Seattle Seahawks grades from Wild Card loss to Rams

Offense

Russell Wilson is known for shining his brightest under the lights. That wasn’t quite the case in the Wild Card round. Saturday’s loss was the first-ever playoff home defeat Wilson has suffered during his career. While the entirety of this loss cannot be put on him, he did indeed struggle for the majority of this game. Wilson finished the game completing 11 of 27 passes for 174 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception.

The interception that was returned for a touchdown on the WR screen intended for D.K. Metcalf was not Wilson’s fault. Freddie Swain did not do his part and chip the defensive back. Wilson did make a great play early in this game on the 51-yard touchdown pass to D.K. He also did his best to maneuver out of the collapsing pocket but didn’t cover too much ground with his feet as he only rushed for 50 yards. While that seems like a lot, most came late in the game. This just wasn’t a pretty game for anybody on the offensive end, including our Superman, Russell Wilson.

One question that loomed around this Seahawks offense was whether or not this Seattle team could establish the rushing attack. After sustaining some injuries early on in the season, they failed to get back to that balanced attack. Well, they once again strayed away from the run in the Wild Card defeat. It is tough to do anything against this Rams defense, but the Seahawks didn’t run as much as they should have. The rushing attack takes the pressure off Wilson and opens up the offense.

While you could certainly make the argument that the run game just wasn’t quite working, the counter would be the Seahawks didn’t stick with it. It appeared as if the Seahawks offense was invisible in the first quarter as they only ran a handful of plays. Although Chris Carson can’t be blamed for the play calling, both he and Hyde failed to pick up first downs on short third downs. This offense just couldn’t quite establish any sort of rhythm and as a result, the run game didn’t have much of an impact on this game. Or should I say, it didn’t impact the game the way they wanted it to.

In the first two matchups between these teams, many were looking forward to the Metcalf Ramsey matchup. In the Week 16 game, the Seahawks did a good job of motioning Metcalf away from Ramsey and getting him involved early on. In the Wild Card game, Metcalf displayed visible frustration on the sideline as the offense simply couldn’t move the ball. But, he ended up playing a solid game. He had a big 51-yard touchdown early on where he read Wilson well and made an off-script play.

The Rams secondary did a good job of taking nearly everything away. Tyler Lockett had little to no impact on this game as he only recorded 2 catches on 4 targets. He is a deep threat and wasn’t utilized that way in this game. Wilson didn’t have much time to go through his reads, but the wide receiving core was held in check for the majority of this game. There was just no flow to this offense all throughout the game and it showed. While the Rams drew up a nice game plan, the Seahawks wide receivers failed to create any sort of separation to help Wilson get the ball out of his hands quickly.

A very disappointing game from this position group. After the month of December, when evaluating this Seahawks roster, their biggest weakness was the mediocre play of this offensive line. While you could certainly argue they weren’t healthy during that span, they were completely healthy in the Wild Card round. In fact, they were undefeated when all 5 started. That gave Seahawks fans hope of going up against a ferocious Rams pass rush. But, right from the get-go, the Rams defensive line imposed their will.

Russell Wilson once again wasn’t able to keep his eyes down the field. He had to keep his eyes on the pocket and failed to create any big plays with his feet. It seemed that whenever he did generate positive yards on a scramble, it came back due to offensive holding. This offensive line continually shot themselves in the foot and failed to sufficiently protect their quarterback. As a result, this offense was all out of sorts and failed to move the ball down the field. This is certainly a group that needs work in the offseason.