Seahawks lead NFL in explosive plays

The best people have felt about the Seahawks in a long time

For the first time in a long time, the Seattle Seahawks are the talk of the town after October, a distinction earned by having a dominant defensive performance in primetime followed by a dominant offensive performance in primetime two weeks later.

The Seahawks had a season-best +20.78 defensive EPA (expected points added explainer) against the Texans on Monday Night Football, overcoming four turnovers against Houston.

The Seahawks then had a season-best +25.53 offensive EPA against the Moons on Sunday Night Football, doing viewers a favor by having most of them turn off the game prior to having to witness Jayden Daniels’ arm injury.

It’s one thing to be good, it’s another thing to be great, and it’s a whole different category to be great while America is watching.

The Seahawks have 40 plays of 20+ yards this season, which is 2 more than the Patriots and Chargers, both of whom have played one more game than Seattle. The Rams have 37 20+ yard plays, which is the second-most for teams that have played in eight games. The Seahawks and Rams are tied for the most explosive passing plays with 34 each, but Seattle has three more explosive running plays than L.A..

Setting us up for an extremely hyped game on November 16th at SoFi Stadium. The Rams (+82) and Seahawks (+81) lead the NFC in point differential by a wide margin and only trail the Colts (+109) league-wide.

While you’re worried about this meaning that the Seahawks will overlook the Cardinals this week, the Rams face the 49ers. I wouldn’t even know who to root for because if San Francisco wins this game, they’ll be 4-0 against the division and 7-1 against the NFC, but if L.A. wins they’ll be 7-2 and stacking wins against the right teams. The best and easiest advice is just root for the Seahawks to beat the Cardinals.

Largentium: That was the most complete, dominant performance by a Seahawks team in a long time. The only thing I can really quibble about was the run game still being less effective than they want. It was just effective enough that the passing game was just about unstoppable tonight. Hopefully this team keeps getting even better!

All things I considered, fans can be optimistic about the Seahawks obviously having some big run plays in their bag somewhere. Seattle’s six explosive runs is top-10 (whereas the 49ers have ZERO, the Packers and Saints, have one, and the Bucs, Vikings, Steelers each have two) and there are definitely times when it seems like the Seahawks can be a decent rushing team. Even last night, Kenneth Walker two runs over 10 yards and Zach Charbonnet had a few productive carries.

I want to see Seattle pad their rushing numbers against some of the worst run defenses in the league but the truth is that they don’t have many on the schedule. The Seahawks are first in net yards per pass attempt and 31st in yards per carry. If I could swap those two numbers…I wouldn’t.

Danno: I commented earlier this week that I expected the Hawks to go 9 wins 1 loss the rest of the way, barring a major injury to a key player. I named three specific examples of key players, - Darnold, Love and Jones. Fingers crossed Jones does not go on IR with a knee. It’s amazing how difficult it is to win in the NFL.

Chris H: I was most worried about an injury to EJ more than anyone else on the defense, so that was a substantial bummer. Hopefully he’s only out for a game or two. JS may need to make a move there.

Seeing Ernest Jones IV jumping around on the sidelines after the injury calmed any fears I had about him missing the rest of the season. Mike Macdonald confirmed after the game that Jones is not expected to have that serious of an injury.

If it was a long-term thing, maybe the Seahawks would consider picking up a linebacker at the trade deadline.

As it stands, I do think the Seahawks are one of the most likely teams to make a deal in the next 24 hours, but “most likely” and “likely” are very different.

IdahoFred: All the fireworks were in the first half. Two totally different halfs. But what a first half. If you’re up by 24 points it’s ok to coast in the second half.

When the Seahawks went up 28-0 that it would be hard to even evaluate them after that. It’s when teams stop playing their games and start trying to rush to the final zeros because Seattle’s coaches couldn’t have expected that it would be this easy. Whatever happened in the second half shouldn’t hold any weight on our judgments of the team.

Charley Filipek: Actually was rooting for the Moons to score “some”.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean Charley. I didn’t want the Moons to score, but I also didn’t want the Seahawks to pull up any.

PNWRider: The 3rd youngest team just gets better and better.

