It may seem annoying to keep banging the drum like Todd Rundgren, but the Seattle Seahawks have a turnover problem.
After Sam Darnold’s four interceptions in a 21-19 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, the Seahawks
are the NFL’s undisputed leaders in turnovers committed.
Their -7 turnover differential is tied for fourth-worst. The four teams with equal or worse turnover differentials all have losing records. Darnold fired away into coverage and threw Seattle’s 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th giveaways on the year. Seattle’s defense, as valiantly as it performed, only mustered up a fumble recovery off of Puka Nacua for its lone takeaway. I guess DeMarcus Lawrence can’t score two touchdowns every week.
Having been accustomed to Pete Carroll’s “it’s all about the ball” mentality for over a decade, which in part emphasized turnover avoidance. I’m not saying Macdonald doesn’t ascribe to that belief or that he isn’t aware of the importance of protecting the ball, but these critical mistakes have not stopped since I wrote about them the last time the Seahawks lost a game:
We’ve been spoiled for the most part regarding low turnover rates, largely due to Russell Wilson being a low-interception quarterback (although he was prone to losing a few fumbles per season). Pete Carroll is/was borderline obsessive about taking care of the ball, and Seattle accordingly only had two seasons (2010 and 2022) in which they ranked in the bottom half of the league in most giveaways. Macdonald’s first year saw the Seahawks rank 24th in giveaways and now they’re tied for 29th in this category to start October.
If the Seahawks are to make the playoffs, forget about winning the NFC West, this has to stop. You can only commit so many self-inflicted mistakes before you get burned, and that’s a major reason why Seattle is 3-2 instead of 4-1 or 5-0.
The Seahawks were clean against the Jacksonville Jaguars the week after the Bucs loss and have proceeded to cough it up 12 times in four games, including 10 charged to Darnold. It may not seem true, but Darnold only has one fewer turnover through 10 games as Geno Smith had all of last season. I suppose it’s more visually jarring when it’s interceptions and not lost fumbles, of which Geno had none last year and put all of his turnovers into interceptions. Geno’s turnovers were contextually damaging given how many were in high-leverage situations and often in the red zone, but is it that much better if your quarterback is committing several turnovers deep in his own territory like Darnold?
Dating back to the Cardinals game, the Seahawks defense has allowed six touchdowns. Four of them are off of Darnold giveaways, however lucky or reckless they may have been. Those TD drives have traveled 3, 19, 3, and 25 yards. Go back to the Texans game and six of the last 10 Seahawks touchdowns allowed are directly off of Darnold giveaways, and every drive started no worse than midfield.
It’s not all on Darnold’s shoulders, of course. They’ve had lost fumbles from Jalen Milroe, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Elijah Arroyo, George Holani, and even Coby Bryant (albeit under dubious circumstances). Cooper Kupp threw an interception on a needless trick play. A.J. Barner has fumbled twice this season and fortunately recovered both, while Rashid Shaheed fumbled in his Seahawks debut and was saved by Brady Russell on a kickoff return. Only the Vikings have fumbled more than Seattle this year.
Ball security for the Seahawks has been a killer all season and it has been one of the deciding factors in each of their three losses. In the Macdonald era they have turned it over multiple times in well over half of his 27 career games, which is also worst in the NFL during that span. Any thought that this issue would go away with Geno Smith’s interceptions and DK Metcalf’s fumbles being gone have been thoroughly squashed.
Thankfully, the Seahawks are still 7-3 and boast an elite defense. Even despite the turnovers, which are befitting of a bad team, the offense is still collectively very good. They are not going to go far in the playoffs if they are this incapable of playing clean football. Step one is making it in the first place, which I’m confident will still happen, but this level of sloppiness could end up costing them games against teams they should be beating.
