The Seattle Seahawks (4-2) 24-7 win over the New York Giants (1-6) at MetLife Stadium was pretty much a capsule of the Seahawks season to date. There were some good plays some, bad plays definitely some ugly plays and when the dust settled the Seahawks accomplished their goal of a road victory.
The team’s ugly play in the red zone caused bad tempers to flare momentarily as the clinching of teeth turned into snarls on the defensive side of the ball which actually turned out to be a good thing for a team that is battled tested when it comes to adversity according to conreback Richard Sherman.
“It comes with the territory. I think in the outside world, it’s kind of misunderstood. They think about it as disrespect, but in the locker room, in an environment like this we look at each other as peers. Coaches and players because they are depending on us just like we’re depending on them and their play-calling. If we execute we play at a high level, they get the reward just as we do. So, we have as much at stake as they do. So, it’s not him yelling at them. It’s him showing them passion, you know, trying to get to the same goals.
So, it’s awesome. I mean, I’ve been seeing him do it since he was a freshman in college. It’s been 10 years, 12 years, something like that. And, it’s always gotten the point across. You can ask David Shaw about that one day – about his freshman year. It’s a long story, but yeah, he’s been doing it a while. It works out man. That’s how he plays. You play with everything you got. You play with your heart on your sleeve and nobody can complain about his effort or his attitude. That’s for sure.”
The Seahawks offense continued its now famous first half sleepwalking act. After five first-half possession, all the Seahawks had to show was a Blair Walsh 39 yard field. The other four possessions ended with two punts, a Thomas Rawls fumble the Giants converted into their only touchdown of the game and the offense turning over the ball to the Giants on downs after failing to get into the end zone from the two-yard line.
Fortunately, the Seahawks defense was up to the task as has been the case all season and kept the Giants offense in check while its offense regrouped. While the regroup session was effective the process was not the teams finest moment of respect
” I lost my cool. Its 100 % my fault. At that moment, I was really frustrated with the offense as a whole. Not the coaching staff, but the players. Again it goes back to our X’s and O’s, it wasn’t the play calls we just didn’t execute, “ Receiver Doug Baldwin said of his sideline outburst during the offensive regroup session.
“Whether it was passing the ball, blocking, catching, jumping offside whatever it may be we weren’t executing as players and to me there is nothing a coach can say. We have to take accountability for that, so I got a little passionate about it. At that moment that players needed to realize it’s the players, not the coaches.”
The bottom line for the Seahawks was that the offense was able to take responsibility for their misfires and correct the mistakes. While he was pleased with his team’s improvement during the game, head coach Peter Carroll acknowledged the teams’ offense is still a work in progress.
“We came out here to win a ballgame and try to play some good football. It just took us a while to put it all together. Really like how our guys hung together when we were kicking ourselves around in the first half. The belief on both sides of the ball was solid and the conversation and communication between our guys was solid. We knew we were going to turn this thing and fortunately, we were able to do that in really good fashion. You know, the defense played really great all night long. The kicking game was great all night long, Coverage was terrific and John did a great job keeping them deep.
Allowed the defense to play the way that we want to play. All that worked out beautifully. Offense moved the football the whole night and we just couldn’t get out of the way here. First half we had eight penalties for a bunch of yards and then we got way better. We had seven in the second half, so we’re going in the right direction. We’ve got a lot of work to do. It’s not that we didn’t go into this game with a lot of emphasis in that regard, but we’ve got a lot of stuff to clean up. It was a good solid football game and Russell played great on offense, had a terrific night. I thought we did a good job of protecting him as well. We really have a lot of respect for this defense.
They do a lot of stuff and its difficult and challenging. The calls we have to make and the adjustments that we have to make, really challenging. Our guys did a good job. Was glad to see that Ethan got in there and played a bunch and Mark Glowinski played at guard also and those guys held up their end of it. We got better as the night went on. Maybe was a little shabby out of the bye, I don’t know. It goes well. We’re going to be all right. We’re going to be ok.”
The three Russell Wilson second-half touchdowns by the offense cemented a win in which the Seahawks defense dominated the opposing team’s offense and showed once again they are among the elite defensive units in the league. DE Frank Clark believes the defense is playing like a complete unit.
“It takes everybody. I think it takes a full eight. When you think about everything that Cliff does, the strip sack that J Reed got from the left side, I kept thinking about how many times Cliff has done that since I have been here. He is irreplaceable. He is a Hall of Famer in my eyes. The things he does on that side, just the havoc that he causes its definitely a missing piece that we are missing, but when you have a lot of guys that can come off the bench and can fill the different things that he does, that’s the best part of having a team.”
