Deflated expectations: Seahawks booed off home field after 30-13 opening loss to Rams
It’d been a minute since a Seahawks quarterback told it like it was after such a bad defeat.
“I’m surprised. Yes, I am. I didn’t expect to come out there and lose,” Geno Smith said following Seattle’s team full of huge expectations lost so badly, 30-13, to the underdog Los Angeles Rams at Lumen Field Sunday in a downer of an opener.
“Hats off to the Rams. They wanted it more.”
Wait, what?
A playoff team last season from coach Pete Carroll, Smith on down that spent all summer talking about being better and going farther this season — and the only step in the NFL farther than the playoffs is the Super Bowl — didn’t want play hard enough and didn’t want to win enough in game one?
How concerning is that alone?
“That’s something that we’ve got to get better at,” Smith said. “We’ve got to understand that we’ve got to go earn it. Every, single play. Every, single down. Every, single game.
“It’s the NFL. I know we’ve got a lot of young guys for their first time were playing regular-season football and might not know how hard you got to play to go out there and get wins. But they don’t come easy.
“I think this is going to be a great learning experience for us.”
Perhaps that’s better than any realization these highly anticipated Seahawks simply aren’t good enough to beat the Rams.
The Seahawks’ began this season with expectations that weren’t just big. They were soaring.
“Their hunger for trying to do something special with this season has been obvious,” coach Pete Carroll had said two days before this opener. “We’re as well-equipped right now as we’ve been for a long time...
”Very high hopes and expectations. And we aren’t backing off. We’re going to win every game and we’re going to try to do it by winning this first one.
“We’ll see what happens next.”
In that context, what happened next is horrifying.
Team Expectations became Team Trampled.
The defense couldn’t get off the field. The offense couldn’t stay on it. The Rams, coming off a five-win season and missing their best player, injured Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp, dominated the Seahawks in every aspect.
Los Angeles 30, Seattle 13 only begins to describe how disappointing this day was for the Seahawks.
“It sucks. It really does,” Smith said.
Given the expectations they themselves have been trumpeting, it’s one of the most deflating openers to a season in franchise history.
And that’s not the typical overreaction to a first-week game.
Asked if this needs to be a wake-up call for his Seahawks, the 32-year-old Smith said: “I hope so.
“It better be.
“We don’t lose at home. We can’t do that in here, let alone in this fashion. So for a lot of guys around here, including myself, we’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror, point the finger at ourselves and figure out how to get better.”
The Rams out-gained the Seahawks 426 yards to 180. For the second half, the yardage was Rams 257, Seahawks 12. And nine of Seattle’s dozen yards after halftime came on the final play, a white-flag run by Zach Charbonnet.
LA dominated the end like Carroll demands his Seahawks do: by physically punishing the defense with a run game to preserve the lead and leave a mark on the foe’s psyche.
The relatively few fans who stayed for the end of this booed the Seahawks off the field.
And to think: The Seahawks next play at the Detroit Lions next weekend — the same Lions who just beat the mighty Patrick Mahomes and his Chiefs in Kansas City on NFL opening night Thursday.
DK Metcalf and Seahawks captain Quandre Diggs got unsportsmanlike and unnecessary roughness fouls late. Metcalf’s was for blocking Rams defensive back (and former Seahawk) Akhello Witherspoon through the end of a play, then woofin’ with players and coaches on the Rams’ sideline about it.
“I thought we lost our minds a little bit,” Carroll said. “We’ll talk about that.
“That’s shows you the frustration, based on the expectation, that we were going to better and not in that situation.”
Fans booed. Then they left early. Many booed as they left early.
The Seahawks’ locker room after this game sounded like they were already in their 7-10 season of 2021, one of only two times in the last 11 years this team didn’t make the playoffs.
It was quiet. And surprised.
“Yeah, I was surprised,” linebacker Jordyn Brooks following his return eight months after reconstructive knee surgery. “We expect to come and dominate. There’s nothing else that needs to be said: We expect to dominate, and we didn’t.
“We’ve got to go back to the drawing board and be better.”
Third downs deadly
Why it happened for the Seahawks was as obvious as what happened.
The Seahawks offense’s answer to the Rams taking a 27-13 lead with 5 minutes left: Sacks of Smith on consecutive plays to end a drive — with a fourth and 30.
Smith, last year’s Pro Bowl sensation who set four team records for passing in a season, was futile Sunday against the Rams. He had just 112 yards passing on 26 throws. His touchdown pass to Metcalf in the first half for a 10-7 Seattle led felt, by game’s end, like it happened last year.
Meanwhile Matthew Stafford continually beat Seattle’s defense that had next-to-no pass rush with crossing route after crossing route to open receivers. Seahawks defensive backs chased behind most of Stafford’s 24 completions for 334 yards.
The Seahawks spent their spring and summer stressing the game’s two biggest situations: third downs and red zone. They dropped normal play installation and instead used practice periods usually devoted to those running third-down plays, for the offense and the defense.
Sunday, it appeared the Seahawks never worked on them.
Seattle’s defense rarely blitzes and mostly rushed four defenders at Stafford. They would have had produced about the same pressure had they rushed no one and covered with 11 men, instead.
Stafford dropped back to pass 39 times, counting one scramble into wide open field up the middle. He got hit just twice, and wasn’t sacked.
