Seahawks grades from week 17 loss to 49ers

The Seahawks lost to the 49ers in the final regular season game of 2019, but the game could have been so much worse. Here are the grades.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you will probably want to know is what the Seahawks did to lose to the 49ers. (I wrote that first sentence and paraphrased Catcher in the Rye because the book is about an adolescent dealing with issues and trying to find his way. Sort of. This is a lot like the 2019 Seahawks.)

Part of the issue with the Seahawks this year, though, is that their coach, Pete Carroll, uses time management like he is a young coach too. He isn’t and he should do better when it comes to protecting timeouts and using what precious time he has at the ends of first and second halves.

One could blame the loss to the 49ers on a horrible non-pass interference call with under two minutes left when a 49er mauled Seattle tight end Jacob Hollister in the end zone. The eventual incomplete pass was clearly pass interference but it wasn’t called.

But what if it was? Surely, the Seattle offensive coaching staff and Carroll would have found a way to not use the gift bestowed upon them. Prior to that, Seattle had the ball first-and-goal and then Russell Wilson spiked the ball. The clock stopped. And yet, unbelievably, Seattle used up the play count and was called for delay of game.

But Seattle was always in a position to play catchup during the game. If things had gone better earlier in the game they would not have been a position to have to take that penalty. So what happened earlier and why didn’t Seattle win? Here are the grades.