The fact that the Seahawks made it to the playoffs in 2018 was extraordinary. Prior to the season there were a lot of national pundits who thought 1) Seattle would be lucky to win more than four games, 2) Pete Carroll would be spending his last season in Seattle and 3) team morale was awful.
None of the above turned out to be true. Instead, Carroll and general manager John Schneider re-tooled the roster and got rid of players like Richard Sherman who were becoming cancers in the locker room. Carroll is great with young players and the 2018 team had a young roster.