The Seahawks’ blowout that wasn’t Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers — a 30-23 hang-on win in which Seattle held an early 21-point lead — raised as many questions as answers.

What to make of all the penalties? Is the running game good enough for now? Are the Seahawks ready for San Francisco?

Let’s address those questions and more with Seahawks beat reporters Tim Booth and Bob Condotta in this week’s Four Downs.

Booth: We’re only four weeks into the season and there are only three unbeaten teams remaining — Kansas City, Minnesota and the 49ers. Everyone keeps waiting for age and/or the Santa Clara electrical substation to take hold but at least early on the 49ers have looked great and are withstanding injuries that have hit some of their depth.

And there’s the way that last season ended, which has to be lingering with San Francisco. They watched the Seahawks celebrate the NFC West title in their stadium in Week 18, got pummeled by that same team in the divisional round of the playoffs and capped the triumvirate of misery seeing Seattle win its second Super Bowl title on the Field of Jeans. 

So yeah, it’s significant. 

Condotta: The schedules of the two teams adds to the significance of this game.

After playing San Francisco, the Seahawks have a short week before a road game at Denver on Oct. 15. They come home to play the undefeated Chiefs and the 3-1 Bears, who appear able to win games no matter who is playing QB with a defense that ranks among the best in the NFL.

The 49ers will host Washington the week after playing the Seahawks, travel to Atlanta — each games they’ll be favored to win (well at least before the Falcons demolition of the Saints Monday night, at least) — then will have their bye.

In other words, the 49ers leaving Seattle with a two-game lead, a chance to hold the tiebreaker, and a lead that could grow over the next few weeks would be a really bad development for the Seahawks’ goal of winning back-to-back Super Bowls.

Booth: OK, the numbers aren’t great. And a handful of penalties were downright careless, such as Nick Emmanwori’s personal foul late in the first half that gave the Chargers three points and clearly annoyed Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald to the point he wasn’t about to praise the young safety postgame no matter how well he actually played. 

“It was good to have him back, but everybody has to get better,” Macdonald said. 

But there is a little context needed. Referee Scott Novak’s crew likes throwing the flag. Novak’s crew called 27 penalties in Week 2 between the New York Jets and Green Bay, and upped that by calling 30 on Sunday between the Seahawks and Chargers. Not surprisingly, those are the two most penalized games in the league so far this year. 

Last year, Novak’s crew averaged just under 12 penalties per game, so the start to this year seems a bit like an outlier. 

Condotta: Macdonald mentioned the recent trends involving the crew during his appearance on Seattle Sports 710, noting that the same crew handled the preseason finale against the Chiefs — a game that featured a combined 24 penalties. 

“We could probably do a better job on our end throughout the week of educating our guys on like what the fouls are skewed towards,” Macdonald said. “Every crew is different. It’s a human thing. But at the end of the day the rules are the rules. You’re not going to change how you play based on what crew you have.”

Therein lies the crux. Like some of Pete Carroll’s best teams — the 2013 Super Bowl champs led the NFL in penalties at 7.9 per game, something that never seemed to bother Carroll or players of that era — Macdonald likes his team to play to the edge of the whistle.

The trick, Macdonald said, is knowing where that line is on any given Sunday and not going over it.

“We went over too many times yesterday,” he said. “So how we find the solution of how to live right there, I think that’s going to be a process I’m looking forward to. It’s going to start today.”

Booth: Coming into this week, the Chargers were tied for seventh in the league allowing only 3.6 yards per carry. They were winless, but they weren’t terrible in that aspect. 

Well, they’re still winless and they allowed the Seahawks to average 4.2 yards per carry thanks largely to Emanuel Wilson running between the tackles and a dash of Rashid Shaheed. 

In that way, it’s a good first step for Seattle’s run game that was thoroughly ineffective last week in Washington and knows it’ll have to live without Jadarian Price for a while. Repeating that level of success next week against the 49ers would be a much stronger indication of the viability moving forward. San Francisco hasn’t allowed more than 122 yards rushing through four weeks — the 122 came in the opener — and held Denver to 82 yards rushing on Sunday. 

Condotta: Macdonald on Monday said Zach Charbonnet won’t be ready for the 49ers game, meaning the Seahawks will go again with Wilson/George Holani/Velus Jones Jr. and some Shaheed sprinkled in against the 49ers.

That is unless they sign veteran Joe Mixon — who was had a workout with the Seahawks Monday — and he is ready. That might be asking a lot of a player who missed last season with a foot injury and is 30 years old.

Seahawks OC Brian Fleury spent the past seven years working as an assistant with the 49ers, so he should have a good idea of schemes that might work.

Booth: Not really. There can be balance even if there isn’t an obvious second option that has emerged. Against the Chargers, it was Wilson as an option out of the backfield through a series of well-designed screen passes. The ability to spread the distribution among several options can make up for not developing a primary No. 2 pass catcher. In Week 3 against Washington, eight players other than Smith-Njigba caught passes. On Sunday against the Chargers, it was six other pass catchers hauling in at least one pass. 

Still, it would be helpful to see Rashid Shaheed and Cooper Kupp with more than 16 total catches after four games. 

Condotta: This is one of those things that gets talked about more these days because of fantasy football. 

And certainly, there can be an aspect of keeping the players involved happy for team locker-room chemistry.

But what matters most is winning and putting together a productive offense. 

The Seahawks are third in team passer rating at 112.1 and touchdown passes with 10, fourth in yards per attempt at 7.6 and ninth in completion percentage at 68.6%. The passing offense seems to be working OK.