3 winners and 2 losers from Seahawks in preseason Week 1 versus Chargers

The Seattle Seahawks had so many winners in this game that it's hard to narrow the choices down to only three. Conversely, there weren't many losers. That's exactly what you'd hope for in the first action of the season.

The NFL preseason never has been the best barometer of success for the regular season. The 4-13 Commanders were 3-0 in the preseason last year, while the 13-4 Ravens were just 1-2 before the games counted. The scores don't matter, but how each player plays, now that's a different matter. The winners and losers we see in the preseason are largely those players that are fighting for a starting role. More often, they're fighting to simply make the team.

As I mention at the beginning, the Seahawks had no shortage of winners this evening in San Diego. I could easily name a dozen winners. The only reason I won't is a matter of editorial consistency. I'm sure there will be a game at some point this year where it will be a struggle to come up with three winners, let alone 12. As for losers, I cheated a bit. You'll see, just wait.

Winners and losers from the Seahawks victory over the Chargers in preseason Week 1

Winner: Sam Howell

Howell faced a very big test today. He entered the game clearly locked in as the Seahawks' number two quarterback. Nothing he could have done would have moved him ahead of Geno Smith. At best, he might have earned another chance to move ahead. That doesn't mean he couldn't perform so poorly that he lost the backup role, though. Until the most recent week, Howell has looked pretty bad in camp, and the Hawks' number three QB, P.J. Walker, has looked good. That trend reversed itself in the first action against true opposition.

Howell completed 16 of 27 passes for 130 yards and a score. No, that box score isn't exactly going to put him in the Hall of Fame, but it only tells a small part of the story. He didn't commit a single turnover and made smart decisions all night. At least three of those incompletions were throwaways. He was sacked twice, but as with those throwaways, Howell resisted the temptation to "make something happen", as he often did last year with the Commanders.

Yes, he missed a few passes, but he wasn't throwing to DK Metcalf or Tyler Lockett, either. He led the Hawks to two touchdowns and would have helped them to another six points had a drive not stalled at the Chargers two-yard line. I completely agree that he isn't going to take the place of Geno Smith. But for me, he played well enough to show he can win with the full Seahawks squad around him.

Loser: Jason Myers

Yes, Myers nailed a 47-yard field goal to cap Seattle's scoring in the fourth quarter. Had this been a regular season game, those points could have proved critical, as it extended the Seahawks lead to 13 points. That forced the Chargers into desperation mode with just 4:45 on the clock. Or at least it would have, if the outcome actually mattered. What does matter is two bad miscues by Myers.

After Seattle scored their second touchdown of the game, Myers pulled the extra point wide right. He was automatic last season as he converted 33 of 33 kicks. He only missed one extra point in 2022, but was a little yippy in the three prior seasons. As in, he missed at least three extra points for four straight seasons.

As many close games as the Hawks are likely to play this year, Myers has to convert every time. He also missed the landing zone on one of his kickoffs. I'm not going into the myriad details of the new kickoff rules, but suffice it to say, his missed kick gave the Chargers the ball at their own 40-yard line. Again, he can't do that in the regular season.

Winner: the offensive line

Yeah, yeah, I know the Seattle offensive line gave up three sacks. On two of those plays, they simply collapsed under the San Diego pass rush, while on the third, P.J. Walker was dropped on a corner blitz that simply wasn't picked up. So I'd say that one goes to the debit line of the running backs, not the O-line. Yes, you'd like to see a cleaner pocket, especially as the Chargers weren't playing all their starters on the defensive line.

It's only fair to point out that the Seahawks weren't playing all of their starters on the offensive line, either. What matters to me is that the Hawks generated 156 yards on the ground without a single carry by Kenneth Walker III and only two touches by Zach Charbonnet. They ran 79 plays to the Chargers 53 and absolutely dominated the time of possession with over 38 minutes. That is exactly the kind of dominance this team needs on the offensive line to win, and they got it.

Loser: the KONG television broadcast team.

I know, this is a bit of a reach, not naming a player, or at least a coach. But for those of you who had the incredible misfortune of suffering through the broadcast - well, you have my sympathy. I don't recall play-by-play Kate Scott being anywhere near this bad last season, but OMG. At times she seemed to be reading from a script instead of calling the game in front of her. In the first quarter alone, she announced the Seahawks had picked up the first down on two separate played, even though they hadn't. On the second of those calls, the down and distance was actually third and four.

Oh, it got much worse. When Myers missed the extra point, Scott called the score as 14-0 Seahawks, even though he clearly missed. Even though the officials clearly signaled he had missed. Even though their own graphics team correctly showed the score. Later, it got even worse. On a critical 3rd and 10 play, P.J. Walker tried to spike the ball to stop the clock. Luckily, the play clock expired just before he took the snap.

The announcing team continued to prattle on about Jack Westover and how he just missed a catch - which, by the way, would have been out of bounds had he caught it. It might have been nice for them to point out that had Walker spiked the ball with a second left, it would have been fourth and 10, Seattle.

To be clear, this criticism is on the entire crew, not just Scott. Analyst Michael Robinson could have jumped in at any time but didn't. Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril could have deferred to the action on the field. I don't know, maybe the director of the broadcast could have taken control and actually covered the game.

In the fourth quarter, Dee Williams gave up a 39-yard completion, but they were too busy talking to Tyler Lockett about what superhero name the team should have. Williams and Marquise Blair followed up with a great pass defense in the end zone, but we didn't hear anything about it because they were still talking to Lockett.

Earlier, they missed a spectacular play by Byron Murphy II and a follow-up play by Boye Mafe. Yes, they did talk about the plays after the fact. But if I tune into a game, I want to see the GAME. I can listen to interviews of Geno Smith or Tyler Lockett at any time.

Yes, it's just the preseason, but as they pointed out several times, many of these players are fighting to make the squad. Maybe you should actually cover that, instead of an interview you could record with players off the field at any other time to post later. I was so bad I thought I was watching some hellish combination of Joe Buck and Chris Collinsworth.

Winner: Aden Durde

Haha, psyched you out, 12s. You thought I was going to name Mike Macdonald. I mean, other than that Durde's photo leads the article. Sure, Macdonald came out of this game as a winner- literally. He won his first NFL game as a head coach - even if it was just a preseason game. But he also beat his former boss at the University of Michigan. You know that had to be satisfying at some level, to show that for one game, the student had become the master, and all that nonsense.

But I'm giving the credit to Coach Durde. Yes, we know that Macdonald calls the defensive plays. But Durde is the defensive coordinator. The Seahawks absolutely dominated the Chargers in this game. They allowed just 21 yards on San Diego's first six possessions.

The Chargers were 0-7 on third down in the first half and 2-13 for the game. Six different players broke up passes as the Hawks swarming defense held the Bolts under 200 total yards. For a preseason game, it was a master class in defense. Aden Durde's contributions to that shouldn't be underestimated.

More Seahawks news and analysis: