Geno Smith rallies Russell Wilson-less Seahawks to OT, then loses fumble, game to Steelers
Russell Wilson stood tall, wearing a natty suit coat and his personal, signature-branded RW3 face mask on his way out of Heinz Field.
For the first time in 10 years, he was at a Seahawks game and didn’t play in it.
“Definitely different, for me,” Wilson said on the walk from the visitors’ locker room to the team bus and flight toward dawn in Seattle.
“We played a good game. It’s tough.”
This tough: Ninety seconds left, and 75 yards to the win, or at least the tie at Pittsburgh Sunday night.
But for the first time after 165 consecutive starts to begin his career, Wilson was watching. He and his surgically repaired hand were in a team jacket, on the Seahawks’ sideline. Geno Smith was in the huddle instead, in his first NFL start in 1,414 days.
Down 20-17 and about 60,000 Terrible Towels twirling all around him, Smith went all Wilson with the game on the line. He completed all five of his throws under supreme pressure. He moved his believing Seahawks from their own 25-yard line to the Steelers 25 in 90 seconds. He calmly spiked the ball with 3 seconds left. Jason Myers kicked the tying field goal from 42 yards as regulation time expired to force overtime.
But in that extra period, Smith tried to make a play that lost the game.
The 31-year-old veteran, starting for the first time since Dec. 3, 2017, stepped up trying to pass on the second Seahawks possession of overtime. Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt ran from behind and stripped the ball from Smith. The Steelers recovered the fumble at the Seahawks 16-yard line.
“No, I didn’t see him,” Smith said. “You know, I had two hands on the ball. I was getting ready to tuck it and getting as many yards as I could and slide.
“He’s a great player.”
Watt’s play on Smith allowed Pittsburgh’s Chris Boswell to kick a 37-yard field goal with 2:50 left in overtime, sending the Seahawks to a stunning, bitter, 23-20 loss into early Monday morning at Heinz Field.
“Gosh, man. I hate coming up short,” Smith said, 10 days after he threw an interception past falling receiver Tyler Lockett to seal Seattle’s home loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
“We can’t keep coming up short. I can’t keep coming up short. I put that on myself, back to back weeks. Our defense gives us a chance to go out there and score, give me the ball. And we don’t get it done.
“That’s solely on me. And I vow to be better.”
He must be.
The last-place Seahawks are 2-4 for the third time in Pete Carroll’s 12 years as head coach. Wilson won’t be back until mid-November, if then. Seattle is four games behind undefeated Arizona in the NFC West just six games into this season that now goes on indefinitely without Wilson.
The other times the Seahawks have been 2-4 under Carroll: in 2011 on the way to finishing 7-9, when he and general manager John Schneider were overhauling the franchise; and 2015. That ‘15 team was coming off the last-play Super Bowl loss to New England months earlier.
It rallied to win eight of its final 10 regular-season games to make the playoffs at 10-6, win the deep-freeze wild-card playoff game at Minnesota then lost in the divisional round at Carolina.
That team had Wilson, though.
Sunday night’s Seahawks had Alex Collins nimbly Irish-dancing around and through Steelers for 101 yards on 20 carries while starting for the second consecutive game for Chris Carson. It was the Seahawks’ first 100-yard rushing game since Dec. 15, 2019, when Carson had one.
Collins had more than half his yards, 58, on eight carries on a nine-run, one-pass drive to begin the second half. Carroll had play caller Shane Waldron re-commit to the run, and it got Seattle back into the game it looked lost and dead in, down only 14-7 midway through the third quarter.
But Collins was injured on the sidelines in overtime, looking pained while stretching. He had hip and gluteus-muscles injuries. Third-string back DeeJay Dallas and third-down back Travis Homer were Seattle’s only options to run in overtime.
So Seattle threw — or tried to. And they lost.
“It was really impressive,” Pete Carroll said of his Wilson-less Seahawks going from road kill in the first half down 14-0 into overtime with the ball and chance to win.
“The hard part is, we lose. And I can’t help these guys with that. All the effort, all the plays, all the come-through and the heart and all that stuff? OK.
“But we didn’t win. That’s the game.
“But, God dang, I’m proud of these guys. Just, geez, I’m so proud to see that happen.”
