Drew Lock outplays Jalen Hurts in the clutch, Seahawks rally past Eagles to save season
The man the Seahawks have counted on the last two seasons to do what absolutely had to be done seemed like he was no help. Geno Smith was on the sidelines in a coat and wearing a headset, injured.
But, oh, yes, Smith helped Drew Lock saved Seattle’s season.
Down by four points to Philadelphia in a 2-minute drill with the team’s playoff hopes on the line, the forgotten backup Lock — not Smith — was about to take the field. Smith stopped him on the Seahawks sideline.
“You’re the best player on the field!” Smith yelled at Lock. “You are going to drive us down the field!
“YOU are going to get this done!”
Then Lock, who found out he was starting minutes before kickoff, completed passes to DK Metcalf, Noah Fant and Metcalf in succession. Lock still had 63 yards to go for the winning score with 56 seconds and one time out left.
On third and 10, Lock lofted a long ball down the right sideline. Metcalf made a ridiculous catch of the ball along the sideline with Philadelphia’s James Bradberry and a safety sandwiching him. That gained 44 yards, to the Eagles 29-yard line.
The next third and 10 was even more ridiculous.
Using the same play in the same man coverage they got on their first drive of the game, Lock threw a perfect ball down the right sideline, past Bradberry and onto the fingertips of Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The Seahawks’ rookie first-round pick made the catch of his 22-year-old life, a lunging snare in the end zone with 28 seconds remaining.
“I’ll remember that play call for the rest of my life,” Lock said.
Julian Love then grabbed his second interception of a Jalen Hurts pass of the fourth quarter, with 6 seconds remaining.
The Lumen Field press box shook. Lock yelled a celebratory message (profanity?) into an ESPN television camera. Bobby Wagner pointed to the Seattle sky.
And the Seahawks, so uninspired for a month plus the first half Monday night, rallied past the NFC-champion Eagles 20-17.
It was their first win since early November.
“’Amazing’ won’t do it justice. “’Amazing’ won’t do it justice,” Lock said with emotion filling his voice on the field to ESPN immediately after the game. “It takes a special group to rally a guy who’s come in to his second game of the year.”
Lock completed 22 of 33 passes for 208 yards and the winning touchdown, in his second consecutive start for Smith — and his second start since the end of his 2021 season with Denver.
“It’s been a long time,” he said.
Lock was 5 for 10 for 92 yards on the final drive. He didn’t turn the ball over Monday night. Turnovers is the problem that’s made him a former Broncos starting quarterback Smith beat out for the job to replace Russell Wilson in Seattle before the 2022 season.
The man who until now was a throw-in to the March 2022 Wilson trade to the Broncos rescued the Seahawks. They are 7-7, and behind Minnesota and the Los Angeles Rams, who have the same record but own the final two playoff spots in the NFC with three games remaining because of tiebreakers.
Seattle needs the Rams to lose once in the final three games and the Seahawks need to win out, beginning Sunday at Tennessee (5-9), then at home versus Pittsburgh (7-7) and at Arizona (3-11) to end the regular season. Los Angeles owns the first tiebreaker over the Seahawks because it won both games over them this season.
Coach Pete Carroll’s message to his players in the bass-boomin’ locker room after this revival?
“I don’t know,” the 72-year-old coach said, his team cap he almost never wears on backwards. “I was kind of out of my mind in there.”
Of Lock, whom he’s called a “gunslinger,” Carroll said: “Oh, man, I’m so thrilled for the kid. Really. This is a memory that he is never going to lose.
“He is going to hold onto this Monday night forever. ...
“Just BEAUTIFUL football.”
In the end, the mothballed Lock outplayed Philadelphia’s Pro Bowl and Super Bowl quarterback Jalen Hurts in the clutch. Hurts threw two interceptions in the fourth quarter.
Hurts started after a weekend illness that had him questionable to play. Hurts flew separately from his Eagles (10-4) from Philadelphia to Seattle Sunday.
His second interception to Love, with 8 seconds left, came after Seattle’s safety abandoned his assigned, deep-post responsibility in the middle of the field. A New York Giants captain until he signed with Seattle this spring who’s played the Eagles twice each season for years, Love said he knew Hurts was throwing to top receiver A.J. Brown there. So he tracked Brown to the right sideline.
