So many Seahawks worked so hard to earn this loss

The Seahawks played some of their worst football ever in their loss to the Saints. Virtually every mistake you can make, they made.

Where to start with this game? So many key players made so many huge mistakes. If it had only been the Seahawks players that screwed up, this game wouldn’t have been so frustrating. But the coaches made so may terrible, awful, and absolutely incomprehensible decisions…I hardly know where to start.

Let me start with Chris Carson. He slipped and fell on about half of his 15 carries. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but not by much. I saw one other player slip once in the entire game. Yes, he changed his cleats, but he still slipped afterward. Sure, he has to make his cuts, but are you telling me Alvin Kamara just runs straight ahead? All those falls and lost potential yards are on Carson.

Not to pile on, but if those were Carson’s worst sins, there wouldn’t be any problem. There quite likely wouldn’t have been a Saints win, either. Carson again fumbled at a key moment. Not all fumbles are at key moments. If you fumble late in a game when you’re so far ahead or behind, it wouldn’t matter.

The problem is that Carson let the ball get punched out to turn a 7-7 game into a 13-7 Saints lead. Yes, I said he allowed the ball to be punched out. He had one defender on his legs when Eli Apple knocked the ball out of his grasp. The moment he was wrapped up, he needed to protect the ball. He didn’t, and New Orleans took a lead they would never surrender.

Seattle Seahawks

Seahawks found new ways to lose

The hits kept coming. Sadly, it was the Saints landing to the Seahawks chin. Or to be more accurate, it was the Seahawks taking themselves out. Al Woods couldn’t even line up properly on a field goal attempt. He’s in his tenth year in the league, so I imagine he knows where to line up. Yet he managed to cover the center on the Saints field goal attempt, negating a missed kick. New Orleans was already up 20-7, and the miss put New Orleans back in business. Instead of the Seahawks taking over with a chance to get within a touchdown, the penalty gave the Saints the first down. Minutes later they completed a 30-yard touchdown drive to go ahead 27-7.

Worst of all was the Seahawks coaching staff, though. Apparently neither Pete Carroll nor Brian Schottenheimer can call a time out. Trailing 20-7 with 29 seconds left in the half, Russell Wilson completed a pass to Nick Vannett to the Hawks 30. Mind you, Seattle had two timeouts when they got the ball. They could have called a timeout to be sure they were set. Sure, it would have given the Saints time to get set as well, but Wilson wound up throwing into double coverage anyway.

Instead of calling the time out, they trotted to the line, and Wilson scrambled to give his receivers time to get deep. He made a great pass to a double-covered DK Metcalf, who made an even more spectacular 54-yard catch. And by the time he got to his feet after his incredible diving catch, the clock was at zero. I can see risking the play if you just have one timeout, but with two? As I said earlier, it’s incomprehensible.

Speaking of the coaching staff, the hits keep on coming. Why is Chris Carson, who slipped on a third of his runs -and fumbled – getting the ball on a critical third and six, instead of keeping the ball in Wilson’s hands? How did the Seahawks have 12 men on the field not once, but twice?

Hey, did I mention the coaching staff? Just like them, I forgot that when you’ve just scored a touchdown to draw within 13 points, you should probably go for a two-point conversion to get within two scores. Actually, I only almost forgot to mention this. Carroll and Schottenheimer actually forgot to go for two.

This loss is so frustrating and so perplexing. There’s good news, though. There’s no way that Carson will have another game this bad. There’s no way that Woods will line up like that again. And there cannot possibly be a game where both Pete Carroll and Brian Schottenheimer make so many bad decisions.