The morning after: Week 1

The Seattle Seahawks defense played a good – perhaps even great game on Sunday.

That’s great because that’s the forte of Mike Macdonald’s Seattle’s new head coach.

The Seahawks offense, however, spent the first 30 minutes of the game doing everything it could to undermine that. When the Seahawks weren’t committing safeties, they were giving the Broncos the ball in scoring position.

If there had been a rake on the field, rest assured one of Seattle’s guards would have found a way to step on it.

Fortunately for Seattle, by the second half, the offense stopped shooting itself in the foot and even chipped in a little bit for a victory that is going to take a little bit to puzzle through.

On the one hand, the Seahawks were able to win in spite its offensive line being an outright abomination for the first two periods.

On the other hand, I’m not sure the Seahawks would have been able to win had the Denver Broncos not been starting a rookie who did not in any way resemble a competent NFL quarterback in his debut. That’s not a knock on what Bo Nix may be, but rather a statement on what he was in this game, which was bad. Very, very bad.

The result: Seattle 26, Denver 20. 

The significance: The Seahawks are 1-0 under Macdonald as they won their home opener for the 14^th time in the past 16 seasons. 

• The defense. Seattle committed two turnovers in the first half, giving the Broncos the ball in the red-zone on each occasion. Seattle held the Broncos to field goal both times.

• Kenneth Walker deserves a shout-out, too. He carried gained 19 yards in the first half on seven carries. Seattle handed him the ball on five of its first six plays to start the second half. The result was 53 yards on those five carries, including a 23-yard touchdown that gave Seattle a lead it never lost.

The defense won this game, though, by limiting the damange in a game where Denver enjoyed a significant advantage in field position.

The Broncos had 15 possessions in the game. Four began outside their own 40.

The Seahawks had 14 possessions. They started outside their own 40 exactly once.

Yet the Seahawks held the Broncos out of the end zone until the final possession.

Second quarter, 4:36 remaining.

The Broncos’ Zach Allen was lined up on the outside shoulder of left guard Laken Tomlinson. Allen got around Tomlinson’s inside shoulder, meaning he moved across Tomlinson’s entire body without being blocked.

Allen grabbed Charbonnet, who managed to lean forward and get the ball to the goal line, but not out of it, resulting in Seattle’s second safety of the first half.

The first safety occurred in the first quarter when Allen Bradford — the right guard — was penalized for holding in the end zone as Smith rolled out to his left.

I’ll have more to say about Seattle’s offensive line on Wednesday. It was absolutely terrible in the first half, and while some of that can be attributed to right tackle George Fant going out with a right knee injury, his absence doesn’t explain why Seattle’s guards were responsible for a safety apiece.

The Seahawks had not given up a safety was Oct. 23, 2022 in a game against the Chargers. Prior to that, the Seahawks had last given up a safety in a Dec. 17, 2017 in a 42-7 loss to the Rams when Russell Wilson was penalized for intentional grounding in the end zone.

In other words, Seattle had given up exactly two safeties in its last 101 regular-season games coming into this season. It gave up two in the first 30 minutes of this season.

First play of the fourth quarter.

The Broncos busted the coverage as both the safety and cornerback sucked followed the receiver toward the middle of the field, leaving Charbonnet completely unguarded.

It was Seattle’s third straight scoring drive of the second half, which gained a total of 179 yards. Compare that to the first half when the Seahawks had eight possessions, which netted 102 yards of offense.

The icing: Fourth quarter, 1:48 remaining.

I expected the Seahawks to run the ball. That was true even when Seattle was facing third-and-11. It was especially true after a 5-yard offsides penalty against Denver left Seattle was facing third-and-4.

Keep the clock running, punt the ball back to Denver with just about a minute remaining and see if the Broncos’ rookie quarterback could move his team the length of the field with no timeouts.

Spoiler alert: The Seahawks did not punt. 

Smith threw to Tyler Lockett, who was running across the formation, and to say Lockett made a one-handed grab actually lessens the degree of difficulty. He reached out with his left hand and while he touched the ball.

It was more a corral than a catch. He brought it into his body.

Then he used his right hand to pin the ball against his leg. Then he secured it with both hands.

It was … remarkable. 

As for the decision? It was gutsy:

Here’s the scenario:

• Score is Seattle 26, Denver 20

• Seattle ball, 3rd and 6 from its own 24

• 1:48 remaining, clock is stopped

• Denver has one timeout remaining, Seattle has two

Let’s look at the options that Macdonald was weighing:

Macdonald wasn’t really betting field position here. He was betting time.

Does the upside of icing the game with a completion outweigh the risk of consuming 40 of the 100 or so seconds remaining? Macdonald thought so. His gamble paid off.

 I’m going to do something new in my dissection of Seahawks games this season. I’m going to spell out the most impactful plays in terms of something called win-probability added.

Essentially, I’m going to give you the players which — according to this statistic — had the most significant impact on the likelihood the Seahawks would win or lose a given game.

If you want to read more about this particular statistic and where I’m sourcing it, here you go. Here’s the list, starting with the three most positive plays:

+11.76%, Tyler Lockett, 9-yard catch on 3rd-and-6 in the 4th quarter

+8.83%, Kenneth Walker III 23-yard run for a TD in the 3rd quarter

+8.26%, Geno Smith 34-yard scramble for a TD in the 2nd quarter

-14.21%, Dee Williams muffs punt at the Seattle 10 in the 2nd quarter

-11.53%, Bo Nix, 4-yard scramble for a TD in the 4th quarter

 -8.62%, Zach Charbonnet tackled for a safety, 2nd quarter