Seahawks vs. Broncos: Coaching and special teams grades for Seattle

The Seahawks lost to the Broncos on Sunday due in part to a missed field goal for Seattle. Here are the grades for special teams and coaching from week one.

Seahawks fans probably had flashbacks on Sunday. True, Sebastian Janikowski did not miss a gimme field goal. But he missed two straight, one of which counted. Punter Michael Dickson, though, was incredible.

Here are the special teams and coaching grades for Sunday’s loss.

Kicker

Janikowski was one of two on field goals, but it felt much worse. After a penalty on the Broncos negated a missed 51-yard attempt for the kicker, he tried from 46 yards and missed again. Both kicks were definitely long enough but Janikowski missed wide left. After seeing Blair Walsh miss field goals in 2017, Janikowski’s misses were not easy to watch for Seattle fans.

Janikowski did an excellent job on kickoffs, though. Everyone of his kicks went either deep into or through Denvers end zone so the Broncos had no kickoff return yardage.

Grade: D

Punter

Dickson was every bit as good as 12s hoped he would be. The rookie averaged 59 yards-per-punt on six punts with four going inside Denver’s 20. Adam Jones was able to return two punts but gained only 9 yards. Dickson is going to be a Pro Bowl punter for many years.

Grade: A

Returner

Tyler Lockett did not make the impact I hoped he would on returns. (Of course, he caught a long touchdown pass from Russell Wilson so he still made an impact.) But on two kick returns he average only 19.5 yards-per. And on three punt returns he averaged just 3.7 yards-per-return.

Grade: C

Coaching

Offensively, what happened to the Seahawks running more. Early in the game they never established that they would try to gain yards on the ground consistently. A lack of run game – Seattle ran the ball just 16 times in the game – allowed Denver to simply rush against Wilson.

Defensively, Ken Norton was hamstrung by a lack of experienced players. Seattle started two rookies in Tre Flowers and Shaquem Griffin. neither were that good.

And the clock management – or lack thereof – at the end of the game was atrocious.

Grade: D