5 Thoughts: Seahawks-Falcons

What happened in Week 7 and what does it tell us about the Seahawks 2024 season? Seaside Joe 2058

As bad as the results have been in the past three games (which by the scoreboard could have been much worse), the Seattle Seahawks entered Week 7 with as much opportunity as any team in the NFC. This is still the time of the year when the standings are volatile and “the best teams” typically do not become the best teams until the second half, if not final quarter, of the season.

With that being said, the Seahawks blowout 34-14 win over the Falcons on the road on Sunday has given me more to think about regarding Seattle’s three losses than just the absurdly bad defensive statistics.

“Hind”sight? Butt it doesn’t look so bad anymore.

Going from having to play the 49ers on three days rest to the Falcons on nine days rest, the Seahawks offensive line did a great job of protecting its quarterback against one of the NFL’s worst pass rushing attacks. Conversely, getting back Byron Murphy — mixed in with players like Boye Mafe, Leonard Williams, and Jerome Baker, all of whom missed action during the losing streak — against an offensive line that did lose its starting right guard and was already starting the backup center, reminded me of the fact that the Seahawks indeed have a promising front-seven.

Leonard Williams, Dre’Mont Jones, and Boye Mafe each had a sack on Kirk Cousins, with Mafe forcing a fumble that Derick Hall was able to return for a touchdown. Drake London dropped a pass that went directly into the belly of Julian Love for Seattle’s sixth takeaway of the season. The defense was once again dominated by a team’s rushing attack…but the Seahawks offense did more than enough to make sure that the Seahawks defense wasn’t having to defend Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier in the fourth quarter.

Especially with the biggest play of the day: A touchdown pass to DK Metcalf on 3rd-and-15 at the end of the first half that extended Seattle’s lead to 10 points.

Given Atlanta’s 7-minute, 79-yard TD drive to start the third quarter, the Seahawks bookending that score with back-to-back touchdown drives (this time ending with a 17-yard TD pass to Kenneth Walker III) guaranteed that Seattle wouldn’t suffer a letdown on the road this week.

The Seahawks are now 4-3 with back-to-back home games on deck followed by their midseason Bye Week. If the San Francisco 49ers lose to the Kansas City Chiefs (potentially as you’re reading this sentence), the Seahawks will be in first place in the NFC West. Even if the Niners win, Seattle has re-established itself as a threat in the NFC playoff picture.

And if everything that Mike Macdonald was been saying during the losing streak was true — “We’re right there, we’re doing things right, this will improve” — then the Seattle Seahawks are only beginning to become the team that Mike Macdonald and John Schneider have intended them to become.

DK Metcalf injury update

This was a “good Metcalf day”, catching four passes for 99 yards and the aforementioned touchdown, as well as a trick pass from Jaxon Smith-Njigba that was definitely 99% the catch and 1% the pass.

I thought the way that he blocked A.J. Terrell on Kenneth Walker’s touchdown run was 51% funny and 49% a little bit annoying because certainly that’s not the technique players are taught. But it was still 51% funny.

Metcalf was carted off towards the end of the game due to a knee injury, but it was never implied to be a bad injury and Macdonald said the team is “optimistic” that “it doesn’t look too bad”.

If you think I’m still going to criticize Metcalf for stupid penalties, fumbles, and a lack of physicality…of course I am. Today wasn’t one of those days however.

Best win since…

A post-September 34-14 road win over a team that was doing really good so far this year? I guess the 37-23 win over the Chargers in 2022 could qualify. But this still feels like Seattle’s best win — period — in at least three years.

The best part of the win, for me at least, was the Seahawks not allowing the Atlanta Falcons to continue to pound the ball on the ground in the fourth quarter because Robinson was dominant (21 carries, 103 yards) and Allgeier (5 for 36) wasn’t being stopped either. Because Seattle didn’t stall on offense, because players like Metcalf, Noah Fant, Kenneth Walker, and Michael Jerrell stepped up when needed, the Seahawks maintained their lead and forced Kirk Cousins/Falcons OC Zac Robinson to play directly into their hands.

Stop throwing Ryan Grubb under the bus

First drive of the game, the Seahawks get all the way to the Falcons 13 with first-and-Goal. I saw some blame thrown at Grubb’s direction after Seattle settled for a field goal, which felt like a repeat of Shane Waldron being the sole scapegoat for the Seahawks red zone struggles in the past two seasons, but it wasn’t fair. At all.

Grubb didn’t hold. That was A.J. Barner. First-and-20 at the 23.

