The Seattle Seahawks live to make the home crowd disappointed. While they forgot that they’re not supposed to do that at Lumen Field, it is truly astonishing what they’ve managed to do away from Seattle under
Mike Macdonald. A whopping 10 wins out of 11 on the road, the latest of which came 20-12 over the Jacksonville Jaguars, who’d won three in a row prior to Sunday. The Jags fans might be disappointed but a 4-2 start with wins over the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers should provide some perspective on how well they’ve performed to start the year.
And yet, the Jaguars didn’t win this game, which means it’s Enemy Reaction time. We don’t have the Jaguars on much, and that’s because these teams only play each other once every four years. It seems like the fans also are in mild mode instead of constant rage mode like, say, other teams the Seahawks are more familiar with. Jaguars game thread comments are courtesy of Big Cat Country.
Busted coverage leads to Brian Thomas Jr touchdown (6-0 JAC)
Sam Darnold to Jaxon Smith-Njigba for a 61-yard touchdown! (10-6 SEA)
Cam Little misses field goal, second missed kick of the game (10-6 SEA)
Cooper Kupp scores his first touchdown as a Seahawk! (20-6 SEA)
Josh Jobe can’t intercept pass, Brian Thomas Jr scores, but Travis Hunter is offside (20-6 SEA)
Josh Jobe misplays pass, Tim Patrick scores touchdown (20-12 SEA)
Brian Thomas Jr drops huge 3rd down catch (20-12 SEA)
AJ Barner calls game (20-12 SEA)
Jaguars hold on field goal, Seahawks kneel out the clock (20-12 SEA Final)
Post-Game: Jaguars must fix penalty problem (Ryan O’Halloran, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union)
The Jaguars continue to commit penalties. Their 10 against Seattle was their third game in double-digits and ran their season total to 52, a whopping 13 more than opponents.
[…]
It has to get fixed or all of the good vibes of starting 4-1 will soon be extinguished. These Jaguars aren’t built to overcome self-inflicted setbacks like 10 false starts, six illegal shifts (five declined), two offensive offsides and, new to the party against Seattle, two illegal formations.
Yes, the Jaguars had trouble lining up.
How can they expect to put together a drive, much less win a game, if they can’t accomplish the most basic of football tasks aside from clapping when the quarterback yells, “Break!”?
They can’t.
Coen will have the long flight to London Monday night/Tuesday morning to think about his approach heading into Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Rams. Nothing should be off the table, whether it be pulling a player after a penalty (as unlikely as that would be) or simplifying the “undisciplined operation.”
The season is riding on it.
Post Game: Pressure was story of the loss to the Seahawks (John Oehser, Jaguars.com)
The Jaguars scored 31 points last Monday against the Kansas City Chiefs last Monday while getting just one turnover and 24 of those points came from the offense. They also missed seven more points when they failed to convert from the Chiefs 1-yard line. The point is this offense has not been terrible all season. I expect the offense will play better moving forward, particularly when it’s not playing elite defensive lines such as the one that plays for the Seahawks. What’s off? Too many penalties, too many dropped passes, too many errant throws. That’s the six-game story. The story against the Seahawks was seven sacks and infinitely more pressures. The Jaguars knew they were going to have to throw to win Sunday. The problem was they didn’t have time to do it.
Enemy Preaction: Houston Texans
We’ve got a lot of football left to play, but the Seahawks look like a bare minimum good football team with plenty of markers of an elite squad. Their DVOA is No. 1 through six weeks, although I don’t want to put a ton of stock in early-season DVOA. Even still, I don’t think you have to be a juggernaut to push for a high seed in this year’s NFC. The ceiling for his team could be higher than I thought.
Up next are the Houston Texans, who may be 2-3, but they’ve won two in a row and their defense has only allowed 12 points per game. If Houston’s offense can keep up the pace from the fourth quarter of the Tennessee Titans game through their blowout of the Baltimore Ravens, this may be a much more competitive matchup than people think. When the schedule was released, this looked like a very compelling game, and I still believe that to be the case despite Houston’s bad start.
With a bye week coming up to end October, it’d sure feel great not to just beat Houston and improve to 5-2 (and possibly lead the NFC West heading into November), but also just to win in primetime at home. Ideally, we see all of the key Seahawks players in the secondary back in action and ready to make life hell for C.J. Stroud and company.
On another note: As noted a couple of weeks ago, if the Seahawks beat the Texans, I either won’t do an Enemy Reaction or will resort to other means for live game reactions. Not every game thread is as active as ours, so when the disparity is large enough I have to get creative.
Thanks for reading and go ‘Hawks!
