New Year’s Grieve: Poor tackling, Geno Smith fumble = Seahawks’ damaging loss to Steelers
It was New Year’s Eve.
But nothing was really all that new for these Seahawks.
That’s the most damning part of this 30-23 home loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday afternoon. It severely damaged Seattle’s playoff chances that were in the Seahawks’ full control Sunday morning.
The loss highlighted the most most damning aspects of this Seattle season.
Coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider spent up to $124 million in new contracts on the defense. They used the fifth pick in this year’s NFL draft, a generational pick for Seattle, on defense. They brought back captain Bobby Wagner after his year away with the Rams, signed back nose tackle Jarran Reed, lavishly and uncharacteristically spent $51 million on a defensive end (Dre’Mont Jones) in free agency. They changed out all but one player on the defense’s line from last season.
All for this.
Any opponent that truly commits to running the ball on the Seahawks’ defense does so with seemingly limitless success. Just like last year.
Pittsburgh’s coaches saw what the 49ers did romping for 169 and 173 yards on the Seahawks’ run defense within the last five weeks. They saw how Baltimore rushed for 298 yards on Seattle last month, how Tennessee plowed for 162 on the ground just last week.
So the Steelers used two- and three-tight end sets and had third-string quarterback Mason Rudolph hand the ball to Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren 40 times. Add in the quarterback’s scrambles and the Steelers steamrolled the Seahawks’ defensive front for 202 yards. Pittsburgh’s offense that’s spent most of this season one of the NFL’s most inept romped to a season-high 468 yards.
“We know their style of offense, what they like to do. Our goal was to stop it, try to get them into a passing game, not their strength,” Seahawks Boye Mafe said.
“We have some things we need to fix.
“I think we’ve just got to understand what’s at hand, what the task is at hand, and we’ve got to put it together.”
It’s heading to NFL week 18, the final week. It may be too late for that for Seattle.
The Seahawks’ goal from 2022 to ‘23 was to close the gap on champion San Francisco in the NFC West. The Seahawks got boat-raced twice by the 49ers this season.
The Niners ran away with the division title again. On Sunday they clinched the conference’s top seed and first-round playoff bye.
The Seahawks? Just when wins in their final two game would have clinched a playoff berth, they absolutely face-planted. Even their once-renowned, intimidating home-field advantage at Lumen Field has vanished. Seattle is just 13-12 at home since the start of the 2021 season. The first deck of Lumen Field Sunday looked like a Pittsburgh pep rally, with gold Terrible Towels flying from goal line to goal line.
Quarterback Geno Smith fumbled Sunday in the final period instead of leading yet another fourth-quarter comeback. Seattle’s remade (but not changed) defense couldn’t tackle anyone, anywhere.
And the Seahawks’ possibly 80-plus-% chance to make the postseason entering the regular season’s final game next weekend is down to less than 50%.
“We lost our control,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “We had control, and we gave that up today.
“I’m surprised we didn’t play better.”
Smith completed 23 of 33 passes for 290 yards and a touchdown, in the first half to Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
But Smith’s fumble with 7 minutes left down 24-20 sent the Seahawks back to .500 at 8-8 and outside the NFC’s seven teams currently qualifying for the postseason.
“I felt like we were clean, for the most part. That one, they got us,” Smith said of Pittsburgh’s only sack in Smith’s 35 drop backs to pass.
“I don’t think one play, per se, can be the difference in the game. I think we had more opportunities to make it happen, and we just didn’t get it done.”
In the locker room after this loss, Smith got up before all his teammates. The captain told them: “Now is no time to feel sorry for yourself.”
Yet for these Seahawks, this was New Year’s Grieve.
“Yeah, that hurts. ...We wanted to control our own destiny. Obviously, we can’t do that anymore,” Smith said outside the locker room.
“But, you know, there’s no time for us to feel sorry for ourselves. We still have another game to play. We’ve still got a chance. We’ve still got an opportunity. ...
“I think the message is to keep going, to keep fighting.”
Seattle now needs to win next weekend at Arizona (4-12), which upset the Eagles in Philadelphia Sunday. And the Seahawks need massive help.
Seattle most likely needs to win and the Green Bay Packers (8-8) to lose next weekend at home to the Chicago Bears (7-9) to make the postseason.
Basically, it will take a far better performance and tons more luck than Sunday for Seattle to make the playoffs for the 10th time in 12 years.
The key turnover
Down 27-20 with 7 minutes left, the Seahawks had Smith ready for his NFL-record seventh go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter or overtime this season.
