Seattle Seahawks games are many things, but never easy. They’re joyful and dispiriting, agonizing and thrilling. Hell, they have a way of switching between all four of those in a single quarter.
Coming into Week 3 at Lumen Field against the New Orleans Saints, who’d looked pluckier than their 0-2 record indicated, it was logical to observe all the usual fanbase fanspace for fanfrownyface. Hadn’t the Seahawks lost seven of their past eight home games? (Yes.) Hadn’t the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune felled Seattle’s top two defensive weapons and sickened their top offensive threat? (Also yes. Assume the questions are Yes until further notice.)
And then, the game itself put all perturbation to rest. It was 21-0 before you could blink, 38-6 at half, and the entire fourth quarter was fifteen minutes of mercy rule. For the second week in a row, the Seahawks scored seven on their opening drive, won in all three phases and easily dispatched a foe that a good team should easily dispatch.
Of all frickin’ things, it was a relaxing Seahawks victory on a perfect fall afternoon, bracketed by other key wins from other local teams, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Anyway. All three phases. That definitely includes this franchise record 95-yard punt return from winged rookie sensation Tory Horton.
The only Who Horton heard on the way to the end zone was the breathy thud of New Orleans’ kicker having the wind knocked out of him by Chazz Surratt, who we most definitely will get to later.
We’ll get to almost everything, but the everything was a lot more than usual today. With your permission, a cross-sport analogy. You know what they say about baseball — in part, you go to a game because you never know what you’ll see for the first time.
Today’s first? Kellen Moore throwing in the towel before it even had a chance to dry. A recent Seahawks coach used to say you can’t win the game in the first, second or even the third quarter. Well, the Saints staff proved that wizened coach wrong, in a roundabout backwardsy sort of way. They did something I’ve never seen in an NFL game: they conceded before the two-minute warning. No, not THAT two-minute warning. The first one. To set the stage for a sec:
Seattle had been scoring at will in the first half. After the score reached a preposterous 35-3, Moore found himself contemplating fourth and two at the Seattle 33. Having moved the ball already 42 yards on the drive, a go made sense. A long field goal takes you from a four score game to a four score game. There is no point. And yet there he is, sending out the kicking team. (Missed the kick but that’s immaterial.)
I understand that Moore had gone for it on the first drive and come up empty. Then watched his squad mis-execute their next chance on fourth and one, leading directly to the blocked punt. But there is no better way to show disbelief in your team than to kick when you’re four possessions down and the field goal keeps it a four-possession game.
Later, when the Saints settled for a red zone field goal attempt, to trim the deficit from 35 to 32 as the half expired, you could audibly hear derisive laughter in the stadium. Victory laughter. In the second quarter! The Saints had already conceded. The Seahawks had already won. The only questions were:
A) Would we see Scorigami? (Close, but no.)
B) Would Seattle score 50? (Close. Maybe in hand grenades.)
C) Then would the Seahawks score on every drive? (Again, no cigar, but it’s the thought that counts. Get it?)
D) Would Jalen Milroe enter the game? (Hey, yes this time for a change, but the quietest yes, for a single three-yard carry.)
First quarter delights were a-plenty. Yes, Horton’s 95 yards of ecstasy. But also Kenneth Walker scoring a rugby try early, aggravating the wound New Orleans would spend all afternoon trying to close, to no avail.
This isn’t exactly breaking news, but K9 gets a bad rap for dancing at the line and not choosing the best option his teammates or the scheme have prepared for him. Feel free to cite whatever stats you’d like to prove or disprove the narrative, but I literally do not care what you conclude. Inside the five he lusts after the white line. There aren’t that many RBs who score on the play above.
The thing I enjoyed most about Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s first-drive score is how Sam Darnold had options on the rollout to his left. He had blockers to run, a deeper target, and a sneaky little JSN-shaped-sprite who’d slithered in from the opposite slot, between the big boys and the ‘backers. Options are good. Options stress the defense. This is a real modern offense, after ten years of waiting.
Up 14, the small city assembled in Sodo started to smell blood. N’awlins went backwards three times in the next four plays, on two false starts and a hold, setting up 2nd and 25. The Mike Macdonald defense is disciplined, so there was no braindead flag to save the visitors, and they lined up to punt on 4th and 12. For the second time, the ball did not travel as they intended.
For the second time, Chazz Surratt was at the center of chaos, first to the loose ball like the hoopster who wants it the most. Look at that wide 44 with nothing but green in front of him.
Oh man, a scoop and score would’ve cemented him in Seahawks lore, but his misstep is all good because that allows us to focus on the jump our king D’Anthony Bell got. Gave it his best Superman/Victor Robles impression (if you know you know), and two plays later, Walker is in.
The punt block changed game calculus somewhat, but the second quarter is when the Seahawks pulled away. Yes, the Saints added three on a long drive cut short by Josh Jobe’s long arms inside the 10. (He plays the ball with authority and will be a rich man soon.) Yes, it’s still technically anyone’s ballgame at 21-3. No, that game state wasn’t to Horton’s liking. After another JSN bomb set the Seahawks up in Saints territory, Horton worked his way into a half-step of openness down the right sideline. That’s all Darnold needed to drop a heat-seeker over his receiver’s outside shoulder. Two feet in and Horton had punched his third TD ticket in three games. Say, has anyone told you he’s a rookie?
