Rashaad Penny resurfaces, Seahawks’ pass rush, defense dominate 17-9 win at Eagles
Ugly game. Malfunctioning offense. Unnecessarily tight game into the fourth quarter on the road.
So, of course, the Seahawks got saved by Ru...
Rashaad Penny?
The mothballed running back and 2018 first-round pick? The guy who had 2 yards and just three plays and got benched for a fumble in Seattle’s last game?
Yeah, that guy. He bolted and bulldozed 58 yards for the game-breaking touchdown early in the final period. Then to close out this game it was the forgotten Penny, not fumbling, 1,200-yard back Chris Carson, who was getting the carries on a close-out drive in Philadelphia.
Meanwhile, Seattle’s defense set a season-high by forcing five turnovers. And the Seahawks won for the sixth time in six road games this season, a not-that-close 17-9 over the mostly inept Eagles in the cold wind at Lincoln Financial Field.
“It’s been a big test, but it’s me just staying poised, staying who I am and patiently waiting my turn. ...It was tough for me because I was a first-round pick. Everybody expecting all these big things,” Penny said after his career-high 122 yards on just 14 carries.
“And I was just like, ‘You know, I’m still young. I’m still fresh. I’ve got a lot of carries that I can handle, for whenever the time is needed.”
His time was needed early in the fourth quarter.
The Seahawks’ offense was stalled, stuck on 10 points for nearly two full quarters and keeping the Eagles’ anemic, decimated offense in a game that should have been at least 24-3 at that point but wasn’t. Extra tight end George Fant had just been called for holding, one of Seattle’s 12 penalties Sunday. It was first and 20 back on the Seahawks’ side of midfield in a one-score game.
Then Penny took a handoff from Russell Wilson and ran left behind the block of left guard Mike Iupati. He zoomed past linebacker Nigel Bradham and safety Rodney McLeod near midfield. Penny raced past Eagles cornerback Jalen Mills at the 30. At the 15, he lowered his shoulder while still running and flattened cornerback Ronald Darby onto the 13-yard line. Penny cruised into the end zone from there.
“I think he gave me a boost into the end zone,” Penny said.
His second touchdown of the season put Seattle ahead 17-3 with 12 minutes left.
“It was amazing,” Wilson said.
Given how backward the Eagles’ offense was, it was also decisive. Only a cosmetic score in the last 20 seconds by Philadelphia made the final score look better than the game really was.
Penny’s only other game above 65 yards in his 23-game career was Nov. 11, 2018, 108 yards against the Rams in Los Angeles.
But when coach Pete Carroll and play-caller Brian Schottenheimer have turned to him in limited roles, he’s produced. His 37-yard run off a sharp cut and halftime adjustments for a touchdown similarly broken open a one-point game in Seattle’s week-two win at Pittsburgh two months ago.
That’s why the Seahawks drafted and have kept him
Sunday, Penny was largely why Seattle (9-2) won for the seventh time in eight games, to keep pressure on 9-1 San Francisco atop the NFC West.
“I’ve just been doing things differently than last year,” Penny said. “I know last year, as the season was progressing I was gaining weight. This year, they told me to be more of a professional. ...”
He hired a nutritionist. He says he’s 230 pounds now. That’s at least eight pounds less than he weighed as a rookie last season.
“My goal is to get to 225,” he said. “I definitely feel an extra burst. ...
“I’m doing way better than I have in the past. I stopped eating McDonald’s. ...I’m a big broccoli guy. I love green stuff now.”
He said he never thought he’d hear himself say that, “because I never thought I’d be that big.”
“That was hard for me,” he said of his diet change. “But then, I just got serious about football. Having great body weight and great body shape, takes you a long ways as a running back. I’m learning that from Chris.”
The win came despite Wilson’s third interception this season, the offense squandering at least 17 points, plus Carson fumbling, recovering the ball then losing a botched hand-off from Wilson in his own end of the field on two consecutive plays in the fourth quarter.
