That opener was not how Klint Kubiak’s new Seahawks offense is supposed to work
The first game without DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett may have made Seahawks fans — and perhaps the Seahawks themselves — wonder about DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett.
Traded Metcalf (four catches, 83 yards) had a victorious debut for the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday. Released Lockett (no catches, one target) lost in his first game with the Tennessee Titans.
Meanwhile out in Seattle, their replacements didn’t help returnee Jaxon Smith-Njigba and the Seahawks in their season-opening loss to San Francisco.
Nobody except Smith-Njigba did much on offense in Seattle’s opener.
The Seahawks lost game one well before new quarterback Sam Darnold lost a fumble in the red zone in the final half minute.
Cooper Kupp summarized how his offense, his team and its fans felt after 49ers 17, Seahawks 13.
“Yeah, that’s a killer. The ending of that game just makes you sick,” the 32-year-old Yakima native said about his Seattle debut that was one to forget Sunday.
“Killer way for it to end.”
Seattle’s rally from 55 game minutes of lethargy and just plain bad offense died at the 49ers 14-yard line with 36 seconds left. Darnold lost the ball when Niners’ five-time Pro Bowl edge rusher Nick Bosa pushed right tackle Abe Lucas into the quarterback’s arm. Darnold dropped the ball raising it into Lucas’ back on his way to throwing a pass that never came. Bosa recovered the fumble.
And Seattle lost to San Francisco for the seventh time in eight meetings.
How much of it was the Seahawks playing poorly? And how much of it was the 49ers defense again dominating Seattle’s offense?
The Seahawks better hope it’s the former. Because if it’s the latter, they aren’t anywhere closer to winning the NFC West than they were before Seattle hired Macdonald to replace Pete Carroll 19 months ago.
“We were right there,” Kupp said. “At the end of the day, we shouldn’t have been in that position. If we make half the plays that we expect to, and we’re not there.”
Indeed, Kupp, Darnold, the rededicated running game (22 carries, 67 yards total from Zach Charbonnet and Kenneth Walker), pretty much every Seahawk on offense not named Smith-Njigba had a poor start to the season against the 49ers.
“We had ‘em,” Smith-Njigba said.
Coming off a season in which he tied Tyler Lockett’s team record with 100 receptions in 2024, Smith-Njigba was brilliant again Sunday. Seattle’s first-round draft choice in 2023 from Ohio State kept finding open spots in the 49ers’ zone coverage. He had an improvisational understanding with his new QB on Darnold’s roll-outs. Smith-Njigba totaled nine catches on 12 targets for 124 yards. That was his second-most yards in a game in his 35-game career.
Yet even he failed when it mattered most.
Their defense turning away San Francisco was why the Seahawks were leading 10-7 on the first snap of the fourth quarter. Seattle had driven into San Francisco territory, seeking a two-score lead. Darnold threw a quick pass outside left to Smith-Njigba on a bubble screen. The receiver lost the ball on a hit by defensive end Sam Okuayinonu. The 49ers’ Marques Sigle recovered the fumble at the San Francisco 34-yard line.
The Niners converted the first of two Seahawks turnovers in the fourth quarter into the tying field goal.
“Man, it’s very tough. I wanted this for the 12s and for Seattle,” Smith-Njigba said.
Kupp had an inauspicious Seattle debut. The former Super Bowl MVP and offensive player of the year for the Los Angeles Rams had only three of Darnold’s 23 pass targets. One went off his hands on third down, when he was open inside rookie cornerback Upton Stout but stumbled past the line to gain before the ball arrived off his mitts.
Kupp caught two passes, for 15 yards.
It needed to be 16 yards.
On third and 7 from the San Francisco 25-yard line with 3 1/2 minutes left and the game tied at 10, Kupp went in motion from outside right into the formation, inside rookie receiver Tory Horton. Horton ran a deeper outside route as Kupp ran a short out. He broke his route outside along the 20-yard line. He needed to get to the 18 for a first down. Niners cornerback Renardo Green came up quickly and tackled Kupp laterally out of bounds a yard short of the line to gain. It was the kind of play Kupp almost always converted out of the slot with the Rams to become a $100 million receiver.
“I didn’t do a good job of being able to get that first down for us on a play,” Kupp said.
Coach Mike Macdonald decided on fourth and 1 from the 19 to kick the short field goal for a 13-10 lead instead of going for it and a touchdown.
That decision to rely on his defense failed. That unit failed on San Francisco’s ensuing drive to the winning touchdown. It might have been a tying one had Kupp gotten a yard further on that third down.
