Through seven games, the Seahawks are in a pretty good spot sitting at 5-2, a record that has them tied atop the NFC West with the 49ers and Rams, and firmly in the thick of an NFC playoff race in which every team but one has at least two losses.

On the other hand, the Seahawks head into their bye week feeling like they are a good team that has not yet touched their true potential. Monday's win over the Texans was a perfect example of that, with the Seahawks jumping to an early 14-0 lead before struggling to close the game out thanks to numerous miscues, including four turnovers and 12 penalties.

Like nearly every NFL team, the Seahawks have games they feel like they should have won, having dropped home games against the 49ers and Buccaneers after both teams scored late touchdowns to take the lead, then forced turnovers on Seattle's potential go-ahead drives. But like nearly every NFL team, the Seahawks have also had some close wins that also could have gone either way, and overall, five wins against two losses, while owning the league's third best point differential, is a pretty good place to sit for a team that still feels like it is growing.

"It's kind of cool," Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. "We're finding ways to win games, which, like I said, it's really difficult to win. You've got to celebrate those things. Look, we could be 7-0 and have won every game by 30 points, and trust we're going to find stuff we're going to want to improve on. When we watch the tape, we'll go back and regroup, self scout, try to get those answers for next week. It will be very clear on where we need to grow. The guys see it. They see it. They feel it. We got a great group of guys. I'll tell you what, they're going to be really determined coming out of the bye."

And the Seahawks have good reason to believe that their best football is still ahead of them despite a strong start. On defense, the Seahawks have been outstanding, aside from a rough outing against Tampa Bay, but they've been doing that without a pair of Pro Bowl defensive backs, Devon Witherspoon and Julian Love, for much of the season, they were without rookie safety Nick Emmanwori for nearly four full games, and recently have also been without one of their top outside linebackers in Derick Hall. They should be at or near full strength coming out of the bye, giving them their first real look at Macdonald's defense with all its top players on the field.

"We're a good team," middle linebacker Ernest Jones IV said. "We're a really good team. There's still stuff little things that we can do better, but that will be always, no matter how good we play, I'm always going to be chasing that extra edge, chasing that extra play.

But I think at the bye week, we've set ourselves up nice. We've got to come back, and now let's get rolling for real.

On offense, the Sam Darnold passing game has been outstanding, with Darnold looking like one of the league's top quarterbacks so far this season, while Jaxon Smith-Njigba leads the NFL with 819 receiving yards. But the running game, something the Seahawks expected to hang their hat on under offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, isn't where the Seahawks expected it to be at this point, though Macdonald saw signs of improvement on Monday.

"Actually, going back and looking at it, I thought we took strides yesterday," Macdonald said. "I thought the guys played really hard. I think both K9 (Kenneth Walker III) and Charbs (Zach Charbonnet) had good performances. They run it decisively, and there'll be more. There are opportunities there for even more explosive yards, and it's just going to come with more detail. I think we're figuring out what we do well, which is positive. Coaches are working well together, and we're not there yet but it's positive. I think we're going in the right direction."

Through seven games, the Seahawks rank eighth in the league in rushing attempts, but are 30th in yards-per-carry average (3.7). If they can bring that second number up, and if the turnovers and penalties can go down, the offense has the potential to do some really good things.

"When we execute, when we do our job every single play, the results kind of speak for themselves," Darnold said. "We just can't keep shooting ourselves in the foot the way we have. I think Tampa, in that loss, was a pretty consistent performance from us. Still had some minor detail things that happened there. We just got to clean up the details. We will. We'll watch this tape, get better from it, enjoy this bye week. It's going to be huge for us to get some guys back and get healthy. We're going to enjoy the bye week and come back swinging in a couple weeks."

A big part of why the Seahawks are 5-2 and feeling like they can be even better is that they have, at times, been great in all three phases. Based on DVOA, long a favorite metric in the analytics world, the Seahawks are the league’s top ranked team, and they hold that ranking in large part because they are a top 10 DVOA team in all three phases. They've shown they can win low-scoring games with their defense dominating, and they've shown they can trade touchdowns with high-powered offenses in a shootout, and they've definitely shown the ability to make game-changing plays on special teams.

"I think our team has a lot of potential," defensive end Leonard Williams said. "I don't think we still have played a full game where all three levels are playing the way we know we can really play. There are times when the defense is not playing so well. and the offense is playing great. I think when we get all three phases going, we've got a great team."

And again, it's a pretty desirable position to be in when you're heading into a bye week relatively heathy while talking about how to improve, all while sitting at 5-2 and among the league's top teams. A year ago, in Macdonald's first season as head coach, the Seahawks went into their bye with a 4-5 record having lost five of six games. They were able to turn things around, winning four straight coming out of the bye, but this year they head into their break looking not for a drastic turnaround, but rather the type of fine tuning that can help a really good team become a great one.

"There are a lot of things to work on, which is great," Macdonald said. "It's a good position to be in, figuring out ways to win games when you also feel like you have a lot of room to grow as well. The importance of this week is we get some rest, we regroup, get a great feel for the things that we're doing well, things we need to improve on, and then have a great plan of attack going into next week."