A win is a – hold on, there’s a flag.
As I was saying, you can’t complain – wait, did I just see yellow fly again?
Let me try this again, beggars – oh for the love of God, there’s another one?!?
That’s what the entire game felt like today…a sloppy, disjointed mess. It was like preseason with the amount of stupid penalties committed by the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Chargers as each team tried to give the game away. However, the Seahawks were just a little smarter about being less dumb, barely
holding on to a 30-23 win that had no right being as close as it was.
Los Angeles came in with an 0-3 record, and played like it for the first three quarters. The Seahawks took advantage of turnovers, racing out to a 21-point lead in the third quarter. That should’ve been a comfortable cushion with the Dark Side defense, but it wasn’t. Seattle continued to commit asinine penalties and allow long third and fourth down conversions. Los Angeles had the ball with over 1:30 left only down seven points. Luckily, former Charger Uchenna Nwosu strip-sacked Justin Herbert with Derick Hall recovering the ball to preserve the win. It was pretty ugly.
Seahawks Droppings
- The refs were flag happy, but I thought all of the calls were legit. That means that the Seahawks have a penalty – and by extension – a discipline problem right now. Many of those penalties were personal fouls. Many of those extended drives. You just can’t do that against good teams and win. Seattle racked up 14 penalties for 150 yards which is inexcusable. This is a pattern that has been relatively consistent this season going back to preseason. It will need to turn around or Seattle will lose games because of it.
- Jason Myers missed an extra point, got bailed out by a penalty after missing a long FG, and had another kickoff out of bounds penalty. I’m trying not to get too concerned, and give him the benefit of the doubt, but that’s becoming more difficult each week.
- The defense wasn’t up to its standard today in the second half. That late 4th and 7 conversion was the stuff of nightmares. Yes, they forced four turnovers…yet to do that and only win by seven points isn’t ideal.
- Part of the reason for the defense running out of gas was the offense taking their foot off of it in the fourth quarter. Seattle had 30 points prior to the final frame, adding none in the final 15 minutes. Even an extra field goal or long drive would’ve made this game much more comfortable. Seattle had the ball twice in the last 5 minutes and couldn’t close out the game.
- Emanuel Wilson was quite good as the feature back today with over 100 total yards and 2 TDs. He always seems to finish forward and has shown decent hands out of the backfield. Seattle will need him to hold down the fort until Zach Charbonnet can play.
- Sam Darnold had only 13 completions, and was under pressure quite a bit. He made a few plays with his legs which was nice to see coming off of his injury. The slant throw to Tory Horton was a thing of beauty. His boneheaded INT on the first offensive play was not.
- Jaxon Smith-Njigba didn’t get to the 100-yard mark for the first time in 2026, yet was still a factor in the game with a huge early third-and-long conversion. He led the team with 76 yards, followed by Emanuel Wilson’s 39 yards. Rashid Shaheed was more active today, especially out of the backfield where he contributed 33 yards a TD. Shaheed also fumbled again on a kickoff, but got the ball back. I don’t like to see that. What I would like to see, however, is Tory Horton getting more run. All he does is seemingly catch TDs, with another one today. I feel like he could be a much bigger weapon with all the attention that JSN, Shaheed, and Cooper Kupp get. Maybe Horton will be a bigger part as the season rolls on.
- Ernest Jones IV had a pretty awesome game with 12 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 Sack, and 1 INT.
- Nick Emmanwori also had a nifty sack…and a dumb penalty that helped the Chargers have an even more makeable FG. I thought DeMarcus Lawrence had a much bigger impact than his 3 tackles and 2 TFL stat line suggests. I’m not too mad at him for his low hit on Herbert since he was already going down to the ground and there wasn’t much he could do about it. Plenty of players took turns being boneheads on defense.
Seattle has a hell of a lot to shore up prior to playing the San Francisco 49ers next week. You better believe that the undefeated Niners will be a much bigger test than anyone the Seahawks have faced thus far in 2026. Hopefully Leonard Williams’ ankle injury isn’t serious, as the team will need him in a big way. Coming off of a terrible loss last week, it would’ve been nice to see the Seahawks make a statement and close the Chargers out in the fourth quarter.
Oh well, it could’ve been – oh get the f— out of here with the flags, the game is over!!
