Seattle Offense Comes Back to Life

Great offensive effort by the Hawks Sunday as they controlled the Chicago Bears for almost the entire game. This was the Hawks first road win this year as well as their best game offensively.

Marshawn Lynch touched the ball 17 times for 44 yards. Although the average seems low, 2.6 ypc, the impact he made was huge. Forsett also ran the ball extremely well, 10-67 averaging 6.7 ypc. Forsett looked better as a compliment back than he has as the featured back. Where Lynch will hit a defender like a hammer, Forsett prefers a lighter, more shifty approach. As a result the defense must make major adjustments concerning the approach and tackling of these vastly different running backs. Together Lynch and Forsett rushed for 111 yards on 27 carries. Lynch was averaging 5.4 ypc at the end of the 1st qtr. and really helped establish the threat of a run, a convenience Matt Hasselbeck has not had for some time

Matt Hasselbeck was 4-4 on his first drive which ended with a 22 yard td strike to D. Butler. This was the first time Seattle has scored any points in the first quarter, however, you would have never guessed that if you had seen the drive. They made it look easy. Hasselbeck finished with 242 yards and 1 td. Probably the biggest reason for the offensive explosion this week was the job the O- line did on Chicago’s D-linemen. Hasselbeck was not sacked a single time and was only hit once the entire game. Okung looked incredible essentially taking Peppers out of the game. This was Okung’s first dominant performance of the year, and it came against one of the premiere pass rushers in the NFL. The young rookie could not have had a better game than he did against the Bears.

Mike Williams had a career day with 10 receptions for 123 yards. He was targeted 15 times. The next highest targeted wide out was Butler at 4. It was great to see him finally have a “welcome back” game. This is what Hawk fans were hoping for, a huge, dominant wide receiver who has the ability to take over a game. Today we saw a brief flash of it: the potential of Mike Williams. I have officially started holding my breathe waiting to see what he does next week at home.

I can’t believe I am going to acknowledge this next guy. I mean he is just the Punter, but he had an incredible game until his last punt. John Ryan punted 10 times, 5 of which were on or inside the 10 yardline. Chicago is a threat on every single punt or kickoff, and up until the last punt, the Seahawks held them in check due in large part to the precision of J. Ryan. Hats off to the punter today. He and his mullet deserve a game ball.