The Seattle Seahawks’ first of four primetime outings for the 2024 season did not go according to plan. A myriad of defensive line injuries put Seattle at a disadvantage against the Detroit Lions, and the Seahawks unsurprisingly lost 42-29 on Monday Night Football.

This could’ve easily been a humbling hammering in front of a national audience, but Geno Smith and the offense racked up over 500 yards and a franchise record 38 first downs and kept the game competitive well into the fourth quarter.

Even in defeat, NFL on FOX analyst Mark Schlereth was among those who came away with a more positive outlook on the Seahawks.

“They’re better than I thought they were,” Schlereth said to Seattle Sports 710. “You hang 29 points up on Detroit and you dominate some of the offensive statistics and you do what you did against them, that’s a heck of a game. That’s offensive output on the road, dealing with crowd noise.

“And look at Detroit right now. I think they’ve got star players at all three levels of their defense. And to put up the kind of offensive numbers you put up, … I was really impressed.”

Schlereth also acknowledged the difficulties of having so many defensive players missing, sayin in part, “People just don’t understand how much you have to communicate on a football field to actually be a really good team.” He also had big praise for how well the offense performed.

“Not that you ever get a moral victory, but you walk away from that feeling pretty good about what you did offensively,” Schlereth said. “That’s one of those that you can walk away from and say, ‘Hey, listen, we lost. Yeah, we’d like to clean some things up. Yeah, we can’t give up some of the big plays and the things that hurt us in the red zone and all that stuff.’

“But I think you do walk away from those games occasionally feeling pretty good about your football team, because I think the Lions are legit. … They do a lot of things exceptionally well (on offense). They’ve got talent. They can run. They’ve got all that stuff. And defensively, they’ve they’ve cured some of what ails them in the last couple of years. … They are a really good football team.”

A loss is still a loss, but if there was ever a “good” loss given the circumstances, this might be it. Even at full strength this might have been a tough game to win, and it seems like the Seahawks and Lions are just destined to be in shootouts no matter how much they try to improve their defenses.

Seattle will have another big primetime opportunity coming up on Oct. 10 against the San Francisco 49ers, but the first order of business is to defeat the New York Giants this Sunday to guarantee top spot in the NFC West heading into its first division game of the year.