Russell Wilson return awful, Seahawks shut out for 1st time in 10 years, 17-0 at Green Bay
For 10 years, without missing a game, Russell Wilson had thrown passes better, more daringly and more successfully than any quarterback that’s ever been a Seahawk.
Then: a finger injury and surgery on his throwing hand.
For one, return game back — back in half the time his doctors told him he might be out — Wilson threw some of the worst passes of his career.
End-zone interception with three Green Bay defenders nearby. End-zone interception into two more Packers. Underthrown wobbler down the sideline, with Freddie Swain 3 yards past his man.
After the first shutout loss of Wilson’s wondrous, Super Bowl-winning time in Seattle, the Seahawks’ first blanking since 2011, 17-0 by the Packers at Lambeau Field Sunday night, it was fair to ask:
Did Wilson come back too soon?
No, he and his coach said, forcefully.
“My finger felt fine. ... I know myself really well. I know what I can and can’t do,” Wilson said on his way out of Lambeau Field, where he’s yet to win.
“I felt I could do everything tonight. I had some runs. The first third down, for example. If I was second-guessing my hand, I wouldn’t go for that, you know, getting hit like that. So I felt confident in my hand. I felt confident in all the hard work.
“I didn’t play timid, at all ...
“It was just a bad game. Those two plays, I mean, that really were the defining moments in the game.”
Those plays were two of the worst throws Wilson’s made in 10 seasons.
This was Wilson versus Aaron Rodgers in the Double-Return Showdown.
But it was ugly. Sometimes bone-headedly so.
How bone-headed? How about the Seahawks gifting Green Bay a first down instead of forcing a third down, because defensive end Carlos Dunlap threw a Packers player’s shoe after a play in the fourth quarter?
That had Dunlap in front of his teammates in the Seahawks locker room apologizing and taking full responsibility for what he called “a foolish mistake.”
Foolish mistakes? How about Wilson throwing two interceptions late and into a total of five Packers defenders in the end zone in the second half? Seattle’s $140 million quarterback looked like he hadn’t played in a month.
This was even more a house of horrors than Lambeau usually is for Seattle. The Seahawks lost in Green Bay for the 10th consecutive time, dating to their last win in Wisconsin, in 1999.
The Seahawks also lost their composure.
DK Metcalf grabbed the face mask of Packers safety Henry Black with 1:19 remaining in garbage time. Metcalf got another of his 15-yard penalties after a play this season, and got ejected. Captain Bobby Wagner met his 23-year-old teammate on the edge of the field upon his ejection.
Wilson was 20 for 40 passing Sunday. He had only five connections with top wide receivers Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, combined. Wilson had 160 yards throwing with the two interceptions. He produced his fewest points in a game of his 10-year career. His passer rating was a meager 39.7 — almost 70 points below his career average.
The Seahawks (3-6) got shut out for the first time since Sept. 18, 2011, a 24-0 loss at Pittsburgh. That was coach Pete Carroll’s second season overhauling the entire franchise, and one season before he drafted Wilson to avoid all this.
In Wilson’s first game in five weeks and three days since surgery on his throwing hand, the usually exquisite deep-ball thrower had passes fluttering and underthrown. In the third quarter he ruined the Seahawks’ chance to at least tie Sunday’s stop-and-start game at Lambeau Field at 3 by throwing a very late, very uncharacteristically poor throw into three defenders in the end zone. Kevin King intercepted it, in front of Metcalf.
Wilson did the same thing in the fourth quarter, throwing into double coverage trying to hit Tyler Lockett but getting intercepted again.
“Think about it. He chucked one of them,” Carroll said. “He’s trying to take a shot, that’s one, because we’re hoping we can get PI (pass-interference penalty) or something could happen.
“Forget that one.”
Can’t. It cost them more points in a game the Seahawks scored none. And it was a jump-ball you make at the end, as a final hope, not when it’s 10-0 with 8 minutes left.
Wilson can’t forget it, either.
