Week 1 results should carry the same weight as the rest of the season, but everything is magnified by the fact that there are no other data points to go off yet other than what happened today. As I wrote on Saturday, this one game against the 49ers would not be the be all, end all of the 2025 Seahawks no matter what happened.
Well, thank goodness for that.
The Seahawks lost 17-13 at home on Sunday, losing a lead in the final two minutes and then fumbling away their last opportunity when Nick Bosa bulldozed Abraham Lucas into the throwing arm of Sam Darnold for a game-sealing turnover inside of the red zone.
Small differences may have made this a triumphant first start for Darnold, he was perhaps only one play away from throwing a game-winning touchdown, but in general Seattle’s offense was tame and ineffective against the 49ers in Robert Saleh’s return as defensive coordinator.
Darnold: 16/23, 150 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT, 1 FUMBLE
Zach Charbonnet: 12 carries, 47 yards, 3.9 YPC, 1 TD
Kenneth Walker: 10 carries, 20 yards, 2 YPC, 0 TD
JSN: 9 catches for 124 yards
Cooper Kupp: 2 catches for 15 yards
Going into the final drive of the game, Darnold had yet to hit the century mark for passing yards. That’s rare. Smith-Njigba was the only Seahawks player to have more than 15 receiving yards. That’s rare. The “new-look” Klint Kubiak rushing offense only gained 67 yards on 22 carries by the two running backs. That’s bad.
Even Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the one standout player on offense, is partially to blame for the loss. Up 10-7 at the start of the fourth quarter, JSN fumbled the ball back to the 49ers at midfield.
Were it not for Julian Love — and more accurately (less accurately?) 49ers kicker Jake Moody — this final score could have been much worse.
Because even though Seattle’s defense did hold San Francisco’s offense to 17 points, the best player on the field in the first quarter was Niners tight end George Kittle and he exited the game early with a hamstring injury. That’s probably not even as impactful as Moody missing a chip shot field goal, having another attempt blocked by Love, and forcing Kyle Shanahan to abandon the kicking game in all situations except when it was absolutely necessary.
Tariq Woolen played as poorly in the second half as any starting player in the game, even accounting for his goal line pass deflection to save a touchdown. Of course, this has always been the story for Woolen going back to Seattle’s 2022 wild card playoff loss to the 49ers: He’s a very good but INCONSISTENT cornerback that good offenses will attack in critical situations.
We have no way of knowing if Ricky Pearsall will end up being one of the top receivers in the NFL this season, but we do know that he’ll be one of the best this week (108 yards) and almost all of that came against Woolen. Even when Woolen was flagged for hands to the face, he couldn’t stop Pearsall.
It wasn’t all bad.
The Seahawks played good enough to win, they just couldn’t close it out when arguably the best defensive player in all of football ran over Lucas.
Brock Purdy was mediocre and made to look mediocre because he was under duress for most of the game
Josh Jobe had an interception, Ernest Jones had an interception and a great game overall, Love had a great game, Coby Bryant was all over the field
Special teams was great and Michael Dickson averaged 51.4 yards per punt
Christian McCaffrey was held to 3.1 yards per carry
I think Byron Murphy and Grey Zabel’s grades will come out looking good with a couple days of reflection
The Seahawks didn’t win and they start 0-1 in the division and the offense, as most expected to be the case before Sunday, was rather weak; Kubiak’s debut with the Seahawks won’t be talked about in nearly the same light as his debut with the Saints in 2024. (The Saints were horrible for most of the season, so there are far more important things than Week 1.)
Woolen had a really bad half, but he won’t be benched and he’s usually not this big of a problem. He’ll be especially important next week when the Seahawks face DK Metcalf for the first time.
It was not the best start for Seattle, but definitely not the worst.
What were your thoughts on Week 1? Share them in the comments (They’re free to ALL today!) and I’ll repost some of them on Monday:
Seaside Joe 2379
Frustratingly conservative approach to a home matchup vs. shorthanded division rival.
Encouraging play by the defense for the most part, but corner was and clearly is still a major area of concern. Unless Woolen can develop consistency, he isnt worth bringing back on a top 15 corner contract. What is concerning is that there was not any effort to add real competition in the offseason, and so you get a talented, but perhaps complacent Woolen that doesn’t appear to be developing his craft.
The offense is by all appearances a work in progress, and I think we will see significant development, but Kenneth Walker’s lack of production is frightening. He doesn’t look explosive at all and doesn’t get the extra yards after contact that Charbonnet seems to pick up on every attempt. JSN makes it easy to target him, but Darnold needs to get more comfortable throwing to other receivers downfield. The timing of screen/short yardage passing plays will hopefully work themselves out, but it was a mess today.
Overall, this game left me disappointed because I genuinely felt we should have come out with a win in spite of errors. So I am still very confident in the team, just have a lot of wrinkles to iron out.
Tough first matchup. Nothing looked especially good, with a missed and a blocked kick, score could have been much worse. But credit due, 6 points were removed from the board. TE was a non factor. Disappointing considering the hype of Kubiak’s 3 TE sets. Defense gave up yards without giving up what could have been a lot more points. Didn’t notice a lot of D-line drop backs which make me excited to watch MacDonald defenses. Pressure seemed good, but it didn’t feel good considering our offense couldn’t do much to keep our Defense off the field for too long. It hurts to still lose the time of possession race. It’s still early, but this felt, on an emotional level, too close to the last 6 years or so. Encouraged that we played it up to the end. Discouraged that Lucas, of all people, after given the extension, would be unlucky enough to face one of the best rushers in the NFL and get blown up. No shade on Lucas, but it’s unfortunate. Let’s collectively pray that we grow and learn from this hard fought battle and come across a little sharper moving forward…