That’s how the Seahawks allowed Los Angeles to convert 10 of its first 14 third downs. Seattle’s offense at that point on third downs: 2 for 8.
That’s why the Rams had touchdown drives of 16, 10 and 14 plays — and 24 points with 408 yards
It’s why the Seahawks had just one touchdown and 180 total yards on offense.
“Third downs we were really bad,” linebacker and captain Bobby Wagner said.
Early in the fourth quarter, the Rams had already converted eight of their first 10 chances on third down against Seattle’s remade defense. Los Angeles had a third and 11 at the Seahawks 13-yard line. Cornerback Riq Woolen stepped in front of receiver Puka Nacua running across the back of the end zone for a pass breakup.
But instead of getting off the field and forcing a field goal by the Rams that would have kept it a one-score game, the Seahawks had Tre Brown, the opposite cornerback, penalized for having his hands hitting the facemask of his Rams receiver on the opposite side of the field away from Woolen’s play.
The Rams converted that into a touchdown on fourth down from the 1 yard line. Cam Akers took a pitch and easily ran around outside linebacker Darrell Taylor and inside Woolen around the left end. Los Angeles led 24-13 with 9 1/2 minutes to play.
Seahawks’ first defensive drive of the season went 16 plays, over which the Rams scored a go-ahead touchdown. That negated Jason Myers’ field goal that ended Seattle’s season-opening offensive possession.
Rams were 5 for 5 on third downs that opening drive. They had a first and goal from the 17 — and still scored the touchdown.
What needs to be better for Seattle on third downs than Sunday was for the defense?
“Get to the quarterback, straight up,” defensive tackle Jarran Reed, who had one of the two hits on Stafford. “The DBs are going to do a good enough job to make them put the ball out (later). We’ve got to get home. That’s on us up front.
“We’re not going to cry. We’re not going to hang our heads down. We are going to be back. We are going to keep working...
“We’ve got the guys in this room to do it. We’ve just got to execute.”
Bobby Wagner’s grand entrance
One of the only highlights for the Seahawks Sunday:
The packed, warm crowd at Lumen Field got loudest and warmest for Wagner’s (re-)introduction onto Lumen Field just before kickoff.
It was his official return to Seattle, after his season away playing for his hometown Rams. That was after the Seahawks released Wagner in the spring of 2022 to save more than $16 million against last year’s salary cap.
They were the loudest roars for a pregame player introduction in memory at this stadium.
“It was cool,” Wagner said. “It’s always been love from me, from the moment I left and coming back, I always had a piece of my heart (with Seattle).
“It was something that was really special.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t get them the win.”
And the Seahawks’ first defensive play of the season? A tackle by Bobby Wagner on a Rams run, for no gain.
Wagner, 33, played every one of 81 defensive snaps. He had a whopping 19 tackles for the game, one fewer than his career high from Sept. 19, 2021, in a Seahawks game against Tennessee. Many of his stops Sunday in the runaway second half were down the field to end Rams gains.
Jordyn Brooks returns
Linebacker Jordyn Brooks didn’t look like he’d torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee and had reconstructive surgery eight months ago.
He started next to Wagner at inside linebacker. It’s a remarkable return, one week earlier than how quickly Adrian Peterson got back from his ACL repair in 2012 to the NFL’s MVP award.
Brooks had three tackles, one at the line for no gain, on Seattle’s first defensive series in his first game since he got hurt Jan. 1. In the second quarter, Brooks ran 25 yards down the field tightly covering Rams wide receiver Tutu Atwell on an incomplete pass negated by a Rams penalty.
“I felt good,” Brooks said. “Won’t really know until (Monday) morning, but over the course of the game I felt good.”
Seahawks coaches had said this past week said they’d be monitoring Brooks’ snaps in his return from ACL. Not that Brooks is OK with that. Pretty much dragged him off this series. He’s on the edge of sideline hands on hip
Tyler Lockett injured
Wide receiver Tyler Lockett left the game in the second half after two catches on four targets for 10 yards.
He was evaluated for a concussion after blocking Rams defensive back Russ Yeast from the side into his shoulder at the end of a run by Kenneth Walker (12 carries, 64 yards) for no gain.
Carroll said after the game Lockett should be fine.
Starting tackles injured
Starting right tackle Abe Lucas left the game in the third quarter with a knee injury. Jake Curhan replaced him for Seattle’s three-and-out offensive series, the team’s answer to the Rams taking their 14-13 lead.
“Abe’s knee just acted up on him again,” Carroll said. “He doesn’t have a knee injury. Just the same knee we rested him on during (training) camp just got really sore during the game and couldn’t fire the way he needed to, so we had to get him out of there.”
At the end of that drive Curhan played, starting left tackle Charles Cross limped into the blue medical observation tent behind the Seahawks’ bench.
Cross left the field riding on the back of a motorized cart. His injury appeared to be to his right foot. The Seahawks said he was questionable to return.
“Charles has like a sprained big toe, and the X-rays from what I heard didn’t look bad. We’ll see,” Carroll said.
Stone Forsythe replaced Cross.
Carroll said losing both starting tackles is “about as hard as it gets” for an offensive line. Smith got sacked twice and hit seven times.
This story was originally published September 10, 2023 at 4:32 PM.
