Geno Smith, Seahawks squander so many chances, waste defense in 17-13 loss at Bengals
Geno Smith was as definitive after this game as he was hesitant in waiting on the crucial fourth downs during it.
“I just should have been better,” the Seahawks quarterback said, taking full ownership for this 17-13 loss at the Cincinnati Bengals that was eminently winnable Sunday.
“I felt like the guys deserved to win today,” Smith said, befitting the team captain he is. “Obviously, I didn’t do my best job today to get that done. Those are things that I put on myself, I lay right at my feet and put on my shoulders.
“And I look forward to the next opportunity..
Smith had the ball, and this game, in his hands for fourth downs at the Bengals 6- and 9-yard lines in the final 2 minutes and 8 seconds with his team down by four points.
He is still waiting to throw on fourth down.
Two times Seattle’s Pro Bowl quarterback from a year ago waited to throw on fourth down near the goal line. Both times he got hit.
Both times the Seahawks never got a chance to score the winning points.
“Yeah, I’d love to get the ball out there,” coach Pete Carroll said. “It’s killing him, so he knows.”
Aside from that, Carroll was buoyed by what he saw from his team.
“We were so close to winning that football game,” he said. “Give them credit, they hung in there and got it, but I loved the way we played today. I know we had our penalties and there’s stuff to get better at, but that’s a competitive group. They fought their butt off today, both sides of the football. It’s going to help us down the road.
“We’re going to keep playing hard, keep playing tough, and make it hard on everybody we play.”
Smith also threw two interceptions. He was sacked four times, multiple times after holding onto the ball longer than most NFL quarterbacks can afford to.
Seattle’s defense was heroic in stopping Joe Burrow and the Bengals offense six consecutive times to keep Seattle in the game into the final seconds. The only points Seattle allowed after Cincinnati’s first two possessions, over the game’s final 42 minutes, was a field goal without allowing a yard after Smith’s second interception of the second half.
But Seattle end Dre’mont Jones said after he had a sack plus a key stop on a Bengals third-and-1 run by Joe Mixon to give Smith and the offense yet another chance: “The defense wasn’t perfect. There were probably many opportunities for them to score less than 17 (on us). We flopped on that. ...
“We definitely feel like it was our game...we just didn’t win. That ain’t on one side of the ball. That’s on everybody.”
Yet Smith took the blame.
He said, rightly, that a few fewer mistakes and a play or two more by him and the Seahawks (3-2) would be heading into next weekend’s home game against Arizona on a four-game winning streak.
Smith completed 27 of 41 passes for 323 yards with two interceptions, twice his total entering Sunday. It was the second game with two interceptions in his two seasons replacing traded Russell Wilson as Seattle’s franchise QB in 2022. He threw two in the team’s home loss to the Carolina Panthers last December.
Seattle’s only solace as they flew out home into Sunday night: NFC West-leading San Francisco (5-1) lost for the first time this season, at Cleveland. When the 49ers’ final field-goal try went wide, Seahawks staffers watching on television in the back of the visiting locker room at Paycor Stadium let out a cheer.
So Seattle remains one game back in the loss column for the division lead.
Breaking down the failed 4th downs
Here’s what Smith saw and waited for on Seattle’s final, fatal fourth-down plays Sunday:
With 41 seconds remaining and fourth down from the Cincinnati 9-yard line, Smith had DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett and Jaxon Smith-Njigba — his three top wide receivers — aligned to his right. Metcalf went in short motion toward Lockett and Smith-Njigba.
Smith never looked that way. He looked left, at tight end Colby Parkinson.
Smith said he saw Parkinson was his lone downfield receiver in single coverage, one on one with Cincinnati’s DJ Turner. The number-three tight end was running an out route to the goal line left. Smith sensed the Bengals were double-teaming both Metcalf and Lockett to his right.
“Once the defense, kind of, they doubled DK and they probably doubled Tyler on that play,” Smith said. “So Colby is one on one.”
Bengals defensive tackle B.J. Hill beat Seahawks rookie guard Anthony Bradford with a rip move through the chest of the fill-in starter. Bradford was playing only because starting guard Damien Lewis was out with a sprained ankle. Hill crashed in on Smith before the QB could — or did — release a pass to Parkinson. The result was a desperate spill of the ball that wasn’t really a pass that fell incomplete.
It was Parkinson and Bradford, not Metcalf, Lockett or Smith-Njigba, who were the key Seahawks with Smith on the game-deciding play.
It was the fourth time the Seahawks got inside the Bengals 9-yard line in the second half, after stop after saving stop by Seattle’s defense.
“Phenomenal,” safety Jamal Adams said, after his four tackles, a tackle for loss and a pass defensed in his first full Seahawks game in 13 months following injuries.
The Seahawks offense scored a total of three points on those four drives to the goal line.
That how the Seahawks lost a quite winnable game.
“That was on us,” Walker (62 yards on 19 carries with Seattle’s only touchdown) said. “We have to execute, and we have to fix that.”
To set up the final drama, Smith found Lockett inexplicably all alone in the middle of the field for a 36-yard pass play inside the final minute.
Then, from the Bengals 11, Smith threw incomplete. Walker ran for 2 yards to the 9. And Smith hurriedly threw way incomplete.
On fourth down, Smith waited but never looked at Metcalf, Lockett or Smith-Njigba.
On Seattle’s next-to-last possession, another fourth down inside the 10, Smith looked and waited. And he waited. He saw Lockett covered in the slot. He saw Metcalf covered outside of him to the left sideline.
Then he saw Cincinnati defensive end Sam Hubbard sacking him out of that goal-to-go chance.
