Well, that sure was a preseason game, huh?
Your 2025 Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks took the field for the first time in 2026…well, the backups and backups to the backups did, at least. It started off pretty well with a clock-eating TD drive, albeit one helped along by penalties, to take a 7-0 lead over the Dallas Cowboys in Lumen Field. More to come on the abundance of flags later.
After that first drive, it was a snoozefest to be honest. The offense couldn’t get out of their own way no matter
who was playing QB, and the defense couldn’t get off the field. Add in a missed FG by Jason Myers to make it a relatively poor showing by all three phases of the game in a 17-7 defeat. There were a few positives, but largely this game can be used as teaching tape for improvement. Seattle will need a lot of that if they plan on “running it forward” this year regardless of whether the backups were playing or not.
Seahawks Droppings
- First off, let’s talk QBs. Sam Darnold didn’t play, so the game was split between Drew Lock and Jalen Milroe, with each of them rotating after two series for the majority of the game. Lock started, and led Seattle on their only TD drive of the game, connecting with Montorie Foster Jr. He also probably should’ve thrown a pick-six on his first pass of the game if the defender had turned his head to look for the ball. There was another deep ball later to Foster that he overshot. Lock played fine, I don’t think he did anything to hurt or help himself in the opener.
- Depending on who you ask about Jalen Milroe, you will likely get a different answer on his performance. Overall, he was also “fine.” However, I was encouraged with his on-time passes and thought he looked much more comfortable as opposed to a year ago, particularly when under center. Milroe still has that tantalizing athleticism that caused Seattle to take a flier on him. The fact that he didn’t get much going has as much to do with the rest of the offense letting him down with drops and penalties as it does with his own performance. Yet, QBs are ultimately responsible for the function of the offense. Putting together some of the comments from the Mikes (Bennett, Robinson, and Macdonald) both before and after the game leads me to believe that there’s a little push and pull with Milroe not showcasing his running ability. Macdonald is firmly in the camp of wanting him to use that as much as possible, while it seems like Milroe is doing everything he can to prove he can be a pocket passer if needed. There needs to be a happy medium if the Milroe experiment will progress to the next phase.
- To put it bluntly, I thought the offensive and defensive lines were both bad. Part of Milroe’s inability to lead a scoring drive was a direct result from near-constant pressure when he dropped back to pass or being behind the sticks from a penalty. There was no push in the run game, either. Flipping over to the defensive line, there was push in the run game…just not in the right direction. Seattle’s DL were consistently getting blown off the ball a few yards, leading to easy conversions. There was also a noticeable lack of pass rush, giving the Cowboys QBs all day to find open receivers. Yes, there were backups playing all over, but that was the case with Dallas as well. For all the hype he’s been getting, I was disappointed with Rylie Mills. He should’ve been eating those Cowboy OL for lunch and wrecking shop. Except for maybe one play, that didn’t happen.
- One of the very few bright spots on defense was LB Tyrice Knight. Macdonald said after the game that they were undermanned in the LB room, so Knight had to play more than they wanted him to. All he did was look like the best player on the field. Knight was instinctive, playing fast and laying down the wood. By all accounts, he’s had a great camp and deserves to get regular season snaps in the LB rotation.
- Flags, flags, and more flags. The amount of penalties last night was unfortunately another huge facet of the preseason opener as it felt like there was a flag thrown on every other play. There were 21 combined accepted penalties for over 180 yards. It wasn’t like there were terrible calls either, they were all legit. It felt sloppy and unfocused. No wonder why Macdonald was displeased in his postgame press conference.
I could harp on some other things, but I think that’s enough. One preseason game doesn’t embody the entire preseason, let alone the regular season to come. Maybe the biggest positive was that there were no serious injuries. Macdonald and crew have plenty of corrections to make, and I trust them to get the job done. Hopefully the next preseason game against the Tennessee Titans will look more like the Mike Macdonald Seahawks we’ve been used to. It’s a nationally televised game, after all!
