Seahawks vs. Packers final score: Seattle’s offense disappears

The Seahawks suffered an opening week loss to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. Lambeau Field is a tough place to win. But Seattle’s offense was awful.

Well, so much for what we saw from Russell Wilson and the Seahawks offense in training camp and the preseason. Seattle’s offense that looked so fluid and effective until week one was quite the opposite on Sunday. Keeping Aaron Rodgers off the field? Nope. Scoring points in the red zone? Not so much. This offense looked like the least effective side of the inconsistent Seahawks offense of 2016.

The Packers held the ball for 39 minutes and 13 seconds. The Seahawks just 20 minutes and 47 seconds. Russell Wilson’s quarterback rating was 69.7. Seattle offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell appears to assume that the Seahawks would be able to work every magical play to perfection, however. Seattle never changed their offense, instead attempting short passes that went for very few yards. For instance, tight end Jimmy Graham caught three passes for eight yards. The longest of his catches was for six yards. Six!

To be fair, the Seahawks defense failed to get the Packers defense off the field when it had the chance. Green Bay picked up nine first downs on 16 tries. While Seattle’s offense did putter and could not sustain drives, the defense did not do them any favors. Sure, the team gave up only 17 points, but it felt like more.

Some complaints

I will complain about the officiating just a bit. Somehow cornerback Jeremy Lane got kicked out of the game. On the play, his face mask got grabbed and he ended up on top of the Packers player. This was after Seahawks defensive tackle Naz Jones had intercepted a Rodgers pass and was trying to run it back for a touchdown. Which he did. But the play did not stand because of two penalties. One was on Lane for unsportsmanlike conduct for a punch that he threw. The promblem was, he did not throw a punch. Or anything close to one. Replays were clear that he didn’t. And the penalty should have gone against the Packers for a facemask.

The other stupid non-call came when Wilson threw into the endzone to Graham. He was clearly interfered with by two Packers defenders.  The referees decided the ball was not catchable. This pass was to a 6’8″ tight end and the pass ended up barely out of bounds. The ball was catchable. That is, it would have been had Graham not be trampled by the Packers secondary.

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But Seattle simply did not do enough to win this game. There is no shame in this, though. Green Bay is a good team and was playing at home. Week one is followed by 15 more games. Seattle has a good chance to win the majority of them and make the playoffs. Let’s just hope that the next time Seattle plays Green Bay it is at CenturyLink and not Lambeau Field.