The full-strength Seattle Seahawks would defeat the Tennessee Titans on average by two scores. So, missing their starting inside linebacker, their center, strong safety, nosetackle, and even their top
TD-maker on offense, it follows that they should win by three scores.
They kinda did, and I don’t mean by three safeties. Until variance — a punt return, a pivotal and peculiar no-call-timeout-penalty sequence, and a garbage time score fueled by fourth-down funny business — set in and calmed the score down to a 30-24 victory. But Seattle was never going to lose after establishing a 23-3 lead at the game’s approximate midpoint.
When the Titans had their window — more of a cat door really — of victory open the largest, it was still incumbent on them to punch it in, recover the onside kick, and get in the end zone again. All within a minute with no timeouts, too. Predictably, they cleared only one of those three hurdles, and the Seahawks walked away winners for the eighth time already in a potentially special season.
Today’s win probability chart and Nick tell the story much better than the scoreboard.
It was time after Week 3 to give the Seahawks defense their props, when they ran N’awlins out of the building.
It was time after Week 6, when they dismantled a good offense and a great offensive line in Jacksonville.
It is even more time after Week 12, when they followed the script from wins over the Saints, Texans, Commanders and Cardinals, took an inferior team and pulverized them in the first half — again — and seized control by the midpoint — again — on the way to a road win far more comfortable than the final score indicates. Uh-ginn.
Seattle’s nigh impenetrable defense gave the offense every advantage needed to put the game away before half. This time Sam Darnold and his merry band of knaves didn’t cough up the ball four or five times. And Jaxon Smith-Njigba did JSN things. So did Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet, bless them. So it wasn’t close when it mattered, and the game was not remotely in doubt for the final 28 minutes of gameplay. (Yes, again.)
Y’all. This is a good Seahawks team. They might be great. Their three losses don’t even have a dispiriting aspect to them:
- Week 1 to a healthy 49ers team. Had the ball, driving for the go-ahead score and turned it over.
- Week 5 when the defense was missing six starters. Gave up 38 points. Still had the ball, driving for the go-ahead score and turned it over.
- Week 11 to the NFC’s current 1 seed in LA. Four interceptions and somehow still still still had the ball, driving for the winning score and ran out of time/leg.
Given the very serious flaws present in every NFC team and every traditional AFC superpower, plus the memory of how winnable the Rams game would have been with decent ball security, the Seahawks are contenders right now. Today. Like it or not. You don’t have to like it, but it feels good anyway. Give it a try. I will own my skepticism. I thought they were a year away. They are a month away.
For the fifth time this year, hard to say how thrilling a recap will make this space. Big-time players made game-changing plays in high-leverage moments. The fourth quarter was largely relaxed*. This keeps happening.
*when the irritating tentacles of fate weren’t holding reality back and deciding for funsies to charm a Tennessee teeder drive into existence, a travesty we will address in due time
The Titans’ eight-minute opening drive yielded all their first-half points, which amounted to three, and that’s all the nice things a person can say about them early on. When the Seahawks failed at first to account for Cam Ward’s legs (certainly a decision), he made them pay, with a nifty fourth down conversion to his TE and two critical scrambles.
DeMarcus Lawrence blew up the first and goal play, complicating Tennessee’s ability to use all four downs. Then practice squad promotee Patrick O’Connell traversed the field for a third-down sack, forcing the timid to Titans settle for three, and it felt like the Seahawks had weathered the hosts’ best punch. Because they had.
Wasn’t kidding about traversing the field. Upon rewatch, O’Connell saves the touchdown:
There’s a surprise entrant into the Predator category tonight, and it has to do with this play.
It took the Seahawks eight plays to answer. They were in Titans territory after two snaps (a nice Walker run and a personal foul penalty), in field goal range within five, and though the drive stalled it was pleasant to not re-feel the familiar dread of trailing early on the road. Someone with more research free time should feel free to examine how many minutes the Seahawks have been behind this season. I suspect the answer is even smaller than I suspect.
