SEATTLE — In a Seattle Seahawks win featuring multiple defensive touchdowns, three goal-line stands, five sacks, 10 pass breakups, several explosive offensive plays and a 22-point margin of victory, the most impressive sequence might have come on a series that ended with a field goal.
Slamming the door shut has been one of the few struggles for Seattle, which added another dominant victory to its resume with a 44-22 whupping of the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday afternoon at Lumen Field. At 7-2, Seattle is tied with the Los Angeles Rams for the NFC’s best record. But some of Seattle’s victories have exposed a wart: the inability to get first downs on the ground.
Although the offense has been efficient all season, Sam Darnold and the passing game have done the heavy lifting. At times, the unit has sputtered when it’s time to salt the game away. As the difference between contenders and pretenders becomes clearer each week, the Seahawks took a significant step Sunday toward cementing themselves as a team to be reckoned with down the line.
They scored 35 consecutive points to begin Sunday’s game against Arizona. They led 38-7 at halftime. All they had to do to keep the home fans happy for the final two frames was avoid giving Arizona life.
And yet, they initially appeared insistent on doing just that, with consecutive turnovers in the third quarter.
Then came the third drive of the half, Seattle leading 38-15 with 4:32 remaining in the third quarter at its own 8-yard line. The Seahawks deployed 22 personnel (two backs, two tight ends) with fullback Robbie Ouzts on the field and Darnold under center. Zach Charbonnet went right, cut back, made multiple defenders miss and galloped for 30 yards.
The next play was an under-center run out of 12 personnel. Charbonnet picked up 9. The same personnel blocked a 13-yard run on the next snap. After that, another under-center, 9-yard run out of 22 personnel.
The next eight plays were runs as well, a mixture of shotgun and under-center snaps with Charbonnet and Ken Walker III, along with an AJ Barner tush push on third-and-1. In all, Seattle ran the ball 12 consecutive times, gained 79 yards and held the ball for over seven minutes.
“I was excited about that,” right tackle Abe Lucas said.
He wasn’t the only one.
“I love seeing that,” receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba said. “They can’t stop it, let’s keep going. Everybody did a great job. It’s just another thing to focus on for defenses, which will open more things up.”
Charbonnet (83 yards), Walker (67) and third-string running back George Holani (31) combined for a season-high 181 rushing yards and two scores on 5.1 yards per carry with 10 first downs, also a season-high mark.
“We were successful in the run game, (and) in the second half, we turned it up,” Walker said. “The O-line did a great job.”
On a day when nearly everything went Seattle’s way, the team’s offensive balance was most notable. Balance is a prerequisite for being taken seriously in this league. And the Seahawks are commanding more respect each week.
In their current form, the Seahawks are a nightmare for opponents. For one, they’re dominant. They entered Week 10 with one of the league’s best point differentials, and the team’s latest blowout win only boosted that number to plus-103, second only to the Indianapolis Colts (plus-115). Seattle has the third-highest odds of earning the NFC’s top seed and a first-round bye in the playoffs, according to The Athletic’s playoff simulator.
“What we’re building here, we all feel like we have something special,” Smith-Njigba said, “and we just want to keep it going and protect what we have.”
The way Seattle dominates is the scary part. The defense is not built around one uniquely unstoppable edge rusher, a do-it-all linebacker or a shutdown defensive back. Any one of the 11 players is liable to make an impact play in coverage or in the backfield on any given snap. That has been the case all year, and Sunday was just another example.
Inside linebacker Tyrice Knight missed most of training camp with knee and heart issues and lost his starting job to Drake Thomas earlier this year. But with Ernest Jones IV out with a knee injury, Knight, a 2024 fourth-round pick, was the starting mike linebacker Sunday. He brought Seattle’s “next man up” mantra to life when he blitzed quarterback Jacoby Brissett and forced a fumble that was returned by outside linebacker DeMarcus Lawrence for a touchdown.
Twice.
“Credit to T-Knight being ready, man,” Thomas said. “Everyone prepares like a starter, and you could see T-Knight showed up today. Two sack-fumbles is huge.”
The second Knight-Lawrence combo play occurred with 14:08 left in the second quarter and gave Seattle a 28-0 lead. It was the second consecutive week the Seahawks rendered the second half mostly meaningless with a dominant first half. Seattle scored at least 30 points in the first half for the third time this season, which no other team has accomplished in a season since at least 2000, per TruMedia.
Knight accounted for two of Seattle’s five sacks, contributed to one of three goal-line stands and had one of the team’s 10 passes defensed. And he continued a season-long trend of defenders staying ready behind the scenes, then impressing when called into action.
Saturday, Seattle placed defensive tackle Jarran Reed on injured reserve because of a wrist fracture the team recently learned required a second surgery. Reed is expected to return this season, but his absence means more snaps for defensive linemen such as Brandon Pili and Mike Morris. Those two reserves played key roles in Seattle’s first goal-line stand when they beat their blocks on fourth-and-goal from the 1, creating a lane for backup safety Ty Okada — starting in place of the injured Julian Love — to drop Zonovan Knight for no gain in the second quarter.
Leading 38-15 in the third, Seattle again needed a stop inside the 10-yard line. On fourth-and-5 from the 8, Brissett’s pass toward receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. was swatted away in the end zone at the last second by cornerback Nehemiah Pritchett, playing as the sixth DB in the “dime” package because Josh Jobe was out with a concussion.
Plenty of regulars made standout defensive plays, too. Cornerback Riq Woolen and rookie nickelback Nick Emmanwori combined to register six pass breakups (the latter also had a half-sack, the first of his career). Leonard Williams, Boye Mafe and Lawrence had sacks. Uchenna Nwosu had a big tackle for loss on a third-down run.
However, the theme of the Seahawks’ season thus far, and what makes their outlook so promising, is the big-play ability of their backups. Seattle has a few blue-chip players who set the tone weekly, but facing this unit is like walking into a hornet’s nest and being swarmed from every direction.
“It’s our team’s DNA,” Thomas said. “It’s a consistent message from the top down, and we all buy into it. You see that on the field. When someone steps up and makes a play who hasn’t been playing, it’s like no drop-off.”
The Seahawks are earning the right to call themselves elite. They have the league’s best receiver, Smith-Njigba, who had 93 yards and a touchdown Sunday. He’s the first player with more than 1,000 yards receiving (1,041, to be exact) this season and is still on track to break the NFL’s single-season record. The secret sauce to Darnold’s efficiency this season has been his pass protection, and that unit was again proficient Sunday. Darnold was sacked only once. He fumbled on the play but acknowledged after the game he should have gotten rid of the ball before defensive end Josh Sweat poked it out of his hand.
“I’ve got to continue to get the ball out,” said Darnold, who also lost a fumble on a botched snap exchange with backup center Olu Oluwatimi and was intercepted on a ball that ricocheted off a teammate’s helmet.
Darnold has the second-highest turnover rate (4 percent) in the league, according to TruMedia. If there is any other blemish to point out ahead of a massive Week 11 showdown with the Rams, it is Darnold’s ball security. According to the playoff simulator, the Seahawks have a 61 percent chance of winning the division if they defeat the Rams next week in Los Angeles. Lose, and those division title odds drop to 19 percent. The significance of the next game cannot be overstated.
That’s why offensive balance is so vital. It’s much harder for Darnold to put the ball in harm’s way when he’s handing it to his running backs for first downs.
The Rams defend the run as well as anyone in the league. If the Seahawks are going to accomplish their goals this season, they’ll have to go through Sean McVay’s Rams. Sunday against Arizona, Seattle might have finally found the balance required to do just that.