Seattle Seahawks fall to Cincinnati Bengals Week 6: 3 quick takeaways

The Seattle Seahawks lost to the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 6 17-13. This was Seattle fourth-straight loss following a bye week. The offense seemed out of sync for most of the game.

Geno Smith made several bad decisions, though his second interception seemed to be more of a miscommunication than an errant throw. More on Geno in a second, but he certainly didn't help his cause to be Seattle's quarterback for the next two years after 2023. Seattle might need to draft one.

There were some positives, though. One was the defense, and more in that in a second too. Also, receiver Jake Bobo looked solid with 2 huge catches for 43 yards. Here are some quick takeaways.

Seattle Seahawks fall to 3-2 with loss to Bengals in Week 6

Red-zone fails

First of all, Seattle's defense played well enough to win against Cincinnati. The issue was Seattle's offense. This is especially true when it came to the Seahawks red-zone failures as Seattle got inside the Bengals' 20-yard line five times and scored just once and that was on Seattle's first drive of the game.

After that, Geno Smith threw a pass interception aimed at Jaxon Smith-Njigba but Smith threw into double-coverage on one drive and he couldn't be protected on other drives. Though, at least one sack that basically ended the drive was on Smith as he had pnety of time to throw the ball away. Basically, once Seattle got inside the Bengals' 10-yard line they appeared to have no clude what to do.

Both quarterbacks just seemed...off

While the Bengals started extremely well (heck, so did Seattle as after three of the first four drives of the game by both teams, each team had a touchdown and Cincy had two), they bogged down after their first drive of the second quarter. Joe Burrow was getting a bit more pressure in the second half, sure, but he was making throws when he wasn't under pressure and simply missing receivers.

But for our purposes here for the Seahawks, Geno Smith just seemed slow to react to what decisions he should make in high-stress situations. He was sacked four times and likely three of these were because he held on to the ball too long. This was especially true near the Bengals end zone when Smith needed to either throw the ball away quicker or make a decision where to throw it faster. Week 6 was certainly not one of Smith's better days.

A positive: Seattle's defense really does seem much better

The first two drives for Cincinnati were ugly. But after that, defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt made in-game adjustments and though the Bengals had nearly 150 total yards after their second touchdown drive with 12:20 left in the game, they only finished with 214 yards. Seattle's defense shut Joe Burrow and friends down; The Seahawks could just get no help from their offense.

Cincinnati finished having just 4.4 yards per play and 53 rushing yards. If Seattle can continue to play defense as they have for the last several games, they are going to win a lot of football games. If they can get help from the offense, that is.

More Seattle Seahawks news and analysis