That set up Philadelphia to get back in the 17-3 game. But cornerback Shaquill Griffin broke up Philadelphia’s last chance, a pass by erratic Carson Wentz off J.J. Arcega-Whiteside’s hands on fourth and 2 at the Seattle 23-yard line with 7:49 left.
Wilson completed 13 of 25 passes for 200 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He was sacked six times, including twice for no yards on scrambles.
The victory makes Wilson the first quarterback in NFL history with a winning record in each of his first eight seasons.
“We don’t fear anything, don’t fear any situations,” Wilson said. “That’s really where we are and who we are.”
Wentz has plenty to worry about.
He was playing without his top three wide receivers—DeSean Jackson is on injured reserve, Alshon Jeffery and Nelson Agholor were inactive and injured. Lead running back Jordan Howard and starting right tackle Lane Johnson were also out.
It showed.
Wentz finished 33 for 45 passing for 256 yards, one interception, two interceptions and the three sacks. But the Seahawks swarmed him all day. He had just 176 yards passing in the game’s first 57 1/2 minutes.
Wentz added 80 yards passing in a garbage final drive in the final minute to an Eagles touchdown with 20 seconds left, with Seattle in prevent defense.
Veteran linebacker K.J. Wright said the Seahawks knew many of the plays the Eagles were about to run, and were calling them out at the line just before snaps in certain downs and distances. Seattle was particularly knowing about screen passes to tight ends Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert. They are Philadelphia’s lone remaining, dependable receivers.
That helps explain the five turnovers, the most takeways for Seattle’s defense in more than two years. The Seahawks took the ball away five times from the Rams on Oct. 8, 2017.
Seattle is plus-nine this season in turnover margin. That was tied with Green Bay for third-best in the league, behind only New England and Pittsburgh, entering Sunday night’s Packers-49ers game.
The Seahawks had keen interest in that one. But they weren’t able to watch it because their team charter plane home back across the country didn’t have wifi.
“That’s the most important thing that we do in our game. In our style of play, it’s the center of our philosophy,” Carroll said. “So to have a day like that, get five (turnovers), is huge.”
So is having control of their playoff fate. The Seahawks, who next host Minnesota (8-3), will win the NFC West and could secure home playoff games and a first-round bye if they keep winning over the final five games of the regular season.
“Yeah, that’s what everybody wants,” Carroll said. “It’s all you hope for, is you’re in control of it. We’re in control of it.
“We can do whatever we want to do with this season.”
Pass rush has arrived
Carroll had said for weeks—months—the Seahawks’ pass rush, and in particular slowed end Ziggy Ansah, were comin’.
They’re here.
That is the most promising development the last two games for the Seahawks and their playoff hopes.
Ansah had 1 1/2 sacks in the first half, one on which he combined with Jarran Reed to sack and force Wentz to fumble. Ansah had a third sack and another forced fumble of Wentz negated by a penalty on Shaquill Griffin for holding an Eagles receiver 35 yards away from the play in the second quarter.
The 30-year-old Ansah had one sack all season entering Sunday. He had just 14 snaps in Seattle’s previous game, the win at San Francisco. The Seahawks’ biggest offseason acquisition was so ineffective for months and out of the defense’s plans, second-year linebacker Shaquem Griffin took his snaps on third downs late against the 49ers.
Asked what was different Sunday, Ansah said: “I just kept bringing it.”
Sunday the Seahawks were missing top sack man Jadeveon Clowney, who was inactive with a hip injury. Yet they swarmed Philadelphia’s makeshift offensive line that was down to a third-string right tackle. They had two sacks and five hits on Wentz in first 25 minutes of this game.
They finished with three sacks and eight hits on the quarterback.
Seattle has eight sacks and 18 hits on QBs in the last two games.
That’s more than half the defense’s totals for the first nine games: 15 sacks and 25 QB hits.
“Man, it’s night and day. It’s night and day,” said safety Bradley McDougald, who his second interception this season in the second quarter. “It makes our jobs so much easier (covering in the secondary). It erases a lot. It makes us look that much better in the back end.”