Smith completed 23 of 32 passes for 209 yards and a touchdown pass. His passer rating was 99.6. Smith’s 1-yard flip to tight end Will Dissly in the third quarter got Seattle to within 17-14. It was Smith’s first touchdown pass in an NFL regular-season start since Dec. 3, 2017, for the Giants against Oakland.
Smith had started overtime with his best throw in four years, a glorious dart over the middle that stuck into the chest of Tyler Lockett to get the Seahawks to midfield, and then the Steelers 46 on the opening possession of overtime.
But then Watt sacked Smith to end that drive, forcing Seattle to punt.
The Seahawks defense had a key three and out after that. Jamal Adams with a hard tackle on second down preceded Carlos Dunlap jumping in Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisbeger’s face to force a check-down throw that rookie Tre Brown jumped all over and tackled.
Pittsburgh punted.
Smith fumbled.
And the Seahawks fell to four games out in the division.
Opportunity lost
The Seahawks’ had a golden chance to take the lead after a replay review in NFL headquarters in New York overruled an incomplete pass call on Roethlisberger, after he cocked his arm, cupped the ball to bring it back into his body and lost the ball. Kerry Hyder recovered for Seattle at the Steelers 35-yard line midway through the fourth quarter.
Collins romped for 16 yards on the first play after the awarded turnover. But left guard Jamarco Jones, playing because starter Damien Lewis injured his shoulder earlier, got caught tackling his assigned man blocking behind the play. That ruined the drive. On third and 10 at the Steelers 35, offensive coordinator Shane Waldron called a wide-receiver screen to Freddie Swain. It, and Swain, had no chance. Swain got swarmed by three Steelers 4 yards behind the line, a crushing loss that pushed Seattle out of range to attempt a go-ahead field goal into the tricky, open end of Heinz Field toward the winds off the confluence of three rivers right outside the stadium.
The Seahawks punted instead, wasting the fumble recovery and a chance for the lead.
“Some things didn’t go our way tonight,” Dissly said.
“That’s not a reflection on 7.”
First half mess
The first half was as bad as the Seahawks have played in years.
Smith was getting pressured, hit, sacked. Left tackle Duane Brown was yelling at teammate Kyle Fuller for a miscommunication on a snap count that caused Brown to be late off the ball and give up one of the Steelers’ five sacks of Smith.
And all Wilson could do was pull up the zipper on his team coat on the sideline, stare at the screen of a mobile tablet, study the Steelers’ defensive looks and trying to find a way — any way — to help the helpless Smith and a Seahawks offense finally forced to play without him.
The Seahawks had 10 yards on just six plays in the second quarter, when Pittsburgh went from 0-0 to up 14-0.
The half included the Seahawks using seven defensive backs with three linemen for the first time this season, with Ryan Neal, Ugo Amadi and Marquise Blair the extra DBs. Seattle was blitzing Jamal Adams way more and effectively getting third-down stops.
“Just trying to get our (play-making) guys on the field,” Carroll said of the new seven defensive backs.
“We did a couple of different things tonight. I don’t how they worked.”
They worked in getting Neal, a key play-maker who had another stop on third down, into the game. And in freeing Adams to get closer to the line of scrimmage and blitz more, where he has far more impact and effectiveness in games.
Using Jamal Adams
Yes, the found a new (for 2021) way to use Adams.
For a while Sunday night, anyway.
Their All-Pro, $70 million safety entered this game blitzing half as much as in 2020, just over 5% of the time. The Seahawks had chosen through five games to have Adams play deep off the line of scrimmage in coverage, to help free safety Quandre Diggs and a rotating array of struggling cornerbacks prevent huge pass plays over the top of the defense.
But Sunday night, Carroll and defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. had Adams on the line of scrimmage at the snap seven times and blitzing five times on Pittsburgh’s 14 offensive plays.
The result: the Steelers had three punts, zero points and 41 total yards on their first three possessions.
It was 0-0 into the second quarter.
Then Adams disappeared from the front of Seattle’s defense.
After the Seahawks’ second three-and-out offensive drive in three series to begin the game, one-time All-Pro punter Michael Dickson put his defense in a bind. The usually booming Dickson, who drilled a remarkable, 60-plus-yard, Aussie Rules double punt of his blocked punt the previous game against the Rams, shanked one only 24 yards early in the second quarter Sunday. That gave the Steelers the ball at midfield.
