3 winners and losers from Seattle Seahawks preseason Week 1 victory

The Seattle Seahawks made a miraculous come-from-behind victory over the Minnesota Vikings on Thursday night at Lumen Field. After being down 10-0, Seattle roared back to get the win 24-13. It is clear based on what we saw that Seattle should be the Super Bowl favorite in 2023!

OK, enough with the silly hyperbole. Preseason wins and losses are meaningless, obviously. Neither team played many of their key starters and the Seahawks played even fewer than Minnesota. How did Geno Smith and DK Metcalf look? No idea. They didn't play, just as they shouldn't have.

We did get a decent look at some guys either trying to earn roster spots or make the active 53-man roster, though. That is what the preseason is really about, of course. The games let the coaches see what players can do against players wearing different uniforms than their own. And in Seattle's case, head coach Pete Carroll and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron get a decent look at what Drew Lock can play like when he isn't holding a clipboard on the sidelines of real games.

Also, this just in: Boye Mafe is going to be a beast this season. He was out there just wrecking the Vikings single-handily at times. Just wait until he's playing with some more starters on defense!

Winners and losers from the Seahawks come-from-behind preseason Week 1 victory

Before I get into the winners and at least one loser from Seattle's victory, I should mention a few honorable mentions. These are guys who might not make the roster but did give themselves a decent chance of getting on the practice squad somewhere. Hopefully, even with the Seahawks.

Quarterback Holton Ahlers threw a bit of an insane touchdown pass to Matt Landers, and that kind of thing likely won't fly in a real game - in fact, likely the pass turns out to be a pick-six the other way - but Ahlers should get props for showing he can move around. He finished 4 for 4 throwing with the touchdown pass, but he ran six times for 26 legit yards. Good enough to develop on the practice squad.

Bryant Koback got some payback since he was with the Minnesota Vikings practice squad last year. Koback showed some burst on a nice swing route that he took for 32 yards. He also ran with toughness and got 32 yards rushing on 6 carries.

Finally, as far as the honorable mentions, Easop Winston, Jr., looked like a player. He caught a dart from Lock for Seattle's first touchdown and Winston shielded his man well during the route. He isn't going to make the active roster, but he's worth keeping around somehow. So who were the real winners and losers from preseason Week 1? Well...

Winner No. 1 - Seahawks should let Drew Lock stick around longer

Drew Lock has to be asking himself if maybe once this preseason he can actually play with the presumed 1s on offense. Lock isn't a bad quarterback with the right coaching. He has shown that through parts of two preseasons in Seattle. But to begin Thursday, he was under a lot of pressure because the Vikings had some of their starters playing along its defensive line and Seattle had Evan Brown at center and then a lot of backups.

To be fair, left tackle Stone Forsythe looked really bad. Maybe he could be a decent backup at right tackle, but if Charles Cross goes down (and please, no) then let's just hope Forsythe doesn't have to play long-term in place of Cross. I bring Forsythe up because he was one of the issues Lock had to deal with at the beginning of the game.

But Lock continues to show he has enough athleticism to move around the pocket and avoid sacks at times. In fact, Lock managed to get sacked just once which is almost a minor miracle. Also, it must be noted that Lock did have a bad interception in the third quarter. Sure, he was under pressure and the ball appeared to get tipped a bit, but the ball should have never been thrown as Lock didn't seem to see the Vikings defender who picked the ball off.

But Lock came right back and a drive and a half later (the first drive attempt ended, Seattle punted, but the fumble was muffed and the Seahawks took back over) led the team to a touchdown. In the first half, Lock through a laser of a throw to Winston for Seattle's first points and Lock proved again he has an NFL arm.

Maybe Lock is nowhere near as good as Geno Smith, but Lock playing with the 1s (for once!) might make Lock look even better. He deserves to do that at least once this preseason, right?

Loser No. 1 - Seahawks fans get shafted by KING 5's feed

The good thing about preseason games is that home teams usually get to do the feed on the national NFL Network showing. This meant if you don't live within 100 miles of Seattle or you don't have a local affiliate that carries Seahawks games, you can get the treat of hearing some former Seahawks commentate on fake games. But Thursday got all kinds of complicated because of KING 5.

Even before the game, KING 5 was having issues with cutting out. Then the feed seemed to get righted and we got to see Michael Bennett and Michael Robinson beginning to chat and make each other laugh and one might have been thinking, "Alright! This is going to be..." And then the feed cut out again.

This is where things got weird. If you live locally, you got the fantastic "Technical difficulties" screen. Sure, you could have switched to the transistor radio you have in times of nuclear war and listed to the radio broadcast there, but you wanted to see what happened, right? Of course, you did.

If you were watching nationally on the NFL Network, you got switched to the Vikings feed. I don't know the name of the guy doing play-by-play for the feed (also, can they not do replays?) but he was horrible. I mean, he had an idea of how to do his job, but he was such a homer that is was like listening to former Cubs play-by-play guy Harry Carey only without the personality. It was just...ew.

But if you were "lucky" enough to live in a place that has an affiliate that carries Seahawks games - say you live in Portland, Oregon, for instance - then when the feed started to go out several times, you got switched unexpectedly to the Spain versus Netherlands FIFA Women's World Cup game. If someone you lived with came home while this was going on and they walked in and asked you, "I thought you said you were going to watch the game?" I really hope your answer was, "I am."

Also, Spain ended up winning in extra time 2-1. You know, in case you actually got interested in what was happening there.

Winner No. 2 - Jake Bobo shows again he should make the Seahawks roster

Jake Bobo is not overly fast and he doesn't run people over, but he is tall and he just seems to make plays. In other words, he appears to just be a football player. I mean that in the best possible way. Some players, even Steve Largent was one, don't do anything that "wows!" a person, but then you look up their statistics and they've produced good numbers.

Bobo led the team in receptions and receiving yards in the mock game last week. On Thursday, he led the team in receiving yards again with 55. He also had a touchdown catch on a sweet route and then Drew Lock threw a dime to him. But while Bobo isn't going to speed past most players (he could me, obviously, because I am hella slow), he does seem to run crisp routes. He also appears to catch everything he can get his hands on.

Bobo is also doing something Pete Carroll loves. That is that Bobo is making the most out of the opportunity given to him. Seattle didn't play starters DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, Dee Eskridge got injured early in the game (like, duh!), and Dareke Young missed the game with an injury as well. Bobo seized his opportunity to shine, though.

Bobo is big enough to be a red-zone target. He is likely only going to see one-on-one coverage too, and he has surprising quickness off the line of scrimmage. Take a look at his touchdown catch above. You might be seeing quite a few of those plays in the regular season because at this point Bobo is making a strong case to be WR4 in Week 1 for the Seahawks.

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