And Grubb still somehow dialed up a play that saw Metcalf get past A.J. Terrell for what should have been a touchdown but the ball was either out of his reach or he should have reached harder.

The Seahawks had three touchdown drives and 34 points, 27 by the offense, which is better than anything Seattle’s done since playing the Panthers in Week 3 of last season—or the Cowboys in Week 13, which was a loss.

Giving new coaches and coordinators time to adjust to the Seahawks is just as important as having that patience with players.

Mike Macdonald’s best game too?

The Falcons had more first downs, more total yards, and more rushing yards than Seattle, and I wouldn’t say Cousins played poorly or anything. The second interception went through London’s hands. The Seahawks didn’t tackle and play the run like they expected to.

But Seattle held the Falcons to 7 points (including a missed 54-yard field goal by Younghoe Koo) in the first half and that’s the entire reason that the Seahawks were able to cruise in the second half.

When I think of the most dominant defenses in history, most of them are in history—aside from all the respect due to the 2013 Seahawks, I think the most recent examples are the 2000 Ravens and 2002 Bucs. I don’t think the NFL likes dominant defensive Super Bowl champions like the Ravens, Bucs, and Seahawks. So it’s just very hard to come away with shutouts and even holding a team to 14 points is impressive; do you know (without looking) how many times the Seahawks held a team to 14 points or less in 2023?

Having Mafe, Hall, Williams, Murphy, Jarran Reed, Dre’Mont Jones, Johnathan Hankins, and a really good debut from Roy Robertson-Harris, this is the front that Seattle was hoping to have when they planned the 2024 season for Macdonald.

The type of front that gives me much more confidence heading into Week 8’s game against Josh Allen.

Redemption Island

Seaside Jay and I started watching the 22nd season of Survivor last night, which was fittingly titled “Redemption Island”. The Seahawks felt like Redemption Continent on Sunday.

Not only did the Seahawks manage to recover from a horrifically-timed intentional grounding at the end of the second half (pushed the offense from the 21 to the 31, loss of downs, loss of a timeout to setup third-and-15) to score that touchdown to DK, but there was a long list of players redeeming themselves this week, not just the quarterback:

• Dre’Mont Jones was good!

• DK Metcalf was good

• Noah Fant was good

• Michael Dickson and Jason Myers were good

• Coby Bryant was pretty good

• Dee Williams was good

• Grubb and Macdonald were good

• Jerrell didn’t have anything to “redeem” really, but he was surprisingly good

• The entire offensive line was pretty good

• Nehemiah Pritchett probably ended the game better than he started it

Very few Seahawks should come out of this game feeling worse than how they started it. Obviously Metcalf feels physically worse, but otherwise this was a redeeming day for a lot of Seahawks who are deserving of a day to relax.

Hot - Derick Hall

This is like when Ray Lewis won Super Bowl MVP in 2012… Well, it’s not exactly like that, but essentially giving it to Hall is like a “team award” for the front-seven pass rush. Mafe sack—>Hall scoop—>Devon Witherspoon screaming in out of nowhere to lay the key block. “He plays with an effort that nobody can match”, said Hall of Witherspoon after the game.

Having Murphy back with Hall and Mafe and Williams and Reed, it’s understandable why Seahawks fans should be wondering if this team can get their act together and make some noise in the NFC.

Honorable mention to Jason Myers for making a 59-yard field goal, which I had in my Vision Board this week, alongside two interceptions off of Cousins.

Medium - Devon Witherspoon

With the great comes a little bit of the concerning with Witherspoon, which is that he’s not necessarily a bad player for opposing teams to target in the run game if you do have a player like Bijan Robinson. Witherspoon’s not a big person, so even if he plays twice as big as his size, that’s still sometimes half as big as a player like Robinson.

On the other hand, Witherspoon was tasked with carrying THE ENTIRE CORNERBACKS ROOM this week because Riq Woolen, Tre Brown, and Artie Burns are out. It’s amazing what this guy does and I’m excited for the future of the core at Seattle’s defense: Witherspoon, Mafe, Hall, Murphy, Woolen, etc.

Was this a bad medium pick? Let me know in the comments who else should be here:

Mild - Jaxon Smith-Njigba

Figuring out how to use JSN has been a rough go for both sets of Seattle coaching staffs in the past 24 games. JSN had three catches for 9 yards on six targets and though he had a 35-yard pass, it wasn’t a good pass. It was a good enough pass for sure. And I’m not really ever going to judge JSN for passes.

The Seahawks need to get more creative with JSN, push the ball downfield more with him, because he’s too talented to have single-digit totals. Ever.

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