For Pete’s sake: Seahawks that overpowered the Jets in Week 17

Seahawks defenders got the job done in style

The tight ends still got open, but I can’t blame the Hawks secondary. These gentlemen came to play. The Jets wide receivers only caught nine of twenty-one targets for 105 yards. Both Quandre Diggs and Michael Jackson picked off passes that turned into Seattle field goals. It’s been a while since we’ve seen that, and the Hawks D needed that. But neither of my defensive players is in the secondary. I have to go with Al Woods first, who helped slow the New York running game to a trickle after a fast start. In the first quarter, the Jets ran for 56 yards. For the rest of the game, they only managed 19.

It’s also pretty great to report that there’s been a pass rush sighting. Surprisingly, the pressure didn’t come from Uchenna Nwosu, but from two gentlemen who haven’t gotten much attention this season. Well, in the case of Darrell Taylor, he’s gotten some attention, but mainly because he’s had too many games with practically zero impact. That wasn’t the case Sunday, as he picked up 2.5 sacks and forced a fumble. Taylor added three quarterback hits and a tackle for a loss. With that effort, Taylor jumped to second on the team in sacks behind Nwosu.

While he’s hardly been a cipher this season, Quinton Jefferson hasn’t been near the top of the stat sheet either. He’s never really been that type of player, though. That changed today, as he added 1.5 sacks to round out the Hawks excellent pass rush in this contest. Jefferson was one of the additions I was most excited about in preseason, so it’s nice to see him have a game like this. He also had three quarterback hits of his own and two tackles for a loss. This was easily his best game since his return to the Hawks, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.