Seahawks lose to Rams: Pete Carroll outcoached by Sean McVay

The Seahawks lost to the Rams 33-31 in a game they could have won. How does the team move on from this loss?

Let me be clear here. The Rams didn’t defeat the Seahawks on Sunday because they were the better team. Los Angeles may have more talent than Seattle. But the reasons Seattle lost were because they beat themselves.

First of all, what the heck was Pete Carroll thinking by calling a timeout when the Rams were set to punt with a bit over a minute left. Los Angeles had the ball fourth-and-one and decided not to go for it. Until Carroll chose to stop the clock. But why? Why stop the clock – and waste Seattle’s last timeout there?

Sure, the Rams may have taken time off the clock by waiting to punt the ball. But Seattle would still have had the ball and still been in control of what happened. The fact is, Carroll calling a timeout on fourth down let McVay think about what to do on fourth down and quarterback Jared Goff snuck the ball for a first down.

Would McVay had called a timeout in that situation? Probably not. Carroll made the seemingly obvious decision and called a timeout. McVay probably assumed Carroll would make that call and was probably deciding how to go for it on fourth down. Carroll gave McVay that time.

But to be fair to Carroll, the Seahawks had the ball on the Rams 30 late in the fourth quarter down two and made two penalties. One was a false start. The other was for holding. Seattle suddenly had the ball third-and-long on the Los Angeles 45.

But Seattle took themselves out of field goal position; Not the Rams. If Seattle had not lost any yards they could have run time off the clock and set up a longish field goal. The point there is Seattle would have eaten clock and still had the ball.

But those two penalties turned into a bad Michael Dickson punt for 24 yards. Dickson may have simply been tired from all those dropkick kickoffs. What was happening there? I can’t wait to hear what Carroll has to say after the game.

And this all wasted a pretty solid offensive play-calling game by Brian Schottenheimer. He thought the Seahawks could run the ball and they did. Chris Carson was a beast. He ran for 116 on 19 carries. Mike Davis ran for 68 more yards on 12 carries. Seattle ran the ball for 190 and averaged 5.9 yards a carry. That wins games.

Tyler Lockett was a Pro Bowl-type receiver. 3 catches and 98 yards plus a touchdown in a game where he was clearly better than the Los Angeles secondary will earn that for him.

And Frank Clark and Bradley McDougald were great. McDougald was everywhere on the field and had 10 tackles. Clark was active in the Rams backfield and had a strip of Goff and an interception.

If the Seahawks go on to have a losing season, they have themselves to blame. They should have won against the Rams on Sunday. But 4th quarter coaching let them down. And this is something that might not dissipate.