Cigar Thoughts, Game 5: The Seahawks might be bad

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The Seattle Seahawks came into this game fresh off their first loss of the Mika Macdonald era with one more layup before a brutal stretch in the schedule. A terrible New York Giants team traveled across the country like so many sacrificial lambs on Seattle's march to 4-1 and a buzzworthy start to the 2024 season. I think a lot of us were just chalking this up as a win, and why not? The Giants stink and the Seahawks have looked mostly great. Add to it that the Giants were without basically the only two players to score for them this year in Malik Nabers and Devin Singletary and this should have been as easy a win as Seattle's decisive victory over these same Giants last year, right. Right???

Well, that's the thing about football. I say it all the time in this column and on the podcast— the gap between the "good" teams and the "bad" teams is a lot smaller than we want to think, mostly because everyone in the NFL is really fucking good at football.

And when one team comes out disciplined and focused, and the other looks like they showed up after a four-day Vegas bender, then all bets are off. I'm not gonna mince words— the Giants kicked the Seahawks' ass. Full stop. Seattle gave themselves a chance to win late but even if they had, it wouldn't have felt great. And if that statement arouses any furor (aka "who cares how they win as long as they win?") well, I have great news for you— it ended up not mattering.

If I didn't know anything about either of these teams, and you told me one was 3-1 and the other was 1-3, I would've told you without hesitation that the Giants were the 3-1 squad. They were locked in and mistake-free, while the Seahawks played like a bunch of bums.

Seattle took a 7-0 lead when Rayshawn Jenkins returned a dubious goal-line fumble 102 yards for a touchdown on the ass end of a 16-play drive but that's the only thing keeping this game from being a blowout. Seattle played their worst game of the season, making mistakes in every facet of the game and throwing the e-brake on a Seahawks bandwagon that was going 100mph on I-5.

The crazy thing is that, despite all the buffoonery, the Seahawks were in position to tie this game with a minute left with a very makable 48-yard field goal but that was blocked and returned for a touchdown to seal the deal. I honestly believe that Jason Myers would've made that kick and that Seattle would've escaped with an ill-gotten win in overtime but the way things went for the first 59 minutes, I can't say Im surprised that the 'Hawks were stymied by a complete meltdown in a key situation.

A bad, inexcusable loss. Every team has them, and the good teams bounce right back. The fact that the bounce-back opportunity comes against a division rival and the best team in the NFC over the last four years in the 49ers on three day's rest is... not ideal. Let's get to it.

CIGAR THOUGHTS

~Perhaps the single most noticeable motif of the 2024 Seahawks team has been their discipline. They've been so solid from an assignment and game-management standpoint through the first month of the season, and it felt like a welcome departure from the previous regime. Well, all that got folded up and thrown down the laundry shoot today. This was a gross performance from a team that all of a sudden looks wildly unprepared to compete in any meaningful way.

Lots will be made about the DK Metcalf fumble in the second half and honestly, that's fair. Metcalf now leads all receivers in fumbles lost since coming in the league and that aspect of his game is flat out unacceptable. But that fumble was a symptom, not the disease. The core issue was a team that looked woefully overmatched and terribly unprepared. I'm not gonna lie, this game presses pause on everything I've thought about Mike Macdonald's precocious ability to get his team ready for a game.

Last week there was the built-in excuse of missing half your starting defense against a good offense. This week? Whew. Sure, you're missing Byron Murphy and Boye Mafe but the Giants were missing Malik Nabers and Devin Singletary and if you offered me that trade, I'd take it. This was just bad football top to bottom. The coverage was looser than a 51st St hooker, the tackling was sloppier than cafeteria Joes, and the O-line looked like a JV squad against the only remaining strength of the New York team.

The Seahawks lost at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and the skill guys on offense and the secondary on defense were the worst versions of themselves— unable to make up the difference. Gross, bad football and if we're gonna give the new coaches credit for the hot start, then the failures of the last two weeks fall firmly at their feet as well.

~Geno Smith had his worst game of the year. The volume numbers were suppressed by the defense's inability to get off the field but if you watched the game, he looked sluggish and out of sorts. His final line was fine— completing 28 of 40 passes for 284 yards and a touchdown but he collapsed under pressure in a way that runs counter to his superfluous analytical profile when it comes to managing pressure.

He ate seven sacks, and sacks are drive-killers. It looked like he was slow in his processing and look, the O-line was awful— but the O-line has been awful his entire tenure in Seattle and tonight was as bad as I've ever seen him against pressure. And him sliding a yard short of the sticks early in the 4th quarter, instead of diving for the first down— that's the first time I've ever gotten the ick from Geno.

