The Seahawks’ offense seemed to be lost in translation and the Packers defense made me eat my words after delivering a surprisingly dominant performance in this week 1 matchup.
Offense
Well, like I said before, the Seahawks offense appeared to be out of synch practically the entire game. Tyler Lockett began the game with a 43 yard kickoff return which seemed to be a promising start, however, Russell Wilson struggled to find open targets throughout the first half. Wilson was sacked forcing a 3 and out in the first series of the game and it continued as a pattern for just about the entire first half.
Eddie Lacy managed to tally 5 carries for 3 yards, that’s right I said THREE YARDS…(I wish I wouldn’t have put him in my starting lineup for Fantasy Football today). I know the Seahawks were looking for Lacy to be that big, barreling back that they found success with in Marshawn Lynch but it seems his former team got the best of him. CJ Prosise was uninspiring held to 11 yards on 4 carries and Thomas Rawls was listed as a game time decision today and did not see the field, meaning he’s still not 100%. Despite Prosise and Lacy’s lackluster performance, there were sparks of promise in the future of the run game when rookie Chris Carson was on the field. He’s a big, powerful and physical back and although the Packers D held him to just 39 yards on 6 carries, his performance was encouraging.
“I’ve got to see the film to see what happened, but I was surprised they were able to do that where it made it hard for us to get the running game going like we wanted to.”
Head Coach Pete Carroll
Doug Baldwin was flat until the end of the first half when he caught a 34 yard pass to convert on 3rd down. That coupled with Wilson’s 29 yard run put the Seahawks in field goal position to put 3 points on the board going into the half. Green Bay’s Mike Daniels and Nick Perry combined to sack Wilson 3 times, proving the offensive line needs to work on protecting their QB. Overall, it seemed as if the Seahawks were unable to find that chemistry that Wilson had with his core in previous seasons. The Packers defense held the Hawks TD-less in week 1 which surely will not be a trend from hear on out.
Defense
The Seahawks strong defensive performance was the only reason why they weren’t blown out in Lambeau like Taylor’s Rams did to Indy! Michael Bennett, Frank Clark, Terrence Garvin and Cliff Avril combined for 4 sacks on Aaron Rogers all in the first half of the game and newbie Sheldon Richardson had a solid performance tallying 4 total tackles.
However, there were a few controversial call’s against Seattle that potentially changed the momentum of the game in Green Bay’s favor each time. In the first quarter A Rod’s pass was batted and caught by rookie Nazaire Jones who ran it back for what we thought was a big time pick six to put the first points on the board. Unfortunately, there were two penalties called which nullified that TD. Davante Adams and Jeremy Lane got into a little scuffle which resulted in Lane getting ejected because the refs claimed he threw a punch. When watching the replays, even Troy Aikman, Joe Buck and former NFL VP of Officiating, Dean Blandino, agreed that there was no punch thrown by Lane, Adams initiated the contact AND had Lane by the face mask. However, this ejection lead to rookie Shaq Griffin stepping in and having a stellar performance with 10, I repeat, 10 total tackles.
Green Bay scored two TD’s in the second half, one came when Mr. Awareness, Aaron Rogers, sees a substitution taking place on Seattle’s defense and gets to the line and gets the snap out before the 12th man could get off the field resulting in Seattle’s defense being late to the ball and a free play for Jordy Nelson to score. Aside from this and a couple of other plays, Seattle’s defense was impressive and the pressure on Rogers never let up throughout the entire game.
Seahawks fall to the Packers, 9-17.
Up Next
Tracy’s 49ers make the trek to Century Link next Sunday, September 17 at 1:25 PDT and you know it’s going to be a tense day in the Fangirl Sports Network household! The 49ers will be coming off a demoralizing week 1 defeat at the hands of the Carolina Panthers and will surely be putting their best foot forward so the LOB needs to keep applying the pressure and Russell needs to have a pow wow with his receivers to get on the same page!
[NFL-Seahawks-footer]