Debunk Police, Week 2: Ryan Grubb proving 'UW offense' works in NFL?

Debunking rumors and narratives after the Seahawks beat the Patriots 23-20 in OT: Seaside Joe 2025

Five years ago, escaping New England with a win would have been called the Seattle Seahawks best victory of the season. A couple of weeks ago, beating the Patriots at home would have been called “the only option” given how many people picked New England to get the number one pick next year.

Now a day after the Seahawks beat the Patriots 23-20 in overtime to improve to 2-0, the win feels like it could fall somewhere in between those two narratives.

Yes, the Patriots have a severe talent deficiency that will probably keep them out of the playoffs and could end up with a top-10 draft pick. No, the rumors about the Patriots being “dead in the water” after firing Bill Belichick and choosing to start Jacoby Brissett over Drake Maye don’t appear to be true. New England is not a great team, but it would be surprising if most teams don’t struggle to run on their defense, struggle to force them into mistakes, and struggle to beat the Patriots at home.

The Seahawks escaped New England at 2-0 and are in first place in the NFC West. Feels like Mike Macdonald is on his way to debunking a few expectations about Seattle’s 2024 season already.

Every week after the game, “Debunk Police” aims to call out and arrest the pre-game rumors and narratives that either do or don’t seem to be true after the fact. Here are six such rumors I’ve decided to point out today.

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Narrative: ‘Ryan Grubb will take Seahawks passing offense to the next level’

Rumor: MAYBE?

Through two games, Geno Smith has attempted 50 passes to wide receivers and so far 39 of those have been completed (79%) for 407 yards (8.3 yards per target, 10.4 yards per catch) and one touchdown. Geno is also 9-of-11 on passes to running backs. Really the only detriment to his stats right now is throws to Noah Fant, which are 3-of-7 for 25 yards.

The Seahawks just had their first game ever in which two receivers had at least 10 catches for 100 yards. It’s early, but Seattle has a top-10 passing offense by passer rating, QBR, and Success Rate. There were questions of whether or not DK Metcalf, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and Tyler Lockett could be like Grubb’s versions of Rome Odunze, Jalen McMillan, and Jay’Lynn Polk at UW, and so far the answers point to the affirmative.

Narrative: ‘Christian Haynes has to replace Anthony Bradford!’

Rumor: CONFIRMED!

Another bad game from Bradford and on Monday morning, Mike Macdonald confirmed that Christian Haynes “probably deserves more reps” moving forward. This echoes what I wrote before the season, which is that the competitions at guard were not decided prior to Week 1 and would continue for several more weeks, if not months:

We’ve known since at least the start of camp, because nobody seemed to run away with it before then, that even if Bradford or Haynes had won the job, the competition would go into the season. It’s not like the player who wins the job is allowed to play poorly for as long as he wants. This isn’t like the Supreme Court, it’s not a lifetime position.

Haynes might not replace Bradford as the starter in Week 3, but he could rotate into the job at a more frequent level. This is not necessarily a good thing, as teams will key into the “when” of when the team is comfortable playing Haynes, which could tip off that the offense intends to pass in those situations. But Seattle is running out of options when it comes to Bradford because his presence has been even more detrimental than expected.

Narrative: ‘Mike Macdonald has a run defense weakness’

Rumor: CONFIRMED (SO FAR)

I don’t know as much as Lofa Tatupu when it comes to playing football or NFL defense, but he defended Seattle’s run defense after the game and acted as though it wasn’t that concerning.

“They adjusted well in the second half, sticking to the run…Half of Antonio (Gibson)’s yards came on one play where (Boye Mafe) missed a tackle, which has probably got you alarmed. I hate the same-side toss: The RB is to my left and I toss it to my left. Stupidest play I’ve seen in my life. I was like “Are they serious?” Do anything else. Somehow he broke it and he’s a talented RB. That’s half of his yards.”

I also know that Lofa, as a former Seahawks player and former Seahawks coach, is used to defending the Seahawks defense. And he probably learned more about football in high school than I’ll ever learn in my lifetime.

But here’s what I know: 185 rushing yards (fourth-most allowed by Seattle since start of last season) against a team that can’t do anything on offense other than run the football? The Seahawks corners almost literally had the day off and Seattle still couldn’t stop the run and they have games coming up against the fastest running backs in the NFL: De’Von Achane (and maybe the return of Raheem Mostert) in Week 3 and Jahmyr Gibbs in Week 4.

The Dolphins were first in YPC and the Lions were fifth in YPC in 2023. And even if Christian McCaffrey isn’t back from IR in Week 6, the 49ers are still getting over 100 yards per game and over 5 yards per carry from Jordan Mason.

When the Seahawks hired Macdonald as a defensive-minded head coach, it wasn’t because of Baltimore’s run defense, which ranked 25th in the NFL last year in yards per carry allowed; it was because of turnovers and sacks and ranking first against the pass. The Ravens actually got gashed on the ground at a worse clip than Seattle in the second half of 2023. Macdonald’s debut with the Seahawks is going kind of the same actually:

Through two games, the Seahawks rank first in yards per pass attempt allowed, they’ve forced five turnovers (with several dropped INTs), and have five sacks, but rank 19th in YPC and that’s without facing better rushing offenses.

Having an Achilles heel isn’t that concerning, it’s normal. Better to lose on the ground than to get consistently beaten by the pass and Seattle’s mostly getting what they want from their defense so far. But a run defense weakness could be apparent to us, and apparent to opposing OCs, for the forseeable future.

Narrative: ‘Geno Smith has proven ‘da hatas’ wrong!’

Rumor: TBD!

