WRs Jaron Brown, David Moore brilliant, T Germain Ifedi not so in Seahawks’ preseason loss

Russell Wilson and the starting offense looked good early again—but only produced two field goals.

Wide receivers Jaron Brown and David Moore looked fantastic—even with defenders hanging all over them.

But right tackle Germain Ifedi looked run over. His continued issues in pass protection kept the Seahawks’ starting offense without a touchdown.

The changed, first-team defense allowed Los Angeles a long touchdown drive by Philip Rivers to start the Seahawks’ second preseason game Saturday night. Then two missed tackles on coverage caused a 72-yard punt return for the Chargers’ other touchdown of the first half.

Seattle went from down 14-6 at halftime from the starters playing to losing 24-14 at the StubHub Center south of Los Angeles.

The starting offense moved the ball but had Chris Carson’s 22-yard touchdown run called back by a needless block-in-the-back penalty by tight end Will Dissly away from that play. Carson then lost a fumble at the goal line—forced my Melvin Ingram and recovered by former Seahawk defensive tackle Brandon Mebane in the end zone.

“A horrible thing to do,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said of Carson’s fumble, a cardinal sin of the coach’s near the goal line.

So all Seattle’s starters had to show for 228 yards offense in the first half were two short field goals.

“Third play of the game, we scored,” Wilson said, discussing how he’s encouraged with the offense’s starts in each of the two exhibitions. “Then we had the penalty, which we can’t have. In the red zone, in particular, we have to stay on schedule.

“That’s the lesson learned from tonight. But the great thing was, the score should have been 21-7 (Seahawks. In the first three drives we had three touchdown opportunities. And that’s what we look for. We go to the truth of what we did and how we can get better.

“Our tempo throughout the game was really good.”

Wilson completed 13 of 21 passes for 193 yards as the Seahawks’ and Chargers’ starting offenses and defenses played the entire first half—minus Rivers, who played into the second quarter before Geno Smith entered as Los Angeles’ quarterback.

Wilson got sacked twice, once when usually reliable left tackle Duane Brown got beaten. The second sack came on third down in the red zone in the first quarter. Ingram, the Chargers’ dynamic defensive end, mauled Seattle right tackle Germain Ifedi for the first of at least three times in the half. That forced Wilson’s scramble and rushed pass to Nick Vannett in the end zone. Chargers safety Jahleel Addae knocked that away.

“It was a good battle. He’s a helluva player,” Ifedi said of Ingram, who made the Pro Bowl last season and has 29 sacks the last three years. “There’s a couple (of plays) I wanted back. But I thought overall it was a good battle.

“There were a couple plays, but that’s what the preseason’s for, to work out the kinks or whatever. We’ll get it right, and we’ll fix it. Overall, I think it was a really good matchup, and I more than held me own out there.”

After Ingram beat Ifedi the first time, in the red zone, Sebastian Janikowski kicked a field goal out of rookie punter Michael Dickson’s hold to trim Los Angeles’ lead to 7-6.

Jason Myers, the 40-year-old Janikowski’s competitor for the kicking job, made a 33-yard field goal out of Jon Ryan’s hold to end the Seahawks’ game-opening drive.

Here’s the thing while just about everyone with a 98 in his or her zip code calls for Ifedi to lose his job at the start of his third season: the Seahawks have no viable options with starting experience currently practicing behind him at right tackle. Rookie Jamarco Jones got starting time in a practice two weeks ago for Ifedi, but the fifth-round pick then got a severe ankle injury in last week’s preseason opener. Jones had surgery this past week in Green Bay, Wis.

The man who replaced Ifedi when the second-team offense began the third quarter, Willie Beavers, came to the Seahawks as a one-year free agent in 2016, and as a guard. Beavers has two games of NFL experience, no starts, from 2016 with Minnesota.

The Seahawks have a young offensive tackle with starting experience there in the NFL. But George Fant remains the backup left tackle behind Brown. He’s yet to make his anticipated move to right tackle to compete with Ifedi, as Carroll and general manager John Schneider had mentioned was in their plans for 2018, now that Fant is back to fully participating after season-ending, reconstructive knee surgery ended his place as the starting left tackle last summer.

Two weeks remain in the preseason, before the games get real. And the pass-protection issues really begin to matter.

Brown, the former Arizona Cardinals receiver Seattle signed this spring, had 74 of Wilson’s 79 yards passing through the first two drives by the starting offense. That was two down-field catches.

“It felt good out there,” Brown said. “I try to make plays like that every day in practice.

“Obviously, with the run emphasis this year, it can open up things down field. ... And having 3 back there throwing it to you makes it a lot easier.

