Thoughts: Seahawks-49ers

Post-game reaction to Seahawks-49ers on Thursday Night Football: Seaside Joe 2048

As I wrote leading up to the game, the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers were both bringing something you don’t see much of in most Week 6 matchups: Stakes.

It’s so cliche to debate the merits of a “must-win game” in the first half of the season, so I won’t. Neither of these teams have been playing up to their standards recently, neither had won a conference game, the loser would have to take a significant step behind the winner.

It does not feel good to say that the 49ers ended up as the winners.

It would feel even worse to recount how the Seahawks became the losers.

Or in the words of Geno Smith as he was caught on the broadcast yelling to a teammate during Seattle’s final drive, “What the fuck are y’all doing?!”

49ers 36, Seahawks 24

I like to get these newsletters out before 9 PM EST, so forgive me if this one is slightly truncated.

QB Geno Smith

I was told by multiple sources in the Seaside Joe live game chat that I was given the green light go-ahead to criticize Geno Smith tonight. Sorry, I need a minute to process this…It’s a rare moment when you hear the broadcast complimenting Seattle’s offensive line for solid pass protection against the 49ers.

But I’m not going to spend much time going off on Geno, it seems like that was done enough during the game tonight from some people who I thought would never do it.

Geno had another 52 pass attempts, which obviously had to become the plan at a certain point after the Seahawks buried themselves in a 23-3 hole. But here we are again. You almost certainly didn’t win the game if you had 52 pass attempts, so reporters who cite “completions” and “passing yards” as “good numbers” are missing the point.

I don’t think you can absolve Geno of either interception. He’d have nothing less than most of the blame. Which is not me saying, “Get ‘em!” or anything because I think in a way this performance (which might only be differentiated be 3 or 4 plays compared to an average Geno game) does not matter quite as much. Yes, the Seahawks could have taken a lead when they were down 23-17 and got the ball back in the fourth quarter…it was at that point that I saw a lot of comments online and in the chat, “This is Geno’s statement drive” or “This is where Geno sinks or swims”.

And that is when he threw his second interception.

However, it was a good TEAM EFFORT to fall behind 16-0 and 23-3 in the first place. What exactly were the Seahawks doing in the first half that was “good”? The defense allowed a 90-yard drive on their first appearance, lucky to leave only allowing a field goal but once again finding a way to play 13 snaps immediately.

The run game wasn’t going anywhere. The defense allowed a 76-yard touchdown to Deebo Samuel. Laviska Shenault fumbled the next kickoff and gave the Niners another three points. The Seahawks had a three-and-out. The defense then had a 14-play drive. Then Seattle’s red zone offense stalled again, settling for three points at the end of the half despite having three plays from the 2.

The first half had to be as bad as any half the Seahawks have played at home in the last decade.

So yeah, Geno Smith had a bad game. But so did the coaches. They had a terrible game. Mike Macdonald looked shook to me. Ryan Grubb’s response to “We gotta run the ball more” was 54 dropbacks and 19 rushing attempts by running backs, which again…I guess that’s what they “had to do”. Seattle fumbled twice. The Seahawks forced zero turnovers again.

The fact that the game was ever close in the fourth quarter is amazing, but the game was never “close”.

Hot - P Michael Dickson

He did have a bad punt, but he had a few good punts and I have nobody else to award tonight so I feel like this will help repair the relationship a little bit between me and Dickson.

Medium - OT Stone Forsythe

He didn’t do that bad considering.

(This is also where I should have put Laviska Shenault)

Mild - Mike Macdonald

This is one on the chin. I think the Seahawks run defense might not just be worse than it was last year, but worse than its ever been. If that doesn’t show up in the rankings yet, it’s only because teams haven’t always taken advantage of all the yards that Seattle’s actually giving up on the ground.

This is not a doom and gloom post

Finally, I’m just writing about what I saw in the game. It was a really bad performance by the Seahawks. If I was writing about a team that wasn’t the Seahawks and they played like that, I’d say, “Wow, the Jets played really bad tonight.” That’s the same to me. It’s not criticizing the Seahawks personally or Geno Smith or Macdonald or Grubb. It’s just my observation of a bad night and given what I saw on Twitter and the live chat during the game, I think it’s more of a popular opinion tonight than unpopular.

I still think the Seahawks are in a revitalizing year. It’s going to take time to come together. But yeah, it was really bad tonight and especially the last few weeks on defense. So when Geno doesn’t play well, where do the Seahawks have to turn? That was the problem tonight and the schedule does seem to get harder from here on out.

Thanks for hanging out at Seaside Joe regardless, through good and bad.