While it was not a complete perfect game, the Seattle Seahawks 28 to 14 win over the Detroit Lions Sunday at Ford Field in Detroit was arguably their best effort of the season. That fact the nearly flawless win over the Lions was on the heels of an impressive 27-3 pre-bye week win over the Oakland Raiders on October 14th in London’s Wembley Field was not lost on Seahawks head coach Peter Carroll.
“I’m always going to regret the fact that we started lousy,” Carroll said. “And it’s a 14-game season for us to try to do something with it after screwing up the first two games. But this is a nice team, I like our team. I like what’s going on, I like the way it’s going and I like how they feel about it. It’s really clear, there’s no mystery how we’re trying to get it done. We’re not going to fool anybody.”
The win over the Lions improves the Seahawks season record to 4-3 and gives the team four wins in its last five games after a 0-2 start. How they beat the Lions and the last three of their four opponents is having a productive running game that has taken the pressure off quarterback Russell Wilson and given him type to use the weapons at his disposal.
Sunday marked the fourth straight game in which the Seahawks have rushed for over 150 yards with running back Chris Carson recording his third game in which he has rushed for over 100 yard despite missing the Seahawks game against the Arizona Cardinals due to a hip injury. Carson finished Sunday’s game with 105 rushing yards and one touchdown on 25 attempts.
With the running game in optimum gear, quarterback Russell Wilson was given the time to look down the field and connect with Seattle’s talented receivers. Wilson started the game by completing 10 straight passes before throwing an incompletion. After the small hiccup, Wilson picked up where he left off and finished the game completing 14 of 17 passes for 248 yards, and threw a touchdown pass to David Moore, Ed Dickson, and Tyler Lockett. Wilson finished the game with the three touchdowns and had no interceptions for a perfect quarterback rating of 158.3 It was the first time a Seahawks quarterback had a perfect passer rating in the regular season.
“He did a great job. He played a great football game today. What did he throw the ball for, 15 times?” Carroll said of Wilson before adding, “When you run the ball like this, you went for almost 250 in 14 completions. Awesome game. And I think we were pretty good on third down again too, 50 percent or something like that. That’s the makeup of—it’s really hard to beat you when you play like that and we’re fired up for him.”
With the offense clicking the defense which was aided by the return of All-Pro Linebacker J.K. Wright who was making his first start of the season, did its part by limiting the Lions to just 14 points. Seven of those points came in the firsts quarter when the Lions drove 91 yards on their first possession of the game. The Lions other touchdown came in the fourth quarter when Seattle had a twenty-one point lead.
The Seahawks defense sacked Detroit quarterback Matthew Stafford four times which is a season-high and held rookie running back Kerryon Johnson to just 22 yards on eight carries for a 2.8 average. Johnson came into the game averaging 6.4 yards per carry. Detroit was held to just 34 rushing yards after averaging 122 yards before Sunday’s game.
The Seahawks special teams also played a vital role in the game with Tedric Thompson forcing a fumble on a kickoff that led to Seattle taking the lead for good. Punter Michael Dickson’s decision to run for a first down with two minutes left rather than take a safety as planed shows the team is gaining wins and swagger as it climbs up the standings. While the Seahawks are now second in NFC West behind the undefeated Rams ( 8-0) , they are right in the middle of the playoff race for an NFC Wildcard playoff berth with more than half of the season still to play.
PAUL ALLEN TRIBUTE
Carroll started Sunday post-game conference with a tribute to team owner Paul G. Allen, who passed away nearly two weeks ago from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“The first thing I’d like to say is this is the first game since Mr. Allen passed, he passed away about two weeks ago, so we had the opportunity just once again, and I’ll know we’ll continue to celebrate, there are so many reasons to celebrate his life, so we did in the locker room and gave him the game ball. Gave it to (Seahawks Vice-Chairman) Bert Kolde, his best friend, and just kind of make sure we connect the spirit one more time and we’ll continue to do that. Without Paul, none of us would be here. We’re very grateful and appreciative and we’ll continue to feel that connection and play for that.”
Carroll was also fired up about his teams refound winning formula.
“Today’s game was a really good football game for us,” Carroll said. “We did well in so many different areas. On the road, against a team that’s been hot, had been running the football, doing some really good things. We were able to kind of change that climate for them. They weren’t running the football like they had just a week ago, they ran for a ton. Our guys went in to get that done. It was a good job by the coaches and a terrific job by the front seven guys again…
We really were able to play right within the framework of how we want to do it. We want to get the football, we don’t want to give it up—no turnovers today—and take advantage of that and run the heck out of the football. We ran it 42 times today. Matter of fact, I couldn’t be more fired up about it. That’s just commitment and it’s attitude and it’s what we’re trying to do. So, I’m really fired up about really this whole month plus, and hopefully, we’ll just keep on cranking it and it’ll keep unfolding.”
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