I Don’t Really Know What To Make Of That Seahawks Victory Over The Falcons

I mean, I’m definitely not impressed! I think we can all agree that was a pretty underwhelming effort – particularly in the second half – against a pretty crappy team that’s about to fire its head coach and start going through some sort of rebuild in the near future. But, at the same time, it’s another win on the road, and in the NFL that’s tough to do no matter who you play.

So, yeah, the Seahawks are 4-0 on the road. I don’t know if that’s more mystifying, or if it’s the Seahawks being 2-2 at home.

The first half of this game – that saw the Seahawks methodically climb to a 24-0 lead – was exactly what I was expecting. Matt Ryan was out, Matt Schaub was starting, he’s terrible, their defense is still somehow worse, easy peasy! The Seahawks weren’t lighting the world on fire, but we had three consecutive touchdown drives to pretty much put this one away. D.K. Metcalf had a couple of wide open catches in the endzone, and Carson plunged one over the goalline from a yard out. Nice.

Then, I dunno. I mean, it was always unrealistic for this Seahawks defense to get a shutout, but to fall apart so absolutely was truly a sight to behold. Matt Schaub threw for 460 yards! Garbage time or not, that’s ridiculous! With that quarterback, we should’ve had more than 2 sacks on the game. I know the Falcons put a lot of resources into their O-Line, but those are young guys, and we had Clowney and Ansah in there; they should’ve had no trouble beating guys off the edge!

Seattle’s offensive struggles were a little easier to understand. Justin Britt maybe did something serious to his ACL; he looks to be out for the rest of the year and maybe has played his last snap in a Seahawks uniform. He’s counting over $11 million against the cap next season – the last year of his deal – and there’s around $8 million in savings to be had there, if we opt to go with Hunt or Pocic at center going forward. On top of Britt, Duane Brown looks like he was rushed back into action – he missed a few plays when he probably should’ve just taken another week or two off to get right before the 49ers game – and Fluker looks like a step down from Jamarco Jones at right guard. I think Iupati also missed some snaps in the second half, so we were banged up across the board.

That translated into the Seahawks only having one drive that was longer than a 3 & Out in the second half. It turned out to be a game-clinching nearly 7-minute field goal drive, but it was rough sledding. The Falcons outscored Seattle 20-3 in the second half and it would’ve been a lot worse if they had more time. Julio Jones had a monster day, but all their guys were wide open throughout.

So, like I said, what do you make of this one? You probably just try not to think about it too much and move on to next week, where this defense will likely be shredded by another mediocre quarterback in Jameis Winston.

Russell Wilson had an okay day – 2 TDs on 182 passing yards with 0 INTs – but nothing that will move the needle on his MVP candidacy. Chris Carson had a pretty quiet 90 yards and a TD on a 4.5 yard average. It was rumored that Penny would be active over Prosise to try to showcase him ahead of the trade deadline this week; he boosted his stock marginally on 8 carries for 55 yards, but I can’t imagine he has anything more than a 7th round value on the trade market, which would be supremely demoralizing since we took him in the first round. I’m guessing the Seahawks wouldn’t mind giving Travis Homer a look in the backfield, but it’s hard to let Penny go for peanuts (especially knowing Prosise’s injury history, and the fact that this is the final year of his rookie deal; do you really want to extend him with free agent dollars?).

It was cool to see Metcalf get wide open for a couple easy TDs. Tyler Lockett continues to be one of the best wide receivers in all of football. But, David Moore was featured pretty extensively and caught 1 of 4 balls for 23 yards. I don’t know if this is gonna be his year; he can’t get open and he hasn’t been able to make many catches in traffic. If he can’t do either of those things, he can’t play in this offense, period.

Defensively, as I noted, there were the two sacks. The tackles for loss made an appearance, which was nice; the Falcons only ran for 69 yards on 17 carries, which is something. We forced a couple fumbles (one was at the end of the first half, with no time to do anything with it) and Mychal Kendricks had a nifty interception when he dropped into zone coverage. But, as I noted above, hard to get too excited when you give Matt Schaub 460 yards passing. Tre Flowers was out with injury, and Akeem King looked like he belongs in the XFL. Shaquill Griffin still continues to play well, but he can’t do everything.

K.J. Wright was benched briefly in this one, and Cody Barton made an appearance in the base defense. That’s definitely something to watch out for, as this team needs a spark at every level. Marquise Blair had some good plays in this one, so that’s encouraging. But, safety continues to be a triage unit with guys shuttling in and out constantly.

The good news is the Seahawks are 6-2 at the midway point in the season. The bad news is the 49ers are 7-0, and our schedule gets considerably harder in the second half of the season (including the 49ers twice, the Rams on the road, the frisky Cardinals at home, the Eagles and Panthers on the road, the Vikings on Monday Night, and the Bucs this week who could throw for 700 yards against our defense). Buckle up!

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