“Unfortunately, it comes on my shoulders because I didn’t fulfill those two big plays in those two moments. I don’t want to shy away from it,” Wilson said. “When you play this position at the highest, highest level there’s going to be some stuff you have to weigh on your shoulders.”
On the first interception, to King, Carroll said he’s seen Wilson make that throw before, and hit some of them.
“Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That’s happened before,” Carroll said. “He thought his guy’s back was turned, he thought he could stick it in there like he did to Tyler a while back.
“And their guy turned around and the ball hit him right in the chest.”
Wilson said he saw King had his back turned to him, and thought he could fit the ball into Metcalf. But King turned his head around well in time to make the easy interception.
It’s a throw a 10-year — or one-year — veteran can’t make while in range for an easy field goal down 3-0 late in any game.
“He made a mistake,” Carroll said. “And he knows it.”
Wilson said in the past he’s made those throws for touchdowns, when the defender stayed unaware.
The Seahawks thought King lost the ball when Metcalf turned back and hit him in the end zone after the Packers and former University of Washington cornerback’s catch. But officials told Carroll they ruled King had first hit the ground. NFL headquarters in New York ruled the same way, following a replay review.
“I can eliminate that mistake and allow us to kick the field goal and make it 3-3 and here we go,” Wilson said. “Now it’s 3-3, 0-0 game basically, and keep playing.
“Like I said, 100% accountability on myself that that happened. Nobody else’s fault.”
Rodgers gave back Wilson’s first interception on the ensuing drive. Rodgers threw later than Wilson did on his first end-zone interception, a lofted, fluttering gift into the end zone directly to Jamal Adams. Adams’ first interception in his two seasons for Seattle kept the Seahawks down only 3-0.
But Wilson and the offense never got going. After Dunlap’s shoe fling, Packers backup runner A.J. Dillon bulled through Wagner and carried Seattle’s All-Pro linebacker 3 yards across the goal line on third down.
The way Wilson and the offense were malfunctioning (he missed on 13 of his first 27 throws) those were the clinching points for the Packers (8-2) in Rodgers’ return from 10 days in quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19.
All 58 of Wilson’s snaps were in shotgun formation, to keep Wilson from having direct snaps under center smack into his repaired throwing hand.
“He was taking snaps under center in pregame and during the week,” Carroll said, “and we could’ve done more. But we just didn’t want to.”
The first long pass he threw, in the first quarter on which Lockett dramatically drew a pass-interference penalty, floated and fluttered uncharacteristically.
On third down during the first drive after halftime, Freddie Swain broke 3 yards past defensive back Darnell Savage deep down the left sideline. Wilson’s late throw was about two steps underthrown, allowing Savage back into the play. Instead of a touchdown for Seattle and the lead, the Packers’ safety broke up the pass and the Seahawks punted for the fifth time.
It often looked like it was Wilson’s first game in a month, and that he was playing in about half the expected time his doctor had told him he’d return.
The only time Wilson moved the Seahawks in the first half was the way he usually does: improvising during a no-huddle drill in the final 68 seconds of the half. Two completions to Gerald Everett and a 7-yard catch on the sideline by Metcalf had Seattle at the Green Bay 35-yard line, in range for Jason Myers to tie the game with a field goal. But Everett bulled through two Packers on an inside move rather than get out of bounds, forcing the Seahawks to use their final timeout of the half with 19 seconds left. Then officials called left guard Damien Lewis for holding while on the ground and appearing to get run over by a Packers defensive lineman. That penalty pushed Myers out of reasonable field-goal range. The half ended with Wilson’s desperate heave into the end zone to Metcalf getting knocked down by one of three Packers in coverage.
So instead of tied, Seattle still trailed 3-0.
The Seahawks chased those points the rest of the night. A field goal there, and it would have been a one-score game deep into the fourth quarter instead of Seattle being down two scores.
