The Seattle Seahawks ( 2-3) had their best offensive output of the season Sunday afternoon at CenturyLink Field scoring a season-high 31 points. In the end, the offensive explosion was not enough as the Seahawks were unable to stop the undefeated Los Angeles Rams (5-0) at its number ranked offense. Here are sights, sounds, and quotes from the Seahawks near-win over the Rams.
Seahawks Head Coach Pete Carroll overall impressions
“That was a terrific football game today. Obviously, we went toe to toe with these guys. I don’t know how many people out there thought it was going to be like that, but the guys in this room did, and they went out there to win this football game from the start to the finish, throughout. Played with great intensity and great resolve about getting it done. It wasn’t all pretty. We gave up some stuff that we really regret, but offensively, we played just about as precisely as we wanted to. We ran the football like we wanted to. We controlled the field like we needed to. Third downs were terrific. Took care of the ball. Ran it for a bunch. Really gave us a chance to be in the game against a team that has a loaded offense on the other side. We weren’t able to hold it down enough to get it done. A lot of open field misses for us, a lot of spread field stuff that wound up going in their favor. They did a great job. They really did what they have been doing on offense with the throwing game. The running game looks deceiving because they had a 50 yard fly play there, but we held them under 100 yards for everybody else. That part of it was one of the aspects of the game we thought we could do, we wanted to try to get done. So that worked out, but there were too many explosive passing plays. I think that you can see, I hope you can tell how our team has grown.
The last 3 weeks have been really an extraordinary step forward for us and we’re jacked about here we go. There is a long season ahead of us, and how we come out of this game and go into the next one, it will be crucial, just as it will be the next week. There is no doubting who we are as a team and how we’re trying to build this thing. I’m really proud of those guys up front the way they ran blocked all day long. Chris ran like crazy all day long, just did a great job of running tough. So did Mike. That’s the way it wound up with those guys doing it and they did a great job. Russell found his way to make the big plays to put us in position to win the game at the end. Unfortunately, we get knocked out of field goal range with a penalty. It was really disturbing that that happened at that time. So, a really good football game. I thought the fans were great today, the 12s were beautiful, just the way it’s supposed to be and I wish we could have handed them a great win today.”
DE FRANK CLARK ON THE GAME
“The game plan is to win, always. The individual accolades or stuff like that really don’t matter to me unless we win. My game plan going into the game was just to set the tone, like you said though. I know what it takes to beat them. I’ve been around the last four years and every time we play them, it’s a game. That’s one of our division rivals. They came into our house and took us hard. At the end of the day, we get another game, we get another opportunity to play them, so all the talking and everything that was said at the end, it doesn’t matter. We’re going to go out there the next game and we need to get the job done.”
(On if there was more intensity) “At the end of the day, like I said, when you’ve got two teams that are very competitive like us, we don’t like losing. I don’t like losing. I’m sure none of my boys like losing. They don’t like losing and they came in here, they did the job. At the end of the day, like I said, we get another opportunity and we need to take advantage of it.”
RAMS HEAD COACH SEAN MCVAY
“I want to start out by letting everyone know our organizations’ thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Paul Allen. We wanted to do something out of respect and were just hopeful he makes a recovery with our pins. Those are things that give you a real perspective when you have something like that going on. We wish him nothing but the best and hopefully a good recovery.”
“What a tough hard fought game. I thought guys continued to battle. Guys stepped up when we lost some bigtime players. They are a really tough football team. I have a whole lot of respect for Coach Carroll, a lot of their players and coaching staff. It took everything we had today. I know our players are exhausted. I’m certainly exhausted. But I cannot say enough about our players resolve and the way they continued to battle to get it done. Especially Jared right there at the end, getting enough push. There were a lot of good things. That was a good, hard fought game. It was good caliber, a good caliber game.”
ONGOING FOR IT ON FOURTH DOWN
“I just think the belief. We talk about attacking. You could see that our guys believed. They wanted to go for it. When you have your players that believe, you want to put the trust in them. It’s a players game. Jared did a great job. He mixed up his cadence a little bit. It was a formation they (Seattle) were leaning pretty heavily on with some specific runs we had done. We found a way not to be denied.
We got a good interior push right there. I thought Gurley was outstanding there. You talk about tough hard physical runs. We felt like he might have gotten the first down on a couple of those previous plays but we have to react and adjust accordingly. To be able to put the game in the offense’s hands to deliver and close it out after the big stop the defense got. I love the way that Santos responded after the missed extra point to kick the game-winning field goal. There are a lot of examples, the coaching staff did a good job of adjusting. That’s what we talk about being mentally tough and certainly that was tested today.”
