Pete Carroll seeks answers by Detroit for Seahawks’ 2nd half from hell against Los Angeles
Overreaction Monday. It’s an annual rite after Week 1 of every NFL season.
But this is not an overreaction. It’s a fact: The Seahawks just played their worst half of football anyone can recall.
Statistics often don’t tell the story of games. But this one does. Not counting a final, throwaway 9-yard running play in a 17-point game that was over long before that, Seattle’s total yards for the second half of its season opener Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams was 3.
Three yards.
The Seahawks with quarterback Geno Smith coming off a Pro Bowl season, his first career postseason start and a new $105 million contract this spring, with receiving stars DK Metcalf, Tyler Locket and Jaxon Smith-Njigba plus 1,050-yard rusher from a season ago Kenneth Walker, those guys ran just 14 plays that netted a grand total of 12 yards after halftime. That charitably includes Zach Charbonnet’s 9-yard run on the final play.
Officially, that’s 12 yards. That’s the fewest netted by Seattle in any half of any game since 1991. Only four of the current Seahawks were born then: special-teams ace Nick Bellore, linebacker Bobby Wagner, Smith and kicker Jason Myers.
Meanwhile Sunday, Seattle’s defense allowed the Rams 257 yards and 23 unanswered points in the second half.
Again: 257-12 resulting in 23-0.
That’s how a favored team with spoken expectations of going farther than last season — the only thing farther than the playoffs is the Super Bowl — lost 30-13 at home to a team coming off a 5-12 season that didn’t have its best player (injured 2022 Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp) and is starting over on its offensive line and almost all its defense.
Seattle’s margin of defeat made it the worst opening-game defeat of Pete Carroll’s 14 seasons leading the franchise. It was the Seahawks’ biggest blowout loss in an opener in 15 years, since Sept. 7, 2008, a 34-10 loss at Buffalo. Mike Holmgren’s final season as coach ended with a 4-12 record.
Carroll wasn’t the only one surprised and mostly at a loss for explanations Sunday afternoon.
It was so bad he and his coaching staff were in the locker room immediately after the game dissecting what went wrong. Or trying to.
“We were in there talking about it right now, trying to figure out how it got so erratic,” Seattle’s coach said about 30 minutes after this downer opener ended. “We weren’t on it and didn’t convert and get the ball moving. We didn’t run the ball.
“We didn’t do anything. Did nothing in the second half.
“We were trying and calling the stuff and we had things that we thought we could do. And we weren’t able to get it done.”
‘Third-down disaster’
All offseason, through training camp and the preseason, Seahawks coaches studied third downs from 2022. They broke down the team’s tendencies on third down, on offense and defense. They devoted extra practice times to install and work on plays specifically for third down.
In the first game: On offense, the Seahawks went 2 for 9 converting third downs.
In the second half they had a third and 26 and a fourth and 34(!). That was after a 15-yard taunting penalty on wide receiver DK Metcalf — during an injury timeout.
On defense, Seattle allowed the Rams to convert 8 of their first 10 third downs, and 11 for 17 in all.
The Seahawks were unwilling to blitz and take coverage risks. So they mostly rushed four. They could have gotten about the same pressure rushing zero.
They hit quarterback Matthew Stafford just twice in 39 dropbacks and no sacks. Stafford, 35 years old, completed 24 passes for 334 yards hitting long-developing crossing routes after crossing routes after crossing ...
“A third-down disaster for us,” Carroll said.
“We gave him opportunities. We didn’t get heat on him, and we needed to generate it. I look at a little bit of misjudgment on my part that we would be able to do things we’ve been doing and be able to play a good football game. Didn’t work out that way. We needed to pressure them more and get heat on them to cover them up and get off the darn field.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
So much work before game two Sunday for Seattle at the Detroit Lions (who just beat Patrick Mahomes and the mighty Chiefs in Kansas City to begin the NFL season).
Seattle’s 2nd-half drives
After they took a 13-7 lead into halftime Sunday, here were the Seahawks’ offensive possessions in the second half (if you have a queasy stomach, turn you head):
- Three plays, 5 yards (Walker run for 5, Smith incomplete to Colby Parkinson, Smith incomplete to Jaxon Smith-Njigba), punt
- Four plays, 10 yards (Smith pass to Walker for minus-1, defensive pass interference for Seattle’s only first down of the second half, Walker run for 0, Walker run for 6, Smith incomplete to DK Metcalf), punt
- Three plays, 2 yards (Smith pass to Smith-Njigba for 2 yards, Smith incomplete to Metcalf, Smith incomplete while hit), punt
- Three plays, minus-24 yards (Smith pass to Parkinson for 8, Metcalf taunting penality minus-15, Smith sacked minus-9, Smith sacked minus-8), punt
- One play, 9 yards (Charbonnet 9-yard run), end of the beat down
Bad doesn’t even begin to describe it.
“We just didn’t execute, when it comes down to it. You know, I’ll be the first to say that as always you can put that on me,” Smith said. “It’s my job to make sure we’re ready, always prepared, always competing. I just feel like we didn’t do that to the best of our ability in the second half.
Then, Smith thought of 16 more chances to prove. And improve.
“Just one game,” he said. “Obviously not the way we wanted to start, but the good part is that it’s not 17 (games).
“So we got to figure out how to get better from this, and we got 16 opportunities to go out there and right this wrong.”
That second half from hell against L.A. already has Carroll, offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt in particular searching through Carroll’s 72nd birthday on Friday for answers.
The Seahawks sure didn’t have those on Sunday.
“Yeah, I am surprised and disappointed that we weren’t cleaner; 13-7 (at halftime), no big deal. We were in pretty good shape,” Carroll said. “Moved the ball well in the first half, and really felt like we should be able to take the next step and take control of the football game. I thought we were in great shape to do that.
“It’s shocking to me, now, that we weren’t able to take advantage of that.
“We didn’t finish the way we needed to. It’s really obvious. Why that happened, we’ve got to go back to work and see what we can do to help the guys.
“I have a big role in this,” Carroll said. “I’ve got to make sure I am helping our guys on defense and make sure that the assessments we make on offense, we can count on better than we did.”
This story was originally published September 11, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