Love then made a toe-tapping pick inside the sideline boundary, right in front of delirious Seahawks teammates on the sideline.
“I was watching him that entire play,” Love said.
“I must be livin’ right, because I got my feet in.”
The Seahawks were all livin’ right in the fourth quarter Monday night.
The Seahawks trailed 17-10 with 10 minutes left and appeared to be going for the first down on a fourth and 2 from the Philadelphia 18. In formation for that play, the Seahawks offensive line appeared unsure. Center Evan Brown turned back to Lock in shotgun formation and gestured to him. That’s when the Seattle sideline, presumably Carroll, called time out.
During the time out, the Eagles’ coaching staff in the booth upstairs noticed television replays that showed Philadelphia rookie Jalen Carter had sacked Lock to the ground on third down instead of the ruling on the field that Lock got an incomplete pass off before he hit the ground. The replay review upheld the Eagles’ challenge. It was fourth and 7.
Jason Myers kicked a field goal instead of the Seahawks going for the tying touchdown. Seattle still trailed, 17-13, because of its time out that afforded the Eagles time for the challenge.
Carroll took responsibility for messing up that sequence.
“I got the rule wrong,” the coach said, about losing the time out while Philadelphia successfully challenged the play.
On the ensuing possession, the Eagles were moving on the ensuing possession past midfield, cruising toward the score to likely put the game away. Then Hurts threw long into the end zone for receiver Quez Watkins, who was covered by Love. Love heard safety mate Quandre Diggs yelling at him that the ball was coming his way. Love leaped and intercepted the pass, reviving the Seahawks and Lumen Field with 8 minutes left.
The response by Seattle’s offense was completely on brand for this uneven season: a three and out, its fourth of the night. On third and 5, Lock’s pass zinged off Tyler Lockett’s hands incomplete, with Lockett tightly covered on a short slant route.
The Eagles took the Michael Dickson punt, converted another of its famed “Tush Push” plays and drove to a third and 7 at midfield with 2:20 left. Hurts scrambled around edge rusher Boye Mafe. But tackle Leonard Williams hustled from the middle of the field to cut off Hurts’ scramble around right end. The quarterback threw the ball away. Philadelphia had to punt.
Williams said he knew from also playing Hurts and the Eagles in the NFC East as a New York Giant, until his trade to Seattle in October, that the quarterback was going to do on that key play. Williams cut him off.
“Exactly...I’ve played against Jalen Hurts for a while,” Williams said.
“In that situation, I knew he wants the ball in his hands, he was going to hold the ball (and extend the play). It played out perfectly.”
Lock and the Seahawks took over at their own 9-yard line with 1:52 and one time out left.
The Seahawks got back into this game by...finally running the ball consistently, for almost the first time this season.
Kenneth Walker reversed his field, cut to the right sharply, then outran safety Sydney Brown to the other side. Once he turned the opposite corner, he followed Lock’s block of cornerback Eli Ricks at the goal line to complete his 23-yard touchdown run.
A largely anxious home crowd to that point roared its loudest yet. And suddenly the Seahawks were tied, 10-10.
The first player off the Seahawks’ sideline onto the field to the numbers to congratulate his teammates after that TD drive, and the last man to return to it: Smith.
Seahawks’ schemes
Carroll and defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt decided to mostly drop seven defenders into coverage and rush only four at Hurts. He appeared mostly comfortable Monday night. Almost never blitzing, the Seahawks had no sacks and not even a quarterback hit on Hurst’ 31 drops back to pass. The Seahawks never brought the added pressure they needed.
Hurts had time to survey the field and look at multiple receivers for consecutive completions that turned Philadelphia’s second and 13 from the Seattle 36 into a first and goal from the 9.
Two plays later, Hurts nudged behind All-Pro center Jason Kelce under leaping Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner for a 1-yard touchdown on another Eagles successful “Tush Push.” The Eagles led again, 17-10.
That’s largely why Hurts and Philadelphia converted eight of their first 13 third downs into first downs — and why the Eagles’ first three scoring drives were 15, 16 and 12 plays.
On first down after the Eagles re-took the lead 17-10 in the third quarter, Lock missed a touchdown to Tyler Lockett that would have re-tied the game. He overthrew the receiver while he was open past the Eagles defensive back trying to cover him, with no one behind Lockett. Lockett was muttering as he jogged back after the play.
