5 takeaways from Seahawks loss to Packers

The Seahawks lost to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. Let’s be honest, for 12s there were few happy moments. Here are five (mostly depressing) takeaways from Seattle’s loss.

The Seahawks can rebound from this, right? A loss to a good team in week one just means Seattle has 15 more games to win enough to make the playoffs. Which they should do. The Packers are a good team and a loss at Lambeau Field was not unexpected. A loss next Sunday to the San Francisco 49ers in Seattle? Well, then we can begin to stress. No, make that panic.

Here are five observations from the Seahawks loss.

It might be good that Eddie Lacy is only on a one-year contract

Lacy looked bad in training camp. He looked bad in preseason games. And he was terrible in week one against his old team. Lacy had five carries for three yards. He looks slow to the line of scrimmage. Lacy did not show any quickness when he met Packers defenders. He simply went down.

This tweet may have said everything.

Thankfully for Seattle, Thomas Rawls might return next week. He probably will get injured soon thereafter, of course, but at least he runs with energy.

The offensive line is nowhere near fixed

Remember all those vanilla defenses in the preseason? Weren’t they great? The Seahawks did well against them. On Sunday, Seattle’s offensive line lived down to it’s reputation as one of the worst in the league. Seattle’s offense averaged 4.7 yards-per-play against the Packers. For comparison, this would have ranked 31st in the league for the 2016 season. Russell Wilson did not have time to throw. The Seahawks did average 5.0 yards-per-carry, but Wilson had 40 of these on two carries. Seattle’s running backs gained 53 yards on 15 rushes. And many of those yards were not from offseason signee Lacy.

Not sure how George Fant would have done. But Rees Odhiambo looked bad and Seattle needs to find an answer at left tackle.

Chris Carson might be the starter for the Seahawks

What is the hesitation here? That Carson wasn’t expected to be the starter when he was drafted in the seventh round in this year’s draft? Well, guess what? Maybe Carson should be the starter. On Sunday, he was the best running back the Seahawks had.

Carson ran for only 39 yards but had just six carries. Still, that’s 6.5 yards-per. Or nearly four more yards per carry than any other Seahawk. Carson simply has an energy when he’s on the field. That might seem insignificant, but is anything but.

The NFL officials suck

Did the referees cost the Seahawks the game? No. But they came close. Defensive tackle Nazair Jones intercepted an early Aaron Rodgers pass and ran it back for a touchdown. Only he didn’t. The officials called two penalties on the play against Seattle. One was for a block in the back by Cliff Avril which was hardly a block. The other was for Jeremy Lane “punching” a Packers player. The officials totally blew that. Lane did not punch anyone. And the Green Bay player grabbed Lane’s facemask. Seattle should have had 7 points.

A ridiculous non-call was made when Jimmy Graham was clearly interfered with in the endzone. The referees, though, did their best Sargent Schultz and saw nothing, heard nothing and knew nothing. You can judge for yourself.

There were many reminders of 2016

The Seahawks have a great defense. But the defense also allows teams to pick up first downs on third downs many times. Seattle was not top-ten in 2016 on third down conversions. On Sunday, Green Bay was nine for 16 on third downs. Green Bay also held the ball for 39 minutes to Seattle’s 20. The Seahawks offense not staying on the field and Seattle’s defense not getting the offense back? This happened far too many times in 2016. It happened again on Sunday.

If the Seahawks win a Super Bowl for the 2017 season, this needs to be fixed. If not, an early playoff exit will happen again.

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Next up the Seahawks take on the San Francisco 49ers in Seattle. The 49ers lost to the Carolina Panthers 23-3 on Sunday.