Incidentally, Walker had a hell of a game. Fourteen touches for 101 yards and 6.5 yards per carry. Predator.
The ensuing kickoff was mishandled so that you, dear reader and appreciator of things that are #good, could appreciate a #good thing.
Research by The Athletic’s Austin Mock revealed that no team is gaining a greater advantage from the new kickoff rules than the Seahawks. Through 12 weeks, Seattle ranked:
- First in EPA/game derived from kickoffs at 2.2
- First in wins gained from kickoffs at 0.77
- Second in actual kickoffs kicked at 61 (Colts have 62)
- Second in opponent average starting field position at 27.0 (Panthers 26.5)
Chat, is it good when your kickoff team alone is worth three quarters of a win before Thanksgiving?
So the Titans had to start at their own three, and the things about that is, it’s a damn long journey from there to paydirt. A Tennessee 1st and 25 turned into 3rd and 19. which they would’ve converted if Nick Emmanwori hadn’t suddenly turned invisible to anyone in a blue jersey.
With a chance to take the lead, the Seahawks sputtered a little and botched a QB sneak with a false start. Offender Grey Zabel was playing 5D chess, though, setting up his teammates for what they do best: murder cornerbacks in broad daylight.
JSN is the best receiver in football. Howie Long said as much on the pre-game show and the announcers revered him all game. All of those statements are objectively true. What a world.
Next, Byron Murphy took down Cam Ward on third down to force a punt, with a lil assist from blitzing maven Devon Witherspoon. Vintage Seahawks defense. With Ward already under a siege longer than Troy’s, it felt like the Titans’ chances hung on a great punt and a stop. They got neither. Rashid Shaheed danced to the TEN 26 and another FG made it 13-3. A pity Seattle wasted AJ Barner’s hard count that produced a first down, because of course effing AJ Barner went under center and drew the defense offsides. What even is this season.
In a different but not distant universe, the Seahawks finish three more drives, lead 24-3 before halftime and make it 31-3 on the second JSN score. They are so close to greatness, you can smell nothing but it. If a dog pooped on your foot this instant, it would not make an olfactory dent.
Tennessee’s fourth drive ended on downs in another display of dominance by the Seattle d-line, which had Thanksgiving early: four sacks, six TFLs and 11 QB hits. Titans running backs rushed for 27 yards on 17 attempts. The thesaurus is exhausted coming up with superlatives. Y’all remember when the Eagles won a Super Bowl way back when on the strength of that same position group? I think the Seahawks brass took notes.
Seattle’s two-minute drive before half netted only three points because of miscommunications and procedural penalties. Which are so much better than turnovers! I will accept that trade! Also, since the Seahawks deferred they got to receive the second half kickoff and before you have a chance to finish this paragraph, JSN has scored again. 20-3.
The teams traded touchdowns to make it 30-10. Most interesting to me in that third quarter was the way Walker powered the Seattle offense. In the first half his five first-down runs turned into a measly 12 yards combined. After half, though, he gained 7, 19, 11 and 15 on first down and added a nifty 29-yard screen on first down again (there’s that word again). He turbocharged the offense into the red zone, where Charbonnet finished the job:
The Seahawks would not score again, but the Titans would; once on a drive that should have ended with an incompletion if not for the officials missing Macdonald’s frantic attempt to call timeout. The broadcast did, but apparently that doesn’t count. Add another layer to replay challenges, @ NFL commish.
We did get to witness some of what made Cam Ward the first pick overall, and that was exciting.
Later, he slipped out of two tackles to convert 4th and 7. But truth be told, the Titans needed a lot more to go right, including sneakily adding time to the game clock, which essentially ran out of them before the doomed onside kick. Needing two scores, they took 15 plays to gain 62 yards. (Almost as inefficient as how the Seahawks closed out the Rams game! Haha! No. Not haha.) Mostly it’s disappointing because we missed a chance to see Macdonald invent a new kind of victory formation, one executed by the defense. Ah well, there’s still six regular season games left. We’re bound to see something mind-blowing besides Jaxon “Minitron” Smith-Ngijba’s record chase.