Smith got sacked four times, twice on the penultimate drive.
“I know that I can be a lot better,” Smith said. “I need to look myself in the mirror and figure those things out. And, so, I will.”
Offense fails after defense rises
The game began with the Seahawks getting run over on defense.
Burrow completed 17 of his first 19 passes. Seattle blitzing Adams, rookie Devon Witherspoon and defensive backs wasn’t working. Burrow was taking maybe one step and throwing the ball ultra quickly.
Cincinnati scored touchdowns easily on each of its first two possessions.
Burrow and the Bengals opening the game seemingly fearing Seattle’s pass rush that had a team-record-tying 11 sacks in its last game, at the New York Giants. Cincinnati threw 11 times on its 13-play drive to a tying touchdown early. Burrow completed nine of them, all quick and short. The 8-yard touchdown pass was a slant route by Tyler Boyd in front of slow-reacting Seahawks cornerback Riq Woolen.
Woolen was the nearest defender but not close enough again on Cincinnati’s second touchdown, for the lead. Burrow’s fake hand-off made Seattle’s defense almost stop. Andrei Iosivas kept running, into the middle back of the end zone and then, as Burrow had time and time with no Seahawks near him, to the left back of the end zone.
Then Carroll and defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt changed the scheme.
They blitzed Adams and defensive backs far less, putting them in tighter, short coverage of all the Bengals quick pass routes. Witherspoon broke up passes. And the Seahawks defense stopped the Bengals on four consecutive drives.
It included Tre Brown’s brilliant interception turning before Ja’Marr Chase on Burrow’s back-shoulder deep ball away from the three-receivers strength of the formation early in the third quarter.
“Three-by-one (receivers), backside, it’s either going to be fade or hitch,” Brown said. “So I knew I was by myself. I saw him look back early. I turned around, turned in to him, caught the ball.
“Yeah, it’s pretty tricky to play a back-side shoulder.”
Brown started at left corner and Witherspoon in nickel for the second consecutive game.
One week after Chase torched Arizona for 15 catches, 193 yards and three touchdowns, the Pro Bowl wide receiver had six catches for 80 yards.
After the defensive backs blitzed early, they covered. They tackled Bengals receivers after many more quick throws from Burrow (24 for 35, 185 yarrds, two touchdown, a Tre Brown interception and three sacks). And they kept getting stops.
When Jones stuffed Mixon for no gain up the middle on third and 1 to begin the fourth quarter, Seattle’s defense had its fifth consecutive stop. Cincinnati punted yet again.
But the Seahawks’ offense failed to capitalize. Yet again.
Metcalf returned from a hip injury and ran a route from right to left. He stopped that pattern as Smith threw to the middle, to Metcalf’s left as if the receiver was going to keep running inside. The only man near the pass became Cincinnati’s Cam Taylor-Britt, for Smith’s second interception of the half and third this season.
Metcalf blamed himself for the miscommunication.
Smith blamed himself.
“It’s on me,” he said.
“Just didn’t do the right thing on that play. Those are things that are not characteristic with how I’ve been playing.”
Seattle’s defense held again. Three incomplete passes including another pass breakup by Witherspoon on Chase resulted in a 0-yard drive by the Bengals to a 51-yard field goal and 17-13 lead with 11:47 remaining.
Crisp, creative start
Walker’s 1-yard touchdown run ended the crispest, most creative opening drive of the season for Seattle. It was six runs, five passes and seven first downs, with many fun, new formations and looks.
Offensive coordinator Shane Waldron had Smith in shotgun with tight end Colby Parkinson next to running backs Walker, Zach Charbonnet in a full-house pistol formation. On the next snap, the Seahawks were in an unbalanced line with right Jake Curhan over on the left outside left tackle Charles Cross.
Later in the game, Waldron had tight ends Parkinson and Will Dissly with Walker and Smith in pistol full-house.
DK Metcalf’s latest penalty
Metcalf had his fourth penalty in five games, most of any NFL wide receiver. It was another personal foul.
Smith scrambled and completed a short dump-off pass to running back Zach Charbonnet. About 30 yards away, Metcalf was grappling with Bengals cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt. Officials saw Metcalf push Taylor-Britt in the chest to the ground after the play ended.
The 15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness turned a second and 6 into a second and 21. Smith and Lockett erased that penalty by connecting for 32 yards down the right sideline beating man coverage.
But that drive from the Cincinnati 43 went nowhere. An incomplete pass, a run by Walker for a loss of a yard and Smith getting sacked on third down forced Michael Dickson to punt from midfield. Seattle remained behind 14-7.
Metcalf had the most penalties by a wide receiver last season.
He said the same issue came up Sunday that came up for him against the New York Giants in Seattle’s previous game: the officials that far away from the ball don’t blow their whistles at the end of plays, so Metcalf thinks it is still continuing.
Whatever. It’s clear the league’s officials are very aware of his post-play actions, and are ready to call them penalties.
Seattle’s defense got its first stop of the game on the Bengals’ ensuing possession. That trade of possessions led to the Seahawks’ 2-minute drill to a field goal by Jason Myers, of 55 yards into a wind along the Ohio River. That cut Cincinnati’s lead to 14-10 into the second half.
Myers set a Seahawks record with a made field goal in 20 consecutive games.
Metcalf left the game late in the third quarter and went into the locker room with a hip injury. He wasn’t on the field for a third and goal from the 5 on which Smith threw incomplete to covered Lockett at the goal line. Myers kicked a short field goal, and Seattle still trailed 14-13 instead of getting a go-ahead touchdown.
This story was originally published October 15, 2023 at 1:06 PM.
