Seattle Seahawks Week 3: The good news and the bad news of a big win at home
It may have taken them 10 quarters, but the Seattle Seahawks finally played a brand of football recognizable by the 12s. While there wasn't much bad news in their win over the Panthers, most of that resulted in good news for the team. And there was a lot of good news in the 37-27 victory.
Good news, 12s. Your favorite team won a game without going into overtime. The running game got on track and they stuffed the run. Best of all, the Seahawks played better as the game went on. Yes, they still have some things to work - boy do they ever- but there's even more good news regarding that. So let's dive in.
As I said at the start, it took the Hawks some time to look like the team we all expected to see this year. They moved the ball well against the Panthers in the first half, rolling up 207 yards of offense on four scoring drives. That's the good news. The bad news is they couldn't get the ball into the end zone once. The Hawks were an abysmal one for eight on third down conversions, although they did convert on fourth down on one of those drives. Man, that's already a lot of bad news; I don't know if I can take any more. But there's good news coming, so cheer up.
The Seattle Seahawks turned bad news into good news
Yes, that third down rate was terrible alright, The good news is that they were able to turn to Jason Myers to salvage something out of those drives. While Seattle had to punt on their first drive, and another failed third down resulted in the game's only turnover, the other four drives all resulted in field goals. Yeah, I agree, I'd like to see more than 12 points on the scoreboard from 200-plus yards of offense, but Myers kept the Hawks in the game. After the kicking team had a couple of misses against the Lions, it was great to see Mr. Reliable bounce back.
Seattle trailed Carolina 13-12 at the half, but they had mounted four scoring drives and only punted once, that on the first series of the game. Yes, Geno Smith threw his first interception of the season. But he shook it off and went right back to work on the very next drive, leading to another field goal. A touchdown would have been nice, sure, but it was important to get back on the scoreboard, and the Hawks did just that.
Meanwhile, the Seattle defense forced Carolina to punt three times and settle for two field goals. Yes, the Hawks gave up a touchdown on one big play. Make that a huge play, as the Hawks blew coverage on D.J. Chark, who scored from 47 yards out.
Yes, the pass defense gave up far too many yards, 334 for the entire game. But they also forced the Panthers to punt five times in all and got the ball back on downs on another play. That made twelve drives for the Carolina Kitties and six scores. On the other side of the ball, the Hawks had 13 drives and scored on eight of those. Factor in that two of those "drives" closed out the two halves of the game, and Seattle scored on eight of eleven opportunities. That's a decent formula for winning football.