Adams was off the line of scrimmage and did not blitz on any of the Steelers’ first eight plays to the Seattle 5-yard line. Then on play eight, Adams blitzed off left edge. The Seahawks had 345-plus-pound Bryan Mone at the opposite end, and defensive end Benson Mayowa dropping into the left flat to defend Steelers running back Najee Harris.
Roethlisberger easily detected that mismatch, and threw quickly and easily to Harris. The rookie first-round pick breezed past end Mayowa for the 5-yard touchdown reception.
That’s coaching.
Adams stayed back off the line for all but one of the Steelers’ next 11 offensive plays. The Steelers went on a 14-play, 84-yard march to another touchdown. Adams did not blitz once on the drive, which ended with a 1-yard fly sweep handoff and touchdown run by tight end Eric Ebron on third and goal.
Seattle trailed 14-0.
Adams dropped an interception late in regulation that would have prevented the Steelers from kicking the 52-yard field goal that gave them a 20-17 lead, before Smith’s clutch drive at the end of the fourth quarter.
Carroll said the noise from that clank off Adams’ facemask was loud, enough for the coach to hear it from the sideline. He didn’t know if Adams didn’t see the ball arriving, or what.
Adams did not talk to the media after the game.
Tre Brown debuts
Rookie cornerback Tre Brown made his NFL debut in his return from a knee injury and injured reserve, entering on the second defensive series of the game.
The second of the team’s three draft choices this spring made an immediate impact. Brown made two tackles on his first five plays. Then he stopped a go-route on third down, when Roethlisberger chose to target the rookie. That was all on his first series in the pros.
And then — poof! — Brown was gone.
Left cornerback Sidney Jones, who started the last three games, returned after one series out and played into the third quarter.
Then teammate Marquise Blair slammed Steelers receiver Ray-Ray McCloud into Jones at the end of a catch and run by McCloud. Jones stayed down and then left the game with a chest injury midway through the third quarter.
Brown re-entered. He forced a receiver to the sideline into an incomplete pass. On the next play, Brown charged a wide-receiver screen by the Steelers and forced Chase Claypool to block him in the back. That 3-yard loss, on a tackle by Blair, dead-ended Pittsburgh’s red-zone drive. The Steelers settled for a field goal and a 17-7 lead.
In overtime, Pittsburgh had a third and 4. Roethlisberger threw a wide-receiver screen pass to McCloud. Brown charged that screen, too, and dumped McCloud with a shoulder tackle into the Steeler’s chest that dropped him instantly. Pittsburgh punted, before Smith fumbled.
All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner said he was particularly impressed with that play, and all night, from Brown.
“It’s going to be fun to watch him play,” Wagner said.
It should be for next Monday night’s Seahawks-Saints game in Seattle, and beyond.
Brown’s opposite cornerback D.J. Reed made two pass breakups on third downs, the plays Seattle was lacking from its cornerbacks the first five games. Reed’s second break up gave the Seahawks the ball back with momentum, down 17-14 late in the third quarter.
Taylor seriously injured
Edge rusher Darrell Taylor stayed down still and injured on the field for multiple minutes with 3:10 left in the game. The game was delayed while a stretcher then a motorized cart came out to take Taylor from the field. His head and body were immobilized, strapped to the stretcher.
Wilson was the lead player as every Seahawk came on the field to gather with concern around Taylor.
The news after the game was a relief. Carroll said Taylor, the team’s 2020 second-round pick, was moving and that CT scans were “clear.”
Taylor flew back to Seattle with the Seahawks after the game.
Other injuries
Starting left guard Damien Lewis left in the third quarter with what Carroll said was a sprained AC joint in his shoulder. Lewis was beaten on a few plays and a sack inside before he left the game.
Jones replaced him, and had the key holding penalty when Seattle would have been in the red zone for the lead.
Wide receiver and punt returner Freddie Swain left in the fourth quarter to the locker room injured. That had Tyler Lockett return his first punt this season.
Swain returned and played in overtime.
This story was originally published October 17, 2021 at 9:18 PM.