Smells Like Bean Spirit: Tory Horton looked good, he’s so smooth and has such long strides it’s difficult to tell that he’s fast af, with a good catch radius. I think next year will be when his volume and counting stats start popping but it’s cool he’s proven himself as a solid red zone threat as a rookie.

Maybe the most amazing thing about Seattle’s resurgence and the fact that they’re doing it as one of the league’s youngest team is that even Sam Darnold is only 28. He’s younger than Joe Burrow and Josh Allen! And the Seahawks were handed him on a silver platter from the rest of the league saying, “Take him, we don’t even want this guy who threw 35 touchdowns and won 14 games last year”.

You’re also going to give the Seahawks a third round pick on top of that to trade Geno Smith and get seven years younger at quarterback?

-Tory Horton has 5 touchdowns, he’s a threat to at least tie Seattle’s rookie record of 10 touchdowns (Daryl Turner).

-Jaxon Smith-Njigba is only 23. The only other receivers in the league who are that young and have over 500 yards (JSN has 948 yards) are rookies Emeka Egbuka, Tetairoa McMillan, and Tyler Warren. McMillan is the only one of those players younger than 23. JSN is practically the same age as a rookie.

-Elijah Arroyo has already caught as many touchdowns as what Noah Fant had in his last two Seahawks seasons combined.

-Byron Murphy is up to 5 sacks. The last Seahawks defensive tackle to reach 6.5 sacks at age 23? Cortez Kennedy. The only other Seahawks to reach that many sacks at Murphy’s age are Steve Niehaus (Seattle’s first ever draft pick in 1976) and Manu Tuiasosopo (8 sacks in 1979). Kennedy then had 14 sacks when he was 24. Murphy getting 9 or 10 sacks this year is reasonable.

We could all go on about other young players contributing. Please do:

Jeremy: I was at the game in person, the cheers from Washington fans were pretty much silenced by the middle of the second quarter, and the SEA HAWKS chants were getting very loud by the 4th quarter. Utter domination in every single phase of the game (except the run game still wasnt spectacular)

Not that it’s hard to believe against Washington, but I think Seattle’s run defense was a little worse than its run offense this week.

Don Ellis: This was the game I was looking for. Complete domination in all phases of the game and we finished out. Thanks for the game chat. I really enjoyed it!

Thank you for joining the chat. Fans come join us next week:

zezinhom400: Darnold with >14 yds/attempt for most of the game was insane, as well as JSN once again being >16 yds/reception. No Koop, no Bobo, no Dareke, so easier to key on JSN yet he still goes for 129 in three quarters of play. I’m watching it happen but still can’t believe how great a receiver JSN is. Not sure even Chase or Jefferson are his equal, maybe Puka but we’re talking top 5 WR at worst.

You could make the argument that with so many quarterbacks putting up unbelievable numbers and Jaxon Smith-Njigba pulling away from every other receiver and running back in the league, maybe he’ll have the best shot ever for a receiver to win MVP. I don’t think that will happen, but JSN’s just going crazy with these explosive receptions: His 17 catches of 20+ yards is five more than second place and he’s only played eight games.

Charlie Gage: Horton was great in for Cooper’s spot. I liked what I saw from Drake Thomas and Okada. In all, the starters were awesome on both sides of the ball.

Ty Okada looked like Julian Love on that interception. Maybe it’s a little less surprising with Mike Macdonald as the head coach because in Baltimore he was able to turn Geno Stone from a camp body to a guy who has 12 interceptions since 2023.

Rich: I felt lIke Sunday night was going to be a dominant win for the Hawks. My concern is why this team doesn’t have a true killer instinct which at times allows opponents back into the games. Strong starts need to have a strong finishing attitude. It’s going to bite them in thier behind if the Seahawks allow the opposing team to think that may have a chance to win down the stretch. I want to see the opposing team’s body language of “OMG this game is over” in the middle of the third quarter.

Maybe a Dan Quinn-coached team isn’t ever going to have the “it’s over” mentality. Not to say that Quinn is having a phenomenal season because obviously he’s not; I’m sure he regrets not giving up sooner. More than a killer mentality, I just hope the Seahawks play a mistake-free, injury-free game against the Cardinals next week. It seems like Seattle’s confidence — and confidence in Seattle — hasn’t been this high in a long time.

Seaside Joe 2436