What the hell was that??
Just when you think you’ve seen everything, the Seattle Seahawks turn back the clock to secure a vintage Pete Carroll-esque 18-16 victory with six (!!!!!!) Jason Myers field goals accounting for all of the points. I guess it was fitting as 44 year old Philip Rivers came out of retirement just as his hall of fame window was opening to man the helm for the Colts. Angry Miss Piggy didn’t have to do much besides hand the ball off and complete short passes…which was probably intentional
because I don’t think he could’ve done much more than that.
Seattle’s supposedly franchise-best defensive line was getting consistently gashed in the first half. The Seahawks offensive line wasn’t doing much better as nearly every running play was stopped for a loss. When they weren’t losing yards, they were dropping passes and committing penalties. It was another ugly first half of offensive football a week after an ugly first half of offensive football against the Atlanta Falcons. I don’t know who to blame at this point, but it’s clear that they need to turn it around if they want to have a chance against the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday Night Football.
Seahawks Droppings
- Jason Myers you beautiful, wonderful man. His six field goals should get Myers another special teams player of the week award. The game-winning 56-yarder was not easy by any means and absolved him of the miss at the end of the Los Angeles Rams game. Myers stepped up and booted that bad boy through to save the Seahawks a humiliating loss.
- I was pretty disappointed with how the whole team played in the first half. They were getting out-physicaled on both sides of the line, playing the game on their heels. Rivers was only throwing short passes and yet the corners were playing 10 yards off and giving up an easy cushion. The only two sacks for the defense came when Rivers slipped and fell down on one play, and saved a snap from nearly going over his head on another. As I mentioned on offense, there were silly penalties and drops – one each on first down by Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Brady Russell – that would’ve resulted in either a first down play or short yardage on second down. I’m not sure what AJ Barner was arguing about on his offsides call because he was clearly lined up in the neutral zone.
- While that penalty was a good call, the pass interference on Josh Jobe was absolute bullshit. Particularly when you consider the no-call on JSN where he was held trying to come out of his break. I was fine with the no-calls on Rashid Shaheed. If he wants those calls, he needs to actually make a play on the ball instead of running with his arms up looking for a flag.
- No shade on Shaheed, he was absolutely pivotal in this game, particularly on the last drive. He set up the field position for Myers to win the game and finished with 5 catches for 74 yards. JSN had one of the quietest 100-yard games you’ll see and ended up with 113 yards on 7 catches. Cooper Kupp’s 46 yards were well-timed, and he always seems to pick up some extra yards.
- Sam Darnold, you need to slide, buddy. I haven’t seen a QB take as many direct shots in a game as he did today in a while. Thankfully, he came out of the game without an injury and managed to get 271 yards passing, the vast majority of that coming in the second half. He needs to lead the team to touchdowns in the red zone to have a shot at running the table and securing the #1 seed.
- Nick Emmanwori didn’t have the splash plays like he did last week, but he was consistently a problem for the Colts. Two specific plays come to mind. First, he chased down Jonathan Taylor from behind, crashing down the line of scrimmage. Second, was the screen play where he fought off the blocker and made the tackle for a short gain. Maybe my favorite play, however, was when he looked like he was going to suplex the Colts ballcarrier and get a stupid penalty, but stopped mid-swing and just held him there. That’s progress!
- It was good to see Rylie Mills getting some snaps today. We’ll have to wait until the tape comes out, but on first glance, the Colts were running right at him and getting good yardage. I remember one specific play where they let him penetrate and just ran right through the hole he vacated for about seven yards. I’m not going to be too hard on him since he’s less than a year out from tearing his ACL and hasn’t had any game action until today.
This was another really weird game that felt right out of the Pete Carroll playbook. Bend don’t break on defense, and do (literally) just enough on offense to win at the end. Even with the Colts going ahead 16-15, I honestly felt like Seattle would come back and win. Clearly, the team did too, as Mike Macdonald has those boys believing in themselves. They’re going to have to play a whole lot better against the Rams, however, to grab hold of the NFC West.