Fun fact: Seattle’s three offensive touchdown drives were a total of 11 plays long. Combined. That’s one way to tire out your defense. It’s also the best possible way. They should consider mistreating the defense like that every week.
Rest of the second quarter was consumed with Moore’s aforementioned Can We Start The Bus Yet tactics and KW’s second touchdown/bulldozing act.
Third quarter saw the Seahawks offense shift into temporal consumption mode. Nine minutes of clock for two FG drives and I kid you not, my seat neighbor yawned.
You really don’t know what you’re going to see at ANY sporting event.
As the fourth frame began, pretty sure the last empty square on your Seahawks bingo card was defensive takeaway. And let’s be real — Spencer Rattler had big pick energy all game. It was only a matter of time until either Jobe, Derion Kendrick, or Coby Bryant sealed the deal. The bottle spun, spun again, and landed pointing at Kendrick, who now has interceptions in successive games in relief of Devon Witherspoon.
I don’t know about y’all, but without Spoon and J-Love in the secondary I had a pit in the bottom of my stomach pregame. Being wrong never felt so good. This team has depth on the defensive line, depth in the secondary, and hopefully Ernest Jones sleeps in a bubble-wrapped hyperbaric chamber with the Praetorian Guard at every entrance and a food taster on call because that dude is indispensable. Or so we think today.
A few academic drives later, managed perfectly by Drew Clock until the clinching kneeldown, and 44-13 turned out to be the final damage. It wasn’t even that close.
In conclusion, special teams don’t just matter, they swing games. Sure, the Saints made four pretty critical errors, but you could also ask the Los Angeles Rams their opinion. This was the last play of their game in Philadephia.
On that happy thought, let’s glide over to Predator and Prey. Which will be woefully short for the amount of dominance displayed by Seattle in all facets.
PREDATOR
Tory Horton is the obvious choice. Three Seahawks games have elapsed and that’s how may touchdowns Horton has. It doesn’t work like this, but he outscored the entire Saints team. (It totally works like this.)
Chazz Surratt.
It’s probably a hard clip to find but he also blew up the kick returner on the next play.
The home crowd. Three false start penalties in the first nine minutes made Saints drives more challenging than they could have been. I’ve been to about 120 Seahawks home games and the energy of this one compares favorably with primetime affairs. The Twelves were on point too.
The Seahawks OL on pass plays. Two QB hits and no sacks allowed. Consistent time to throw for their QB. This comes on the heels of a similar Week 2 performance. Must monitor as the opposition toughens.
Jay Harbaugh. Sunday was a triumph for him. The Horton and Dareke Young returns, the punt block, and excellent coverage even after the game was out of hand.
Sam Darnold. For the second straight week, he escaped a sack-adjacent situation only to find JSN on the run and flip a negative play into an explosive. He completed his first five passes for two scores to guide the lead to 28-0. The Horton TD was as on the money as a corner route can be. He has good instincts. Like his predecessor, he doesn’t have such a big ego that he has to run the team.
When he’s looking for Smith-Njigba, Darnold can be a Jean Reno-level hitman. Besides the 12-yard TD, the two connected for 29 and 45 yards in the first half. They might be special together, and I have a mea culpa to insert — never thought they could develop this level of chemistry this quickly. I was wrong about them, and the smart money says it won’t be the last time.
The Seahawks official team account? Repurposed a well-known meme on the only day they could. Enjoy getting to use the old one again for the next 14 games.
ATTEMPTED PREY BUT IT DIDN’T WORK
Ty Okada. In the absence of Julian Love, the Saints threw at Okada for what seemed like the entire second quarter. Rattler rattled off 13 completions but no game-breakers. Completions in the second period went for 8, 1, 5, 4, 1, 15, 5, 3, 7, 6, 8, 5 and finally 15 past Riq Woolen as the rest of the Seahawks guarded the end zone. Just once did Okada get beat for a medium amount. He excelled at keeping everything in front of him and making sure tackles.
PREY AND PREDATOR
Kenneth Walker scored twice out of sheer will. Inside the five he will find a way.
Outside of the double no-you-can’t-tackle-me-I’m-an-angry-hippopotamus moments at the goal line, he was stymied for 32 carries on 14 yards. He didn’t break one beyond 10 all day. So the Seahawks offense will need better run-blocking or vision, or both — probably both — if they want to eventually beat teams better than the Steelers and Saints.
PREY
Kellen Moore. He literally rolled over onto his back, leaned fully into the submissive position, showed his tummy and asked for rubs. Much was made of this being a meeting between the league’s two youngest coaches but only one of them got caught in a headlock and cried uncle.
To wedge in one final item of business, Sunday afternoon left one wishing for one solitary missing piece: more Milroe. Drew Lock snaps are wasted. He is not an unknown, and he is not this franchise’s future. But the rookie might well be. To Milroe, at this stage of his career nothing is more valuable than live reps against live bullets, even if the Saints were firing a water pistol most of the afternoon. However, a home blowout win is rarefied air we might not breathe again for years. Thus the closing line is filled with more optimism than I’ve felt in a while; if the Hawks are to go, let us go with them.