“I don’t know, I guess you can look back on it now and say, ‘Oh yeah, shoot, it would have been great to have gone for it,’” Kupp said. “But, I trust the decision-makers here and what they’re doing, what the analytics say, and also what those guys are feeling in terms of the course of the game.
“Shoot, I would have liked to have find a way to convert on that third down, find a way to get my foot in the ground and get us that extra yard.”
As Kupp also said, there were many other plays the Seahawks offense failed to make. It’s why they possessed the ball for only 15 of the game’s first 50 minutes. That is absolutely not why Macdonald hired Kubiak to install a new run-first, run-based offense.
“I think it’s indicative of we need to play more complementary football and be more efficient on first down,” Macdonald said. “We just need to play better in those situations and then we’ll maintain the ball better. It’s a team stat.”
Seattle was mostly awful on first down. The most egregious example came after Cody White gave his team a spark with a 36-yard kickoff return to the 37-yard line just after San Francisco tied the game at 10 in the third quarter.
Kubiak called for Smith-Njigba to run fly-sweep type motion then run into the right flat for a screen pass as Darnold rolled away from him and threw back to the right. Four unblocked defenders were waiting for Smith-Njigba as he caught the pass. Bosa dropped him for an 8-yard loss. Drive ruined. That was one of four series Seattle when went three plays and punted Sunday.
The faulty first downs led to Seattle converting just 3 of 10 third downs. San Francisco was 7 for 14.
“Defensively, I think the first touchdown drive I think we were like 0 for a trillion on third down,” Macdonald said.
And on offense?
“Just be better overall and more efficient of first and second down,” Darnold said.
Sam Darnold’s debut
Darnold finished his Seahawks debut 16 for 23 for 150 yards, one sack and the lost fumble. It was fewer passing yards than he had in any of his 18 starts for Minnesota last season.
It was his fewest passing yards since Dec. 11, 2022, when he made his second start off injured reserve for Carolina in a win — at Seattle.
He had Smith-Njigba, Kupp and that’s it from receivers. Darnold never threw to Horton, the rookie star of training camp, in the relatively few plays the fifth-round pick got. Tight ends AJ Barner and rookie Elijah Arroyo had one catch each, for a total of 7 yards combined.
Darnold also got little help in his first Seahawks start from a running game that is supposed to be the team’s staple on offense this season. New offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak called 26 runs. They gained just 84 yards (a 3.2-yard average). It’s not as if Kubiak didn’t try to create yards with unconventional schemes.
One of his runs was a 1-yard quarterback lead into the line by third-string rookie Jalen Milroe on a second and 6. That was during the game’s first possession. It was Milroe’s only play.
Kubiak also had tight end Barner take a direct snap on a tush-push run for 2 yards and a first down on a third and 1 in the first quarter.
Lead back Walker had just 4 yards on five carries until an 8-yard run in the fourth quarter. He finished with 20 yards on 10 runs. Zach Charbonnet ran 12 times for 47 yards. He at times looked like the lead back — if anyone led anything on this offense Sunday.
Charbonnet scored Seattle’s only touchdown, on a 1-yard run. That was set-up by a pass interference penalty on third down against Kupp on a pass by Darnold that probably wasn’t catchable out of the back of the end zone.
“We’re confident in the ground game, period. I think (Sun)day, there was a lot left to be desired,” Lucas said.
“I don’t know if it’s necessarily— I’m not going to call it ‘bad.’ I just think it could be better.”
Not running effectively meant second and then third and too many longs against San Francisco. That’s not how Kubiak’s offense — passing set up by effective runs — is designed to function.
“Just getting 3 or 4 yards on first down, getting 3 or 4 yards on second, getting in those third-and-short, manageable situations,” Darnold said. “When you start to get backed up a little bit in the second-and-10, obviously you want to be able to get five, get in that manageable. “I think just as a whole we’ve got to be better, more efficient on first and second down.”
Seahawks vow to improve
Players on the offense vow they, and it, will improve.
“It sucks,” Barner said. “It’s not much you can say but, it’s got to get better. It will get better. Again, if we are who we say we are, then we’re going to make it right. I believe in the team, it’s a long season.”
Long enough, 16 more games beginning this coming Sunday at Pittsburgh, that Seattle’s defense isn’t close to pointing fingers across their locker room
“We’re going to continue to work hard. Continue to fight for one another, continue to fight for the boys on the other side of the ball,” middle linebacker Ernest Jones said
“We’re going to be together and we’re going to get this s*** rollin’.”
This story was originally published September 8, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