Anyway, if Tennessee doesn’t rack up their most fourth down conversions since 2009 (five) or as many as they’d had all season so far (also five!) then there’s no onside kick and no close-looking final score. This was another convincing result in a season already overflowing with them.
PREDATOR
No sense in wasting time after the earlier tease. John Schneider is today’s first predator. Full disclosure: I thought the Seahawks fired the wrong guy after 2023. I was not a fan of Schneider’s free agent signings or recent drafts, although his trading acumen is elite.
When the front office let Pete Carroll go, it was in part because the playmakers had aged or departed and the depth couldn’t pick up the slack. Fast forward less than two years, and the roster is full, top to bottom. The drafting has yielded top-tier talent on the regular: JSN, Spoon, Murphy, Zabel, Barner, Hall, Mafe, Cross, Woolen, and anyone I’m forgetting. Practice squad players such as O’Connell step in seamlessly.
The synergy between JS and MM peaked when they traded up for Emmanwori last spring, saving the rookie from a career in silver and black. I think we’ll be rehashing that draft day maneuver many times as the decade progresses.
The trades for Williams and Ernest Jones were brilliant. Snagging Julian Love was a masterstroke. Moving on from Russell Wilson AND Geno Smith appears to been engineered at exactly the right time, somehow. Whatever “it” is, JS has it right now. Being wrong about someone rocks. You should try it.
PREDATOR
Kenneth Walker. Cited him twice already, not much else to say. First-down excellence after halftime. Explosive, decisive, productive.
APEX PREDATOR
Jaxon Smith-Njigba (yawn). Broke the franchise record for receiving yards in a season with six games left (yawn). Continues to lap the league in everything (yawn). Behold the chart (not yawn).
See any names you recognize?
CO-PREDATORS
Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy and Derick Hall and Uchenna Nwosu and DeMarcus Lawrence and Boye Mafe. If feels like all six pass rushers are on the field even when only four are rushing. They’re not manageable for any offensive line. If the last Seahawks defense to do special things was spearheaded by its secondary, this one follows the lead of their rabid defensive linemen. Or the zombies from World War Z. Dare I say, World War Sea? Tell me this doesn’t remind you of most games:
PREDATOR
Tariq Woolen is playing like his financial future depends on it, and the real winners here are the Seahawks, plus the fans. And Woolen! In short, everyone wins. Deep passes aren’t getting completed off him and his tackling in space is vastly improved. Saw that twice in the second half. If they pay him he’ll deserve it. If they don’t I have confidence in Schneider and Macdonald to find a replacement.
NPOTB
Patrick O’Connell made three hits you could hear in the booth, at or behind the line of scrimmage, didn’t look out of place, and saved those four points early on that could have mattered a great deal. What a day for him after two and a half seasons on the fringe of the roster. If you can believe it, O’Connell entered the game with one solo tackle in his entire NFL career. He had more than that on the first drive alone.
No I’m not going to explain the acronym.
Seahawks chilling now in a nest of 8-3, looking at two poorly quarterbacked teams on the schedule between now and December 14 — the Vikings and Falcons. Fun fact: J.J. McCarthy is ranked 851st out of 852 quarterbacks in EPA/dropback since 2000. I will give you one guess, and that guess is JaMarcus Russell, who stands in last place behind the Vikings starter.
The December 18 date in Seattle with the Rams, the NFC’s co-best team, could not loom any larger if it were the Independence Day alien mothership parked above the White House. (Incidentally, an alien invasion would surprise exactly nobody if it happened next week. Come at us, 2025. You still got six weeks. Do your worst.)
Regardless of how Seahawks-Rams II shakes out, everything is aligned for Seattle to enter the playoffs as a conference favorite who doesn’t need to play at home to win. The Hawks are going somewhere. As far as that ends up being, if they are to go, then let us go with them.
