Seahawks win a weird and wacky game over the Giants

The Seahawks overcame a shaky start to defeat the New York Football Giants Sunday. Here’s how they got their big win in a very strange game.

By the way, when I say shaky start, how does 37 tries in the red zone for zero points grab you? Okay, so it was really “only” eleven. Eleven tries inside the ten yard line, and no points to show for it. Up until they reached the red zone, the Seahawks looked good, as the drive ate up over nine minutes.

First half Seahawks got the “Can’t get in the end zone” blues

Sadly, the scoreboard shows points scored, not plays run or minutes used. After the Hawks failure to capitalize, they forced the Giants to punt yet again. On Seattle’s next drive, Thomas Rawls fumbled. Giants safety Landon Collins returned the ball all the way to the Seahawks 17 yard line. From there it just took two plays for Eli Manning to hit tight end Evan Engram on a five yard touchdown pass. The Giants led, 7-0. Seattle continued to mount drives that stalled. For one brief moment, we thought they had scored their first touchdown of the game, but Tyler Lockett was called for offensive pass interference.

They continued to shut down the Giants in the first half, and eventually scored on a 39 yard Blair Walsh field goal. At the half, it’s New York 7, Seattle 3. Take a look at all the other first half stats and see if this game makes sense to you.

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Thank you Mr. Condotta. Really weird is an excellent description. What does make sense of it are two items. Eight penalties and one turnover. Take away the turnover and the interference call on Lockett, and we have at least a 10-0 game, Seahawks at the half. Get Jimmy Graham to catch the ball on two shots from the two, and it’s 17-0. Well, that was the first half of football, if you can call it that.

Seahawks sing a new tune in second half

Let’s start with this:

Luckily, Mark Glowinski took the game into his own hands. Realizing his team had moved into the red zone on the previous play, Glowinski drew an unnecessary roughness penalty to move the ball back to the 22. Angry Doug Baldwin promptly hauled in the Russell Wilson touchdown pass. Thanks to Glowinksi’s heads up play, Seattle continued their superior second half play.

At the end of three quarters, it was still Seahawks 10, Giants 7. The stat line was still really strange:

Then this happened:

And the game was effectively over. Seattle added another touchdown as Jimmy Graham finally got into the act. Seattle scored three touchdowns in the second half, and continued to hold New York to basically nothing. The Giants managed just 177 total yards on offense. Why was this game ever close? The 17 yard “drive” for New York, and the fact the refs handed them another 110 yards in Seahawks penalties.

In the end, it was a very satisfying road win, but it sure was a long strange trip to get there.