Let me ask you a question first. Which of these performances by Geno Smith was better: Week 2, 2023, Geno goes 32-of-41 for 328 yards with 2 TD in an OT road win over the Detroit Lions OR Week 2, 2024 Geno goes 33-of-44 for 327 yards with 1 TD in a 23-20 OT road win over the New England Patriots?

I mean almost exactly one year after he had a great game against the Lions (minus a terrible decision at the end of regulation), he has a great game against the Patriots. And then the offense basically stalled for most of the season after that. So while being encouraged from the early returns in the Grubb offense is encouraged (Geno came out as “HOT” and got all the credit he deserved from me in the post-game wrap), there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that Geno has played really well in the past. It’s better consistency over an 18-week season and playoffs that the Seahawks are looking for moving forward.

The narrative I would really want to debunk is “Geno can’t beat the 49ers”, which we will get to in a month.

As far as my personal opinion on Geno’s play through two weeks, I think he looks better than he did in 2023. His decision-making has been better, the game plan seems better, the receivers appear to be open more often, and Geno has completed 74% of his attempts (he has two 70% completion games already, which is as many as he had in all of 2023) despite a porous offensive line and no run game in Week 2, in addition to several dropped passes. This chart shows Geno up there with the most efficient QBs of the young season:

There are many narratives around Geno that still need to be proven or disproven—both negative and positive narratives—but the one he needs to conquer the most is “Geno is not consistent” and “Geno can’t beat good teams”. To chip away and change these narratives, Geno is at least off to a great start. Then afterwards we can start to work on fixing Geno’s post-game cosplay.

Narrative: ‘You gotta pay BIG for a BIG-TIME QB!’

Rumor: DEBUNKED!

Let’s see, there are nine 0-2 teams, but 10 if the Falcons lose to the Eagles on Monday night. Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Matthew Stafford, and Trevor Lawrence are 0-2. Bryce Young, Anthony Richardson, Will Levis, and Bo Nix are 0-2. Daniel Jones is 0-2. The big news on Monday morning is that the Panthers are benching Young for Andy Dalton, only 20 NFL weeks into his career.

We’ve hardly seen enough of the season to draw any serious conclusions for which method will work better, but some of the 2-0 teams can claim to be relatively frugal and safe at quarterback: The Seahawks, obviously. The Saints, Bucs, Vikings, and Steelers too.

Geno Smith, Baker Mayfield, Derek Carr, Sam Darnold, and the combination of Russell Wilson and Justin Fields were all essentially “punts” at the quarterback position. Yeah, the Vikings drafted J.J. McCarthy and they’re probably not 0-2 because McCarthy isn’t starting this season due to injury. I’m pretty much not a Darnold believer at all, but I’m a HUGE fan of not extending Kirk Cousins and Minnesota can attest to the fact that those savings helped surround Darnold with enough talent for him to look good in the first two weeks.

I’ve also been very vocal about disliking the Derek Carr contract for New Orleans, but the Saints QB is tied with Aaron Rodgers for 17th in average annual QB salary. Mayfield is 18th. Geno is 19th. And Gardner Minshew, fresh off of a win over Lamar Jackson, is 20th. Darnold is 21st.

So we have several teams that were okay pushing “all in” with QB contracts (including the latest QB deal and Dak Prescott’s embarrassing loss to Carr’s Saints on Sunday), then you’ve got the Panthers trading up for Bryce Young in 2023, and Sean Payton convincing the Broncos that Nix would be ready for the NFL at the beginning of his career.

Young is the worst QB in the NFL so far this season (which I say as a person who might have also stupidly traded up for Young because I liked him so much as a prospect) and Nix is in contention for being the second-worst. So is Levis, but I’ll give the Titans credit that they only picked him in the second round. Caleb Williams is also in talks as the worst QB in the early part of the season, which is why I’ve said teams should go back to sitting rookies when they get the chance. How much better would the Bears be this season if they had signed Gardner Minshew or Joe Flacco to keep the seat warm? The supporting talent seems to be there on offense, but handing the reins over to an inexperienced quarterback has produced predictable results.

Overpaying a QB isn’t all bad. Carr is off to a hot start, as are Kyler Murray and Josh Allen. Drafting a QB early isn’t always a bad idea, as evidenced with C.J. Stroud.

But the Seahawks must feel pretty good right now about their longheld organizational belief to not overrate the quarterback position. Geno Smith is 11th in QB salary this season, almost half as much as Murray, Stafford, Dak, and Daniel Jones, and the team has used those savings to retain key receivers like Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf, as well as to upgrade the defense with names like Leonard Williams, Jerome Baker, and Julian Love.

If the Seahawks had panicked when Russell Wilson wanted a raise in 2022, either by giving it to him or making a rash decision like trading for Deshaun Watson after they sent Wilson to the Broncos, Seattle probably would not be 2-0 right now. Can they keep it up and win the division? It’s too early to say. But I feel like fans have less to worry about because the Seahawks didn’t create a potential scapegoat by overpaying or over-drafting a quarterback.

Narrative: ‘The Seahawks caused Bo Nix to fail’

Rumor: DEBUNKED!

Bo Nix causes Bo Nix to fail.

I mean no offense to Seattle’s defense, but Nix was roughly just as bad against the Steelers in Week 2 (0 TD, 2 INT, couldn’t hit a receiver downfield if the ball was on a zip line) as he was against the Seahawks.

Seattle’s QB schedule has had a could interesting turns already, facing Nix and Jacoby Brissett so far, followed by Skylar Thompson in Week 3 (probably not Tua Tagovaila), Jared Goff (not good yet this season), Daniel Jones, then Brock Purdy and Kirk Cousins. Purdy and Cousins have been so-so in the early stages of the season. It may not be until Josh Allen in Week 8 that the Seahawks face an “elite” quarterback. Or even a good one.

What rumors should be debunked that I overlooked?