“I still want to get a chance to play a full game. But it’s been positive so far.”

As how about the athletic, tough-minded Moore?

“Baller,” Brown said. “He’s a baller.”

Moore had two tremendous leaps and grabs in traffic on Seattle’s third offensive drive. The first was for 52 yards in double coverage, when the 2017 seventh-round draft choice from lower-division East Central State in Oklahoma just wanted the ball Wilson chucked up like a punt more than the Chargers’ two defensive backs at the L.A. 20-yard line. The Seahawks hurried to line and Wilson threw again to Moore, on a slant. Moore again out-jumped his defender for the catch to the 1.

That’s the freaky athleticism and strength Wilson, Carroll and the Seahawks have been raving about from Moore. He’s emerged during top receiver Doug Baldwin’s left-knee injury and indefinite absense to move up in Seattle’s plans on offense.

“They had faith in me by drafting me,” Moore said. “I just had to believe in them believing in me.”

Starting running back Chris Carson ran twice from there up the middle, behind center Justin Britt, left guard Ethan Pocic and right guard Jordan Roos. Roos was playing because starter D.J. Fluker hurt his finger on the game’s first scrimmage play and did not return.

Carson gained nothing on his first goal-line plunge. On his second the 2017 seventh-round pick committed what Carroll regards as a cardinal sin; Carson lost the ball on a second hit by a Charger for a fumble into the end zone. Los Angeles recovered for the touchback that kept the Seahawks behind 7-6 early in the second quarter.

The Seahawks were behind because Rivers moved away from pressure on the Chargers’ first offensive series and completed his first six passes. And Seattle’s defensive tackles got blown back on runs of 14, 8 and 2 yards. The last one was a Los Angeles touchdown, by Melvin Gordon.

Veteran Byron Maxwell did not play two days after returning to practice from a hip-flexor injury. That meant the three-man competition to start at right cornerback to begin the regular season was down to rookie Tre Flowers and former San Francisco starter Dontae Johnson Saturday night. Flowers gave up a catch in front of him by Gordon for 14 yards over the middle on the opening drive in what looked like underneath zone coverage.

The Chargers made it 14-6 when Seattle’s punt team wasted a 57-yard smash by veteran Jon Ryan, who is trying to keep his job over wunderkind rookie draft choice Michael Dickson. After Ryan’s boot, rookie Jacob Martin overran the returner and Delano Hill missed a diving tackle in the open field. JJ Jones then ran past Moore near midfield on his way to the 72-yard touchdown late in the half.

Pro Bowl LB K.J. Wright had a game-high 6 tackles in the first half. He also read a delay run by the Chargers on a third and 4 to end a drive, though he didn’t get the official tackle. New defensive tackle Tom Johnson did.

Seattle’s starters left by the beginning of the third quarter. The second-team defense gave up a long drive to begin the second half, ending with a 25-yard touchdown pass from Smith to Mike Williams. Akeem King, backing up Shaquem Griffin at left cornerback, never turned around to play the pass in the back of the end zone. That put Seattle, which had won its last six preseason games over two summer before last week’s loss to the Colts, down 21-6 to the Chargers.

C.J. Prosise made his preseason debut entering with the second-team offense to begin the third quarter. But the oft-injured third-round pick from 2016 didn’t make the most of his first chance to gain ground with rookie first-round pick Rashaad Penny recovering from surgery this past week to fix a broken finger.

Prosise was Seattle’s tailback into the fourth period, days after he returned to practice from a hip-flexor injury. But he didn’t produce much. With 5 minutes left he had three carries for 12 yards, four receptions for 19 yards on dump-off passes from rookie Alex McGough underneath coverage in the fourth quarter.

McGough threw a nicely placed pass in the back right cover of the end zone undrafted rookie Malik Turner ran under for a touchdown with 4 minutes left. McGough’s two-point pass play to Cyril Grayson got Seattle within 21-14.

Turner, from the University of Illinois, kept the football as a momento for his first NFL touchdown. But he had to stay on the field for the two-point play. So Turner chucked it about 50 yards to the Seahawks’ sidelines for safekeeping. It was the best throw by a Seattle wide receiver this preseason.

Rookie Shaquem Griffin has three tackles in this second half as the backup to Wright at weakside linebacker. That was after the fifth-round picks game-high seven stops in three quarters last week in the preseason opener.

The Seahawks have a quick turnaround before their preseason game, Friday at Minnesota. Carroll usually plays his starters into the second half of that final rehearsal for the regular season, before a rubber-stamp preseason finale for which some veterans don’t even put on a uniform.

This story was originally published August 18, 2018 at 5:46 PM.