Lock said that’s the one play he’ll regret from Monday night.
He more than made up for it.
Play-caller Shane Waldron surprisingly did not move Lock outside and make him a dual threat to run and pass, as he can be. He was mostly static in the pocket, predictable for the Eagles to pressure, particularly on third downs.
In the second half, Waldron sparked the offense by...running the ball consistently, for a chance. The team that entered NFL week 15 next to last, 31st in the league, in rushing attempts relied on Walker and Zach Charbonnet running to move the ball into Eagles territory at the starts of the third and fourth quarters.
They rushed eight times for 64 yards in the third quarter, after nine rushes for just 26 yards in the first two quarters combined.
“That changed the game,” Carroll said.
Carroll said running like that was the game plan from the start, but that the Seahawks’ limited number of offensive plays in the first half kept them from executing it until the third quarter.
Look for more of that Sunday for Seattle at Tennessee.
Carroll said he expects Smith’s health to improve by then to start that game.
“He’s our starter,” Carroll said.
Geno Smith active, but only watching
Smith aggravated his groin injury late in the week of practices for this game. But he impressed the Seahawks with how well he looked in the early warmups in sweat clothes.
“Geno came out tonight and really surprised in his pregame workout,” general manager John Schneider said on the Seahawks radio network’s pregame show.
That’s when the team decided to make Smith active for the game.
Yet Smith wasn’t on the field while Lock ran the offense in warmups. And when the game began it was Lock who took the field with the starting offense. Smith watched him while standing on the sidelines in team coat, knit cap and wearing a headset.
Seahawks’ dud of a start
The Seahawks played an uninspired — and uninspiring — first half that belied the urgency of their situation in the playoff chase.
Philadelphia steamrolled Seattle’s defense on scoring drives of 15 plays on four third-down conversions, to begin the game, and 16 plays into the second quarter. Meanwhile, Lock and the Seahawks’ offense had only one third-down conversion and two punts. Thirty-three of the game’s first 42 offensive plays were by the Eagles.
At that point the Eagles led 10-0 in points and 148-35 in yards, midway through the second quarter.
That’s when the Seahawks got their biggest offensive play: A 20-yard penalty on the Eagles for pass interference against DK Metcalf going for Lock’s first-down throw. That was nearly double Seattle’s total yards at that point.
The penalty sparked the Seahawks offense into its first sustained drive. Lock got time from his offensive line to wait for an in route by Smith-Njigba. Lock’s pass found the rookie first-round draft choice for a 13-yard conversion on third and 10, to the Eagles 14-yard line.
But the drive stalled there. Lock to Smith-Njigba against a safety blitz was too quick and too short. On fourth and 3 from the 7, Carroll appeared to be going for the first down and touchdown. But while in offensive formation with Metcalf in motion across it, Lock only tried to draw the Eagles offsides with a hard and long snap count. When Philadelphia didn’t jump for a gift first down, Carroll called time out. He chose to kick the short field goal.
That’s why the Seahawks trailed 10-3 into the third quarter.
Riq Woolen benched, then enters
Rookie defensive back Devon Witherspoon (hip pointer) and safety Jamal Adams (knee) were inactive for Seattle.
Adams missing with knee pain he’s been playing through since his season debut Oct. 2 from 13 months of recovery from a torn quadriceps tendon meant the Seahawks were started in nickel defense with three cornerbacks. That’s instead of the three safeties they played with Adams, Julian Love and Quandre Diggs most of the previous game at San Francisco, after Witherspoon got hurt in the first half.
Tre Brown started for Witherspoon at nickel. Veteran backup Artie Burns started at left cornerback. Michael Jackson started at right cornerback for benched Riq Woolen. Woolen was watching the first defensive series wearing a long, blue team cape over his full uniform.
“The guys had a competition this week, and that’s how it came out,” Carroll said.
By the end of the first quarter, Woolen seemed to have paid his penance. He was back at right cornerback. But his stay was brief. Jackson played the majority of the half, and was the right cornerback to begin the second half.
Carroll uncharacteristically called out Woolen and Adams for not executing plays as coached that became huge plays for the 49ers last week.
Brown returned after missing last week’s game with a heel injury.
This story was originally published December 18, 2023 at 8:23 PM.
