^th season in franchise history, fans can vote on the Top 50 Players in franchise history. Check out Seahawks50.com for more info and to vote.

Georgia from The Dalles, Oregon asks, "How can we rate Tyler Lockett's success other than the usual stats of yards, touchdowns, number of Pro Bowls, etc.? He is always the player we need in the right moment?"

A: For starters, we can use the numbers to illustrate his success, because Lockett's 638 catches, 8,333 yards and 60 touchdowns all rank second in franchise history behind only Hall of Famer Steve Largent, who at the time of his retirement was the NFL's all-time leader in all three of those categories. Lockett is also one of only two receivers in team history, along with Largent, to record four consecutive seasons with 1,000 receiving yards. So by those measures alone, Lockett is one of the best, and arguably the second best, receivers in team history.

But as the question points out, there's more to Lockett's greatness than just those numbers. The most noteworthy thing that stands out to me, though it's hard to quantify, is just how clutch Lockett has been in big moments, be it late-game touchdowns to put the Seahawks ahead, or key third-down catches to sustain a drive, such as his one-handed grab in Week 1 to keep the offense on the field late in the game and secure a victory.

Another underrated part of Lockett's game has been his toughness and durability. Despite regularly being one of the smallest players on the field in any given game, the 5-foot-10, 182-pound Lockett has missed only two regular season games in his entire career due to injury (he also missed one in 2021 due to COVID-19), one because he broke his leg in the penultimate game of the 2016 season, also causing him to miss two playoff games, and one in 2022 because he broke a bone in his hand, requiring surgery, but only keeping him out one game.

@crunchynes asks, "Why are we throwing the ball so much?"

A: That was a big topic last week, with Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb both acknowledging the offense can't be pass-heavy, and the Seahawks did try to correct that, running on six of their first nine plays, throwing only on third down.

The problem the Seahawks ran into in that game, and have had come up a lot in recent games, is that they have been playing from behind a lot, forcing them to throw more while playing catchup. With Geno Smith playing well and so many good weapons in the passing game, it wouldn't be surprising if they're a little pass-heavy all season, but they know there needs to be more balance than what they have shown so far this season.

Daisy from Chandler, Arizona asks, "Will Devon Witherspoon be able to avoid a sophomore slump?"

A: Daisy isn't saying Witherspoon is having a sophomore slump, at least I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt on that, but I want to address this anyway in case anyone is looking at what has been a quieter start to Year 2 for Witherspoon as anything resembling a slump.

Witherspoon, in fact, has been playing incredibly well this season, but likely because of how good he was as a rookie, teams just aren't throwing at him. Witherspoon has still made several impressive plays around the line of scrimmage, and his coverage has been great, but he just isn't getting targeted enough to make plays on the ball, which is usually how cornerbacks can stand out.

According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Witherspoon has a coverage success rate of 75.0 percent, which is second best in the league among players with at least 100 coverage snaps, and opposing quarterbacks are completing just 58.3 percent of their pass attempts with no touchdowns when targeting him.

Over time, more opportunities to make plays on the ball will come for Witherspoon, as will the occasional sack, particularly if and when the Seahawks clean up their run defense and force teams into more obvious passing situations. And when those opportunities come, I fully expect Witherspoon will make more than his share of big plays to make any talk of a sophomore slump seem silly.

Sean from High River, Alberta asks, "Why don't the Seahawk have a linebacker or defensive back kick off instead of using their kicker, who may have to make a tackle? I'm sure there's a defensive player that could chip the ball into the landing zone, then if need be, make a tackle."

A: This topic came up during training camp when a couple of different teams and coaches floated the idea of using a defensive player rather than a kicker, giving the coverage team a better chance to make a tackle if the returner gets through the initial wave of players. The problem, as Seahawks special teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh noted at the time, is that kicking a football into a desired area is not nearly as easy as it might sound. Few position players would have the leg to just boot it deep into or out of the end zone if that's what the team might desire to avoid a return all together, and even getting it consistently into the landing zone isn't as easy as it might seem.

"You've got to be pretty good to be able to kick off a bunch of times and keep the ball in the landing zone every time, because it's a pretty steep price if you miss it," Harbaugh said during training camp.

Then there's the fact that, for everyone but the kicker, that's not a usual motion, so you would be putting that defensive player at risk for injury, or to avoid that, you'd be using up valuable practice time to make sure he is kicking enough to reduce that risk.