So where do Wilson and the Seahawks go from here, 3-6 and tied for next to last in the NFC — yet only a game and a half out of a playoff spot in the conference with only six teams owning winning records?
Wilson said “even though there’s a lot of frustration and disappointment, internally, with me with those two plays” he knows “I’m back.”
“I’m a fixer,” he said.
“What I do know is, I’ll be better. I’ll be better. I always believe in myself. My confidence never wavers. It’s not going to waver now.
“I will be back. My confidence never wavers. It’s not going to waver now.”
Defending Rodgers
The Seahawks’ 31st-ranked defense dropped off instead of pressuring one of this generation’s best quarterbacks against blitzes.
Seattle played mostly nickel schemes with fifth defensive back Ugo Amadi, and some dime with Ryan Neal, while rarely blitzing Rodgers. Most often the Seahawks decided to rush only four down linemen and drop seven into covering Green Bay’s receivers.
Rodgers mostly checked down his passes short against all the coverage. Most of those were on screen passes, with which opponents have hurt Seattle’s defense all season.
The Packers had 201 net yards, 160 on Rodgers’ passes, to just 86 for the Seahawks in the first half. But because of D.J. Reed’s third-down coverage in the end zone breaking up a pass and Neal breaking up a deep ball to wide receiver Allen Lazard in the middle of the field in the first quarter, the Seahawks allowed only 3 points into the fourth quarter.
That, after holding Jacksonville to seven points total in their previous game, and New Orleans to 13 in a three-point Seattle loss before that.
“We’re playing really good,” Carroll said. “I made a statement to those guys (Saturday) about that I’m excited about all of the areas we’ve been so well in. It’s just the truth.
“They went out there and played like crazy all night. And I’m really, really proud of the way they got after it.”
Neal continues to make plays to end drives and get the defense off the field on third downs, as the sixth defensive back. But he left the game in the second half after getting knocked in the head. He got evaluated for a possible concussion.
Duane Brown’s protection
Whitney Mercilus sacked Wilson on third down in the first half, bulling into left tackle Duane Brown and getting the 14th-year Pro Bowl veteran on his heels immediately after the snap.
It was the seventh sack allowed already this season by Brown. He often does not give up that many in a season.
In the third quarter, Mercilus was again through Brown for what should have been another sack. But Wilson ducked it and ran outside left to complete a pass for 7 yards to Lockett at the sideline instead.
Late in the third quarter, Brown stepped on a player during a play. The awkward step strained the 36-year-old tackle’s groin, Carroll said after the game. Brown did not return. Jamarco Jones played the first 17 minutes or so of the game at left tackle.
Fumble that wasn’t
The Seahawks and Darrell Taylor thought they had recovered a fumbled snap by Rodgers in the second quarter, at the Green Bay 48. Taylor jumped on the ball and appeared to secure it. By the time referee Brad Allen arrived to the pile of players, he ruled the Packers recovered the ball.
Carroll called time out then challenged Allen’s ruling. The replay review by NFL headquarters in New York was lightning quick; the league office doesn’t usually overturn fumble-recovery rulings a referee saw first-hand in a pile.
Not surprisingly, the call stood. The Seahawks didn’t get the turnover in Packers territory, and remained scoreless deep into the night.
“They said the tie goes to the offense,” Carroll said, suggesting officials ruled simultaneous possession of the ball on the ground.
Eskridge on the sideline
Dee Eskridge came off injured reserve to play for the first time since week one. But he stood on the sidelines and sat on the bench deep inside a blue team parka for most of Sunday.
It was his first game in uniform since he got concussed in Seattle’s opener Sept. 12.
He entered late in the third quarter. After Metcalf’s ejection, Eskridge was Wilson’s target on yet another late and deep, fluttering pass into the end zone by Wilson with 22 seconds left. That pass fell incomplete and was nearly intercepted, too.
The team’s top rookie draft choice and speedy wide receiver played just five of 59 offensive snaps, by unofficial count.
This story was originally published November 14, 2021 at 4:31 PM.