~Ken Walker never had a chance to show what he can do. Make no mistake, I love that Seattle has been pass-first this year and that has mostly been borne out in their offensive success this year. But this was a game that demanded rushing dominance and that never materialized. Walker had an inexcusable five carries in this game, turning those intermittent opportunities into 19 yards but he made the most of the passing game by translating a team-high eight targets into a team-high seven catches for 57 yards. Kudos to the team for making sure their backfield stud remained a focal point but it was so clear the Giants were happy to defend the run with their four down lineman and the Seahawks never challenged that in a meaningful way.

~It seems that each game there's a different feature in the passing game and among receivers, it was Tyler Lockett's day. And when your offensive line is getting whipped on every play, Lockett is the best guy on the team to act as a relief valve. Lockett led the way with four catches for 75 yards, displaying both sides of his coin with a few avoided tackles and a few fall-downs. It is what it is.

DK Metcalf does way more good than harm, but that's only because he normally does so much good. The penalties and turnovers are a real thing and for the vast majority of his career, it's just been the cost of doing business for a game-wrecker like Metcalf. Today though... man. He had four catches for 55 yards but he lost a fumble for the second straight game and a league-leading eighth time since he entered the league. He's my favorite player in the world but this was a bad game from my boy; and I'm guessing he'd tell you the same thing.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba was a giant zero until the fourth quarter before feasting in catch-up mode. He caught four passes for 31 yards and the team's only offensive touchdown, a slick lil slip route to make it 23-20 but it's concerning that he wasn't a factor until garbage time. Just a bad game from Ryan Grubb and I guess this is as good a time as any to talk about it.

Now listen, offensive coordinator is a tough gig— your successes are expected and your failures are vilified. randomly poll 1,000 NFL fans and the majority of them will give a negative review of their OC. Grubb has been excellent in his NFL debut season but today he seemed stagnant and unimaginative. And when your offense is only running half as many plays as your opponent, it makes it tough to do all of the things you want to. But I have a tough time squaring how effective their 4th quarter / hurry-up offense looked with how ineffective everything else did. Here's hoping it's a learning experience.

~The offensive line was well, offensive. They've been bad all year but today was especially poor. They were all sub-par, if I'm being generous, but if I'm not— then Laken Tomlinson is the worst starting OL I've ever seen in a long list of poor offensive lineman for the Seahawks. He got smoked on nearly every snap and inexplicably favored his outside shoulder on the potential game-tying field goal, allowing the kick-blocker to slip unfettered off the center's shoulder and snuff out his team's last chance at winning this game. The fact that he's still a starting guard in Week 5 falls squarely at the feet of John Schneider. Do better— this ain't working.

~The Seahawks defense was (/Charles Barkley voice) turrrrrrible. Every single aspect of it was awful. Even Rayshawn Jenkins' 102-yard opening TD was the beneficiary of a questionable review and cae on the ass-end of a 16-play drive that evoked PTSD of bad Seattle defenses over the last half-decade. Tre Brown got absolutely cooked today, getting powdered by every receiver lined up against him. He wasn't the only one in the secondary that struggled today, but he was the most obvious. Darius Slayton and Wan'Dale Robinson dusted him with regularity and Daniel Jones hunted him accordingly. With Riq Woolen on and off the field with injuries, Brian Daboll did what good play-callers do and focused nearly every pass play on the weak link in the opposing defense. Brown has been great this year but today was the worst I've ever seen him.

I'd like to point out other defensive performances but be honest with me— who do you think I'm neglecting? The defense sucked for the second straight week and all of a sudden the mountain that Mike Macdonald has to climb looks steeper than it ever has. Yuck.

Incredibly, the Seahawks are still first place in the NFC West. Despite this afternoon's circus, their 3-2 record is somehow still the best in the division, thanks to the Cardinals upset of the 49ers. Doesn't mean I'm felling good though.

It's funny, the vibes after last week's loss feel immeasurably better than they do right now, and I think that would be the case even if Seattle won today. That's because last week you felt like the tea gave their all and came up short against a good opponent on the road. Spending three and a half hours defecating into the bed you refuse to get out of, at home, ahead of a killer stretch of games just, well— it feels very bad.

The Seahawks play their third game in eleven days on Thursday. I think the realistic hope coming into that stretch is that they'd go 1-2 over that stretch, but most of us assumed that 1 would come today. Now the gambit is exorcising the 49ers demon. Do that, and miraculously, you have a two-game lead over the team that poses the biggest threat to the peak-outcome goal of winning the NFC West in 2024. Lose and you're in second place coming off a three-game losing streak and fighting a national assumption that your 3-0 start was a fluke.

It's look-in-the-mirror time, and we're about to find out if this Seahawks team is any different than the 9-8 teams of the last couple of years. Are we legit, or did we get out over our skis? We'll find out in four days. In the meantime, onwards and upwards my friends.

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