It has been nearly a year since Seahawks fans woke up the day after a game with that losing feeling. Twelve straight wins, including a Super Bowl title, somehow does little to dull the sting of dropping a game, especially against a vastly inferior opponent. The last time a Mike Macdonald team lost to a team as bad as the Washington Commanders squad they faced yesterday was against the NY Giants in Macdonald’s first season. It has been roughly two years since fans had to swallow a pill that bitter. This Seahawks team barely resembles that one. They are tough, talented, connected, and battle-tested. There should have been no way they could lose to a Commanders squad that was winless and without many of their best players. Logic lost. So did Seattle.
The simple version of what happened in this game was that the Seahawks lost the turnover battle 3-0. Teams who have given the ball away three times and taken it away zero times are 45-490-1 since 1999. That is an 8.5% win percentage. Seattle did not play to their standard. They turned the ball over. They lost. It may be unproductive to dig deeper than that. It may also be unwise to ignore what contributed to the result.
Most might start by talking about Sam Darnold’s two interceptions or Jadarian Price’s second fumble in as many games. Both are fair targets, and we will get to them. My mind goes to the defense that was the best in football last year, and was the best in the NFL the first two weeks. They faced a depleted and talent-poor Commanders offense. Even with the turnovers, they should not have surrendered 27 points (6 came on a Washington defensive score) to this team.
The pass rush has been middling to start the season. It has felt like there have not been many quick pressures (under 2.5s), but SumerSports data has the Seahawks as 4th in the NFL in quick pressure rate (23.1%) through three weeks. Their average time to pressure (2.45s) is tied with the Chiefs for first in the NFL. Washington was missing their left tackle and best guard. This should have been a blood bath. It was far from it. The Commanders could not run the ball on the Seahawks, but they became the first team to have a 20+ yard play against Seattle. In fact, they had two.
Josh Jobe was beat for the second time this season on a deep ball down the left sideline. He did not make a good play on the ball in the air. Both plays either directly or indirectly resulted in a touchdown. Jobe also gave up a few critical completions that kept drives alive.
Seattle played without both starting safeties. This was the first time an injury absence really could be felt in a while. The Seahawks win streak included games without their starting quarterback, left tackle, a running back, multiple starting safeties, starting guards, starting corners, starting linebackers, receivers and more. Almost every sub stepped in and left little drop-off. The drop-off was not little in this one.
A.J. Finely struggled in replacing Julian Love. Love had been one of the best players in all of football through two weeks, so some of this is about how good he has been. Finley took some bad angles, though, and got bailed out on a long touchdown run that was called back for a penalty. His personal foul penalty was a questionable call, but it was a back breaker. If Love is going to be out a while, Finley is going to have to be a lot better. The decision to elevate Maxen Hook from the practice squad instead of D’Anthony Bell was an interesting one.
Nick Emmanwori is listed as a safety, but is not a deep safety for this defense. His presence was not felt in this one. He exited briefly with a hamstring injury before returning. Maybe it is just rust after sitting out for training camp, but Seattle needs him to be an impact player. He has not been so far.
Timing on the return of Ty Okada also remains a question. It is asking a lot of any team and coaching staff to operate without both starting safeties, and their top backup (Bud Clark was lost for the season), and still play elite defense. Trevon Diggs is sitting on the practice squad. Perhaps the Seahawks will experiment with asking him to play safety. The outlook for Okada and Love will determine how inventive Seattle needs to be.
Macdonald credited backup quarterback, Marcus Mariota, for making smart checks at the line and getting rid of the ball quickly. Mariota has somehow never lost to the Seahawks. He is now 3-0 in his career. It was a highly efficient, if not flashy, day for the Commanders quarterback. He had just 183 yards passing and a paltry 5.3 yards per attempt, but threw three touchdowns against no interceptions for 110.0 passer rating.
That only happens if the pass rush is not hitting him and the coverage is not aggressive and sticky enough. Seattle continued a problem in the red zone, allowing 2 of 3 red zone possessions to end in touchdowns. Stop just one of those two and the Seahawks win the game.
Many will feel it is unfair to put so much on the shoulders of the defense when there were egregious mistakes on offense, but the standard for this defense is incredibly high. They did not meet it in this game.
One other aspect of this loss that will not make many headlines is the special teams. They lost their battle against Washington pretty decisively. The Commanders punter was fantastic, averaging 49 yards per punt and pinning Seattle inside the 20 yard line three times. Michael Dickson still has not allowed a return yard this season, but he had no punts inside the Commanders 20 yard line and averaged just 43 yards per punt.
That contributed to the Commanders average starting field position of their own 37 yard line, while the Seahawks average start was the 26 yard line. That may not seem like a large disparity, but every yard increases your scoring probability. This was a big gap.
Credit to their kicker for matching Jason Myers 57-yard field goal to end the half as well.
Seattle was sluggish to start this game on offense. The game plan from Brian Fleury relied more on early down runs than made sense. The Commanders do not do many things well, but they have been a stout run defense. Their secondary has been atrocious. They had to be thrilled when Seattle ignored Jaxon Smith-Njibga to start. Fleury and the offense eventually switched to exploiting that weakness, but it was a tactical error to not go after their weakness with your strength from the beginning.
That contributed to an early run from Price that turned into a crucial turnover. Price was benched for a while after his second fumble in two weeks. He had a fumbling issue in college. Seattle did not have to deal with fumbles from Kenneth Walker III or Zach Charbonnet. This is new territory to see how Macdonald navigates it with their first round pick.
Besides the obvious risk of more turnovers, Price may run more cautiously. His value is as an explosive rusher. Trading off explosiveness for ball security is not a trade the team can make. They need Price to be as aggressive as possible and protect the ball. Charbonnet may start his practice window this week, and could be back by week five or six. They still will need what Price offers or this running back room and this draft starts to look very different.
Darnold made some high level throws in this game and showed no ill effects from his injury. He escaped the pocket multiple times and seemed to run fine. He confirmed after the game he felt healthy.
The interceptions he threw are plays he will want back. The last one was especially bad. It was 2nd and 15 at the Washington 49-yard line, with his team only trailing by 3 points. The play did not work as designed and Darnold was trying to create something. A hidden villain in this was yet another pre-snap penalty (illegal formation) on 1st and 10 from the Commanders 44 yard line. That changed what types of plays Seattle could run.
An uncomfortable truth is that Darnold threw three straight turnover-worthy throws. He was very fortunate the deep throw on first down to Rashid Shaheed was not picked off. Same with his next throw to Price. The third time was the charm for Washington. It was a fitting capper to a day where the Seahawks tried over and over and over again to hand the game to a bad team. They finally took it and ran.
This loss will not define the Seahawks. They were not exposed. Macdonald is not suddenly a bad coach. Teams lose games on the road they should not all the time. Look at the powerhouse Rams who fell to 1-2 after they blew a 16-point lead to Denver.
Seattle will face a desperate Chargers team at home and then the currently undefeated 49ers. They need to get healthy. They need to lean on their strengths and exploit their opponents weaknesses. They need to get back to taking the ball away and not giving it away. They need to score touchdowns from the 1 and 2 yard lines. These are basics.
This loss could very well come back to bite them as an NFC loss in what is likely to be a tight division race. The only way to overcome a loss is to win. They get their next shot in six days.