Seahawks win the stats but lose a very tough game to the Rams
The Seahawks did a lot of great things today, but still lost to the Rams. That loss is the result of the few things they did wrong.
Coming into today’s game in Los Angeles, the 12s were nervous. There had a lot of questions about the Seahawks. Could they contain the high-powered Rams offense? Could Seattle run the ball effectively, especially with both Chris Carson and D.J. Fluker out? Could Russell Wilson deliver enough big plays to win? The answers were a little, a lot, and not quite. Okay, you need details. We’ve got ’em.
First, could the Seahawks contain the Rams? Seattle controlled the Rams about as well as anyone has this season. True, Los Angeles hung 36 on Seattle. However, the Hawks gave them a short field on a questionable onside kick attempt with almost 10 minutes left in the game. I say questionable because Seabass has only converted two onside kicks in his thousand year career. He’s now 2 for 33, and hasn’t converted one since Efren Herrera parted the uprights.
After that kick, Los Angeles took a five point lead with a field goal with a 44 yard drive. The Rams scored again on a single play nine yard “drive” after they stripped Russell Wilson of the ball. That’s ten points on 53 yards of offense; pretty efficient, and difficult to hang all of it on the Seahawks defense.
Take away those gifts, and the Rams put up 26 on Seattle. Even if you put the field goal back on the defense, that’s still 29 points. That’s a winnable game. One that the Seahawks should have won. They certainly did enough on offense to win. All credit to Fowler for the play. He wasn’t lucky, he made a great play. But Wilson is savvy enough to not put himself in that situation.
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Seahawks could have won this game, like so many others this year
If I told you coming into this game that Seattle would run the ball for 273 yards and Russell Wilson would throw for three touchdowns, you’d have bet your house the Seahawks would win. Okay, maybe you’d bet my house, but you’d be pretty confident in the outcome. Rashaad Penny had that coming-out party that Pete Carroll had predicted.
I guess he finally got involved. The rookie went off for 108 yards rushing and a score. He’s the third Seahawks running back to go for a bill this season. Pretty nice. Mike Davis added 58 yards on 11 carries, plus 22 more through the air and a score of his own.
Perhaps the best ground performance of all was by Russell Wilson, professional ball carrier. Up until today’s game, Wilson’s season high on the ground was last week’s 41 yards. Today, Wilson slashed through the Rams for 92 yards on nine carries. So basically, the Rams couldn’t stop anyone in the Seahawks ground game.
And yet, the Rams won. Los Angeles won despite the huge advantage Seattle had on the ground. Todd Gurley had 120 yards and a touchdown. Jared Goff threw for over 300 yards and two scores. Still, Seattle traded with them, up until that strip sack by Dante Fowler set the Rams up for their winning nine yard drive. That turnover and the gambling onside kick put the W on the Rams side.
In the key moments, the Rams came up big, and the Seahawks came up small. Specifically, Russell Wilson came up small. On the critical final drive, he missed three consecutive passes, badly overthrowing Tyler Lockett on Seattle’s last gasp play. The team simply isn’t good enough to give the other team points and still pull out the win.
Mr. Unlimited came up mortal in this one. That’s been so rare, at least until this season, that 12s tend to go into shock when it happens. The Seahawks and Wilson will bounce back, but as they’ve done far too often this season, they came back too late after self-destructing earlier in the game. To salvage this season, they have to play almost error-free from now on.