Seahawks week 6: Underachiever and overachiever of the game

The Seahawks lost despite a great comeback effort versus the Steelers. There is a definite overachiever, and sadly a clear underachiever as well. There’s much more to unpack about this game, but for now, let’s focus on the best and worst performances Sunday night.

Before I get on to my selections, a quick word about Darrell Taylor. Yes 12s, a Hawks loss isn’t what we’d hoped for. This entire season is shaping up to be less than what we’d hoped for. But Taylor’s injury puts it all in perspective. As I’m writing this, the early signs are all good for him. We all wish him a speedy recovery.

Alright, back to the mundane. I’ll dispense with the easy choice first. The offensive line was, in a word, not good. Okay, that’s two words and I was going to say horrific, but I’ll settle for much worse than mediocre. Yes, that’s a lot more than a word too, but I need more than one to spread the blame.

The Seahawks gave up five sacks and 10 tackles for a loss. Yes, the Steelers have a good defensive front. Yes, T.J. Watt is an absolute monster. But coming into Sunday’s primetime game, Pittsburgh had just 10 sacks and 23 tackles for a loss.

You know how I like to get mathy, 12s. That means on the season, the Steelers have now racked up 33 percent of their sacks and 30 percent of their TFL in 16 percent of their games. So the Seahawks offensive line performed almost exactly twice as bad as every other line Pittsburgh has faced this year. Oh, and they allowed four tipped passes on the line of scrimmage, too.

Okay, enough of that. Offensive line woes are nothing new in Seattle. What is new is a running game. Yes, the line gets some credit for opening holes, but not much of that happened in the first half as the Hawks only ran the ball four times for 19 yards. No, it was in the second half that things really got going for my overachiever of the game.

Seahawks standouts for week 6

That player, of course, is Alex Collins. Once the Seahawks realized he could pick up yardage, they decided they liked that outcome and fed him the ball. After just four carries in the first half, Collins got 16 carries the rest of the way. He finished with 101 yards and a touchdown. That’s the first 100-yard rushing effort of the season for the Hawks, as improbable as that sounds.

Collin’s big day doesn’t surprise me. After all, I did pick him as one of my breakthrough players on offense this year. Listen, D’Wayne Eskridge will be there when he gets past this concussion. And Damien Lewis…well, I did mention the offensive line already, right?

The Hawks did turn this into a game after a less than stellar start. Yes, Geno Smith made a critical error, but he also led the team to force the overtime. I gave him serious consideration as the overachiever, but for my money, that simply has to go to Alex Collins.