There wasn’t much to like from the Seahawks today as poor play on both sides of the ball lead to an embarrassing 38-10 loss at the hands of the Green Bay Packers.
The Seattle Seahawks laid a frozen egg in Green Bay today. No, that isn’t a reference to that Disney Princess movie. It was cold, and the Seahawks played terribly on route to a 38-10 blowout loss.
You know that cliche’ about “if you don’t have anything nice to say…” well, lets just get straight to my takeaways from the blowout loss:
1. Where’s the pass rush?
After being in the top 5 in the league in sacks all season, the Seahawks went over 2.5 games without one. Without pressure, Aaron Rodgers picked about Seattle’s coverage.
When the Seahawks did finally get a sack against an injured Rodgers, it was a coverage sack by run-stuffing NT Ahtyba Rubin. Seattle’s trio of pass rushers came up completely empty again.
Michael Bennett, Frank Clark, and Cliff Avril were complete no-shows in this game. When that happens, Seattle’s defense is going to struggle.
Russell Wilson’s accuracy was way off
Was it the cold? Just a bad game? Both? It doesn’t matter the cause, but Russell Wilson did not play well.
The Seahawks 1st drive stalled when he missed a wide open Tyler Lockett for what would have been an easy TD. On the second drive he overthrew a wide open Jimmy Graham. Then the turnovers started.
Wilson threw just 2 interceptions in the team’s first 10 games. He’s thrown 8 in the 3 games since that point, including five today.
He was only 8/16 for 90 yards at halftime. The 2nd half was better, but not by much.
Wilson was more accurate, but his receivers decided to stop doing their part. First Jermaine Kearse decided not to run off the line on what was supposed to be back should throw. That created a pick. Then this happened.
Later it was Troymane Pope letting a ball go through his hands only to be picked off as well. In the end, there were simply way too many mistakes by everyone on offense today.
3. The defense laid a fist-half egg
Say what you want about how Wilson and the offense played today, but they weren’t the reason Aaron Rodgers had a perfect passer rating of 158.3 at halftime, including two touchdowns. Jeremy Lane was especially bad early on in this game.
Straight dime on the move from ARod pic.twitter.com/UGz8ON58s4
— Mike Renner (@PFF_Mike) December 11, 2016
Rodgers has 202 yards and no picks at halftime. He also couldn’t move because of a bad hamstring. Rodgers was essentially a statue in this game and he picked apart Seattle’s defense.
This made Seattle’s offense one-dimensional and took Thomas Rawls out of the game. Rawls averaged 5.6 yards per carry, but only got 12 carries because the team got behind early and had to try and throw the ball to get back in it.
The Seahawks are at their best when their running game is working, and the score line kept that from being a factor today.
4. Who are these Seahawks?
Who are the 2016 Seattle Seahawks?
Are they the team that got blown out today by a under-performing Packers team, or the team that went on the road and dominated a very good New England team?
Are the Seahawks the team that has failed to score a TD in four games, or the team that put up put up 40 on Carolina last week?
Are the Seahawks the who beat a very good Falcons team, or the one that laid an egg against the Saints?
We probably won’t know the answer to these questions until the playoffs are over, but it is clear that they have been consistently inconsistent all season.
One thing we do know is that this team does not play well on the road. At home they’re 6-0. On the road they’re only 2-4-1. If the Seahawks are going to make another Super Bowl run, they better hope they get more than 1 playoff game at CenturyLink Field.
5. A short week to move on
If there is any consolation for the Seahawks here, is that there is no time to dwell on this one. The Seahawks will land in Seattle tonight, and immediately begin their preparation for Thursday night’s game.
The Rams are a genuinely terrible team. Playing them at home on a short week is a recipe for getting back on track and to forget the frustrations from today’s game.
On the other hand, they are also the Rams. The Seahawks have been by far the better team and still lost to the Rams on multiple occasions in recent seasons. That includes earlier this year when the Seahawks lost 9-3 to the Rams down in LA.
The Seahawks will need to hold serve at home next week if they are going to continue to push for a first round bye in the playoffs.