Seahawks-Bucs final score: A recap, a reaction, a stock up/down report
11/13/22: What happened in Munich? Seaside Joe 1350
A couple of months ago, I checked off a bucket list item when I went to see the German industrial metal band Rammstein live in concert at the L.A. Coliseum. Nobody puts on an exhibition like Rammstein.
The music was loud, flames were everywhere, and the crowd was alive from the fans standing only a few yards away from lead singer Till Lindemann on stage to the people sitting hundreds of feet away in the nosebleeds like me. But nowhere was there more action than in the “Feuer Zone,” the standing area closest to the stage, where numerous mosh pits featured swirling human bodies for over an hour and without any breaks. From where I was sitting at the top of the bowl, it was like watching the storms of Jupiter.
On Sunday morning, the Seattle Seahawks got trapped inside the Feuer Zone.
Playing about 7-8 hours earlier than usual, in weather that was a bit chillier than a standard November game, the Seahawks looked even worse against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers than my lowest expectations. That’s not to entirely excuse Seattle’s play during their ugliest performance since the Week 2 loss to the San Francisco 49ers—another stout NFC defense, another game in which the Seahawks failed to take advantage of their opportunities—but it’s worth noting that this game is not like their other 16 games.
And this field was not like the other fields. (It’s worse.)
My reaction to Seattle’s 21-16 loss to Tampa Bay on Sunday is that it may have been the type of game that many NFL fans were waiting for since early in the season: A game in which Geno Smith mostly played like a backup, Kenneth Walker III was rendered almost meaningless, and the Seahawks defense got picked apart by the pass and the run.
But it was also under weird damn circumstances.
It would be great to see the Seahawks get second chances against the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints, two teams that beat Seattle but have otherwise appeared to be worse off at this point in their rebuilds. It feels like the Seahawks could beat both of those teams under new circumstances. And similarly, I would be curious to see Seattle take on Tom Brady in America.
At 1:25 PM.
On a real field.
That’s not an excuse for losing. It is a reason for believing that maybe the Seahawks aren’t as bad as they looked for most of Sunday morning. And even then, the Seahawks only lost by five points and were one defensive stop away from getting an opportunity to win despite being down 21-3 in the fourth quarter.
I don’t know if the Seahawks will play better when they return from their bye week to host the Las Vegas Raiders on November 27. But I do know that they won’t be playing in the Feuer Zone.
Hopefully they leave those plays behind in Germany.
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Stock Down
QB Geno Smith
Well, traditionally speaking, we never would have criticized a quarterback in the past if he finished 23/33 for 275 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. We have to throw “traditional stats” out completely. We also have to throw out advanced stats and analytics at a certain point. Just watch the damn games and judge for yourself.
We all watched this one and though he had some heroic moments in the fourth quarter, Geno Smith was flat out bad this week.
It was the poor decision making, the 31 yards lost on three sacks, the fumble, the decisions to not run for first downs when he could have run for first downs. There is no stat that will show you just how poorly Geno played for most of this contest and I can promise you that completion percentage is the worst barometer we have on the box score.
That’s not to say that Geno Smith IS bad. It’s only to say that Geno Smith PLAYED poorly. And that’s okay to say.
I’ve noticed “criticism shaming” going around, which is when players, coaches, and fans argue afterwards that you shouldn’t be allowed to point out any plays that went poorly if most or some of the game was good. This happened last week with Tyler Lockett and the sliding before the first down. All week after, “Ah, you can’t criticize Lockett for that!” Even Lockett said it. You can’t criticize him for it.
Sorry, actually… I can.
Geno Smith has made huge strides towards becoming a full-fledged NFL starter and he proved again by the way that he finished those last two touchdown drives that Seattle can rely on him as the starting quarterback moving forward.
But can we criticize him for a game that was mostly bad? Yes. Nobody needs to shamed for doing that. It’s not just criticism that makes people better, it’s also the application of how to get better from it in the future.
Geno Smith should get better from this game.
Run Defense
Seattle’s run defense gave up 53 yards, 78 yards, and 122 yards in their last three games. Overall, the Seahawks still ranked 27th in rushing yards allowed on the season, but there was a lot of encouragement in the last month.
