Seahawks’ penalties, mental errors lead to 27-17 loss at Green Bay

The Seattle Seahawks have in their previous two Super Bowl seasons had complete teams that won despite alarming penalties and periodic lapses of poise.

This, however, is far from a complete team two games into the 2015 season.

Seattle’s flags directly contributed to 17 of Green Bay’s first 24 points, including those that put the Seahawks in a 10-point hole almost as quickly as one can say “Kam Chancellor holdout.”

And Russell Wilson’s decisive interception, while trying to throw a screen pass to Marshawn Lynch in Seattle territory with seven minutes left, gifted the Packers their clinching points in the Seahawks’ 27-17 loss Sunday night at a roaring Lambeau Field.

“We’ve got to get out of our own way right now. We aren’t doing that,” coach Pete Carroll said of his second 0-2 team in six Seahawks seasons (2011’s team started that way and finished 7-9).

There will be a lot of Seahawks shaking their heads — but not panicking, they insist — between now and this coming Sunday’s home opener against Chicago (0-2).

“It’s nothing to panic about,” said wide receiver Doug Baldwin, whose touchdown catch gave Seattle a 17-13 lead midway through the third quarter.

“This is the most resilient team I’ve ever been around.”

The Seahawks’ top-ranked defense the past two seasons has surrendered leads in the fourth quarter of each defeat this season. Counting the NFC title game that Green Bay tied in the final seconds to force overtime in January — a loss the Packers avenged with vigor Sunday — then Tom Brady’s two touchdowns for New England in the final nine minutes that cost Seattle Super Bowl 49, that’s four consecutive games in which the defense hasn’t lived up to Carroll’s mantra.

FINISH has suddenly become FALTER.

“Yeah, really disappointing finishes,” a somewhat steamed Carroll said. “Really, that’s something we take great pride in.

“We’re not playing good enough ball — playing good, clean and sharp — to let our football show itself.”

Carroll had said that the mental side of the game is what his Seahawks had to improve following their overtime loss last week at St. Louis.

Instead, in many ways it got worse Sunday.

The Seahawks committed six penalties for 92 yards — with boneheaded ones such as Michael Bennett being offside three times on hard snap counts by Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Carroll said Seattle had worked on that almost more than anything else in practices last week.

“I just (screwed) up,” Bennett said. “I mean, let’s just keep it real.”

More real(ly) bad:

▪ Right guard J.R. Sweezy shoulder-throwing a Packer to the ground 10 yards away from a running play, well after the whistle, for a personal foul that ruined a first down at the Green Bay 37 in the second quarter and led to a punt at midfield.

▪ All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman’s 52-yard, pass-interference penalty for plowing Ty Montgomery well before the ball arrived, which propelled a Packer’s drive from their own 13 to the Seattle 35 and into a field goal for a 13-3 lead. That was another free play when Bennett jumped offsides again and Rodgers just chucked the ball skyward with no threat of an interception.

▪ Cornerback Cary Williams’ illegal-contact foul that gave Green Bay an automatic first down at the Seahawks 10 in the fourth quarter and Seattle ahead 17-16. Rodgers connected two plays later to Richard Rodgers for the go-ahead touchdown pass with 9:28 left.

▪ Linebacker K.J. Wright uncharacteristically getting ejected for grabbing another Packers defender by the face mask following a fourth-quarter whistle and throwing him to the turf by it.

“I hurt my team,” Wright said. “Shouldn’t have happened. Not going to do it again.”

Wilson was 19 for 30 for 206 yards passing, with two touchdowns, an interception and two sacks. He had 10 runs for another 78 yards, 65 of which came after halftime, when Carroll said the coaches decided to run him more.

With Seattle trailing 24-17 and 7 minutes left, Wilson tried to look off Green Bay’s defense to his left to throw a screen to Lynch to the right. Pass rusher Jayrone Elliott peeled back upfield off a block, reached upfield and deftly intercepted the throw with one arm at the Seattle 42. That led to Mason Crosby’s clinching field goal with 1:56 left and the Seahawks out of timeouts.

After a first half that he accurately described as “stagnant,” Wilson kept the ball on his read-option exchanges with Lynch (41 yards on 15 rushes) and began gaining yards on bootleg runs and passes on the move. That changed Seattle’s offense — and the game.

Behind Wilson’s legs, the Seahawks scored 14 unanswered points in the third quarter. Running back Fred Jackson’s first Seattle touchdown, a 5-yard catch, and Wilson’s 13-yard pass to Baldwin, who behaved himself in the back of the end zone after his first score of this season, gave Seattle a 17-13 lead. With 7 minutes left in the third quarter, Lambeau Field’s regular-season record crowd of 78,433 was suddenly so quiet that one could hear a cheese curd drop.

The Seahawks’ defense stopped committing penalties in the middle two quarters and began resembling their top-rated form of the Super Bowl seasons for the first time this season — especially $43 million, All-Pro middle linebacker Bobby Wagner. He ended three Packers’ drives with open-field tackles.

After Green Bay’s early 10-0 lead, set up by Seahawks’ penalties, Seattle’s defense held the Packers to 107 total yards into the third quarter — while the Seahawks gained 238 yards and scored those 14 unanswered points.

So don’t tell the Seattle defenders they are 0-2 because of Chancellor’s holdout.

“Man, I’m so tired of talking about that,” linebacker Bruce Irvin said.

“We’ve got the guys in here to make it happen.”

But so far, those guys haven’t.

gregg.bell@thenewstribune.com

@gbellseattle.

This story was originally published September 20, 2015 at 9:04 PM with the headline "Seahawks’ penalties, mental errors lead to 27-17 loss at Green Bay."