That’s season-changing. The excitement in Carroll’s voice talking about the change—particularly the fact it’s come with the four defensive linemen, without the aid of blitzing—portrayed that.
“It’s such a big deal,” Carroll said. “It’s such a difference. And we just turned the corner the last two weeks. I couldn’t tell you that last week (at San Francisco) because it just happened once. But to come back and see our guys penetrate like that and really be scrapping, we were close a lot. And I think we had recorded nine hurries or something on the QB. That’s a big day.
“I can’t tell you what turned the corner. I would have said JD’s contribution last week was really the trigger, but he’s sitting over there with me (in Philadelphia). And so the whole group has gotten better, and we have improved.
“And it’s a really, really exciting emergence that we need to hopefully capitalize on.”
That blows
A 17-mile-per-hour wind into the open, north end of the stadium, a wind-chill that made it feel like 34 degrees and a grass field wet from light rain contributed to an ugly, sloppy, sputter-and-stop game.
That wind particularly affected throws from the north to south end of the stadium. Wentz missed high and long overthrowing wide-open receivers on two plays that could have been touchdowns in the first quarter. With the wind at his back in the second period, Wilson scrambled then saw Jacob Hollister alone in the end zone. He flipped a pass that wobbled and sailed on his like a Frisbee, well over Hollister’s head.
Seattle settled for Jason Myers’ short field goal and 10-3 lead instead of 14-3.
“Sometimes, you miss a layup,” Wilson said, not using the wind to excuse his miss to Hollister.
All-Pro punter Michael Dickson shanked his first punt 27 yards into the wind. He said it was because the ball blew off his foot when he dropped it. Thereafter, he adjusted my holding onto the ball longer, letting it be affected in the air by the wind for a shorter time, and for guesstimating where to drop it onto his foot.
It worked.
Dickson put five of his next six punts inside the Eagles 20-yard line, including two punts inside the 2. That kept Philadelphia’s struggling offense with massively long fields to drive.
Shaquem Griffin’s biggest play yet
Shaquem Griffin didn’t need the wind to make his biggest play yet as a Seahawk.
In the third quarter, the Eagles were inside the Seattle 40-yard line driving to tie the game. On third down, Griffin sprinted up field from his new edge-rusher spot in which he debuted the previous game at San Francisco. He beat third-string right tackle Hala Vaitai and crashed into Wentz and his running back on a late hand-off. Griffin helped create the fumble teammate Quinton Jefferson returned to the Philadelphia 32.
He said he thought when Wentz saw him crash into the backfield, the Eagles quarterback changed the planned pass and tried an impromptu handoff. Griffin smacked the QB and back’s hands into the ball for the fumble.
But to typify the middle two quarters for Seattle’s offense, it committed three penalties for 20 yards backwards, including center Joey Hunt for tripping while pass protecting. Then Wilson forced a throw on third and Delaware from midfield into double coverage toward David Moore. Eagles cornerback Ronald Darby deflected the pass to teammate Rodney McLeod for Wilson’s third interception in 11 games this season.
That was the third potential score wasted by the Seahawks’ offense, which had eight first downs and was 3 for 10 on third-down conversions by the final minute of the third quarter.
At that point, Wilson was 10 for 21 passing for 141 yards, a touchdown and an interception. Penny was Seattle’s leading rusher, with just four carries for 37 yards.
“This was a terrific win for us,” Carroll said. “Go back on the road again and do it. ...
“I’m so happy with the guys and the way we have approached these games, mentally. ...These guys know how to get it done.”
Reed limps
Defensive tackle Jarran Reed shared a sack with Ansah before he sprained his ankle in the second half. Last season’s 10 1/2-sack man walked out of the visiting locker room to the Seahawks’ bus bound for the airport wearing a walking boot over his lower left leg.
“Unfortunately, J Reed sprained his ankle a little bit,” was all Carroll said about the Seahawks’ only apparent injury from Sunday’s game. “But until then he did a nice job.”
This story was originally published November 24, 2019 at 1:19 PM.