On Sunday at 6:30 AM, the Bucs an for 161 yards on 44 carries. It’s the first time since Week 1 that Tampa Bay has rushed for more than 75 yards and it is the most rushing yards that the Bucs have had a single game all year. The Bucs ran it 44 times even though they average an NFL-low 20.3 runs per game.
First quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter. It didn’t matter. The Bucs kept running the football well against the Seahawks. Rookie Rachaad White came in with 117 rushing yards on the season. He finished with 105 rushing yards against Seattle.
The field was really bad.
But it’s not like the Seahawks can say that they’ve played perfect run defense all year.
RB Kenneth Walker III
Walker finished with 10 carries for 17 yards, but saved his day a little bit with six catches for 55 yards.
I won’t let people turn this week into “Ah ha! Running backs don’t matter!” It’s not just that every running back in history has games like this (Barry Sanders, Walter Payton, Jim Brown, it doesn’t matter), it’s also that every player has days like this. There’s absolutely nothing unusual about a 10-carry, 17-yard game and these circumstances were extremely difficult.
But opportunitists will attempt to make this game serve as an example against the pick, while ignoring how awesome Walker has been all season.
However, I’d be biased and unfair if I didn’t allow the running back to fall into “Stock Down” sometimes. I’m not biased and unfair.
Pass Rush
Tom Brady is known for getting the ball out quickly to mitigate a good pass rush, but what other direction should Seattle’s pass rush go in after failing to get a sack on Brady? And to do so on the back of being one of the NFL’s most formidable pass rushing units over the past 5-6 weeks.
I tried to will the Seahawks into getting to Brady by seeing two sacks each for Darrell Taylor and Boye Mafe on the vision board. Taylor didn’t have his name called (1 tackle). Mafe had one tackle. Uchenna Nwosu had one tackle. Shelby Harris had three tackles and one QB hit. Bruce Irvin had four tackles. Quinton Jefferson had two tackles. There was almost no pressure on Brady and for the first time, Tampa Bay was able to run (44 times) a lot more often than Brady had to throw (29 times).
Brady had a season-high 8.9 yards per attempt and a passer rating of 111.
CB Coby Bryant
Brady attacked Bryant early and often. This was like an “Expert Mode” game for Bryant and he lost. Side note: Is Quandre Diggs bad?
Stock Up
CB Mike Jackson
It’s hard to judge individual defensive play so quickly in the moment. It felt like Mike Jackson was usually making a good play and he was around the ball a lot.
LB Cody Barton
Happy Birthday.
Jordyn Brooks finished with 14 tackles, increasing his NFL-leading total. He also had one tackle for a loss and one batted pass.
TE Will Dissly
He only got targeted twice and he had two catches for 28 yards, sparking Seattle’s first drive in the second half. Why not more Dissly outside of those two plays?
P Michael Dickson
Dickson finished with five punts, four of which went inside the 20, a long of 68, and he averaged 50.6 per kick. Jason Myers was good from 55, which is only five yards shy of my vision board envisionment.
CB Tariq Woolen
Take ‘em however you can get ‘em.
The Seahawks have a very special rookie cornerback.
WR Marquise Goodwin
Great catch.
Who goes up and down for you this week? Should the Seahawks make any changes to their defense and their offensive attack based on this game or was it running into an underrated Bucs team in unusual circumstances that caused Week 10 to feel so much different than the previous six weeks?
Let me know. Hit subscribe. We’ll be back!
I made a mistake by writing Walker had six "Carries" for 55 yards, when I meant "catches." Fixed it now, sorry about that.
I’ll go out on a limb and say when your punter and part time ILB are stock up, it’s a bad day at the office.
I appreciate both the contextualizing (early start, long flight, bad field) and the fair criticism of all players. Yes both can be true at the same time.
I also think Brady gets amped playing the Seahawks. U Mad Bro all those years ago seems to have touched a nerve. His third down stats were ridiculous.
Finally, coaches are stock down this week. Doesn’t mean they automatically suck all the time but game plans on both sides of the ball started out bad and didn’t adapt quickly. We see Pete’s teams do this more than couple times every year—and sometimes they overcome it.