But on the first play after a Steelers field goal made it a seven-point game, Seattle left tackle Charles Cross got beaten by Steelers edge rusher Nick Herbig. The linebacker slammed into Smith’s back and throwing arm as he was looking to pass. The Steelers recovered Smith’s fumble at the Seahawks 16-yard line.
That became the Steelers’ field goal and game-clinching points. It made Seattle’s frantic drive into the red zone then short field goal with 2:01 left mostly inconsequential.
Smith had helped Seattle get close in the second half, and overcome its defense that allowed a Steelers offense that was inept much of this season to roll up a season-high 468 yards.
Forgetting or not caring about his still-strained groin that caused him to miss two games this month, Smith took off on a 25-yard scramble early in the fourth quarter. Fill-in right tackle Stone Forsythe, playing because Abe Lucas had another knee issue and didn’t play the second half, knocked Steelers’ 16-sack man T.J. Watt to the ground to clear the edge for Smith’s scramble.
It set up Jason Myers for his second field goal of the day, and Seattle trailed 24-20 with 13:30 left.
The Steelers answered with a brilliant throw by third-string quarterback Mason Rudolph with blitzing Seahawks Bobby Wagner and Devin Bush in his face. George Pickens caught Rudolph’s rainbow with his finger tips while falling down for a 37-yard gain. It was Pittsburgh’s biggest play of the game. Instead of punting from their side of midfield with a four-point lead, the Steelers drove to a field goal and used more of the fourth-quarter clock to a 27-20 lead with 7 minutes remaining.
Seahawks defense fails early
Harris ran through Bobby Wagner’s tackle try just past the line of scrimmage and bulled 9 yards for a Steelers touchdown. That gave Pittsburgh the lead again, 17-14 with 1:32 left in half.
Days after defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt said new tackling drills with a low sled had helped in recent games, the Seahawks had at least a dozen missed tackles, by unofficial count. Seattle’s defense wasn’t tackling anyone, anywhere while allowing the Steelers 257 total yards and 145 yards rushing in the first half. The rushing yards were 35 above Pittsburgh’s season average for an entire game.
The Seahawks tried slanting defensive linemen. They tried moving former Steelers first-round pick Bush, starting for injured Jordyn Brooks, laterally into run lanes. Before Sunday, practice-squad call-up Austin Faoliu played as many defensive snaps for Seattle this season as you had. Hurtt had the 305-pound Faoliu in the middle of the defensive line for much of the first half.
None of it helped.
Pittsburgh has had one of the league’s worst offenses most of the season, until a revival last week with Rudolph making his first start. The Steelers entered Sunday 28th in the NFL in points per game (17) and 16th in rushing offense (110).
Pittsburgh had 17 points and 145 yards rushing by halftime against Seattle.
“We didn’t stop them, consistently,” Carroll said. “It was just more than we could handle, on this day.”
Not just on this day.
“The tackling just seemed like it was really off,” Carroll said. “It seemed like we just didn’t make the tackles that we had to.
“The tackling wasn’t good enough. ...We had shots in the line of scrimmage. We had opportunities.”
Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s stellar debut
Smith-Njigba continued his standout rookie season.
Seattle’s first-round draft choice from Ohio State leaped in the back of the end zone between two Steelers to catch Smith’s 12-yard pass on third down for a touchdown in the second quarter. That briefly gave Seattle its first lead, 14-10.
That was 60 catches for Smith-Njigba on 87 targets this season. More than half of those catches were for touchdowns (four) and first downs (27).
Despite a hamstring issue this spring then broken hand in the preseason, the TD left Smith-Njigba eight receptions from Joey Galloway’s Seattle record for most catches by a rookie. Galloway had 68 catches in his 1995 debut season.
Offensive line injuries
Lucas, who was on injured reserve from September until a few weeks ago with a knee injury, left to the locker room late in the first half with another knee issue. He missed the entire second half.
That left Forsythe blocking Watt, Pittsburgh’s NFL defensive player of the year candidate, in the third and fourth quarters.
Smith and play caller Shane Waldron ran a lot of misdirection, play-action passes and quick throws to minimize Watt’s impact in pass rushing.
Then early in the third quarter center Evan Brown got knocked woozy at the end of a 1-yard run by Walker. He needed help to the Seahawks’ sideline. Rookie Olu Oluwatimi entered at center.
The status of Lucas and Brown for next weekend’s regular-season finale at Arizona was unknown.
Mariners’ Julio Rodriguez, Seahawks man
This story was originally published December 31, 2023 at 4:06 PM.
