We’re 22 games into Mike Macdonald as Seattle Seahawks head coach, and things have mostly been good and trending in the right direction, Sunday’s loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers notwithstanding. One area that continues to be a problem is taking care of the football.
Sam Darnold’s late-game interception was the killer blow to the Seahawks’ efforts to defeat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but it was more an ill-timed turnover than a sloppy one.
This, from Jalen Milroe, is sloppy and led to a touchdown while
the Seahawks were in field goal range.
The Buccaneers had this option play sniffed out, but Milroe’s pitch to Kenneth Walker III was inaccurate and the fumble is officially charged to Milroe since Walker never caught it cleanly. While the play call itself was needless, the execution was worse.
This is the 18th time Seattle has given the ball away at least once under Macdonald, and the 12th time the Seahawks have committed had at least two turnovers. Only the Cleveland Browns have had more multi-turnover games dating back to 2024 (per Stathead).
It might be easy to point the finger at Geno Smith’s 2024 and his 15 interceptions, but he was only part of the problem and didn’t even lose a fumble. The Seahawks nevertheless still lost eight fumbles, including five on special teams from Dee Williams and Laviska Shenault Jr, two from DK Metcalf, and one from Pharaoh Brown.
Through five games, Seattle is a -1 in turnover margin with three Darnold picks and five lost fumbles (Darnold 1x, Jaxon Smith-Njigba 1x, Coby Bryant 1x, George Holani 1x, Jalen Milroe 1x), which is second-most in the NFL behind the 0-5 New York Jets. This only looks worse when you realize the Seahawks are one of two defenses not to even force a fumble, let alone recover one.
When the Seahawks have kept it clean under Macdonald, they’re a perfect 4-0, fittingly all in road games. Their last turnover-free home game was, believe it or not, the Drew Lock start against the Philadelphia Eagles on that memorable Monday night.
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.
