By Mazvita Maraire Posted on

Many lessons were learned in the Seahawks’ 16-15 loss to the Titans.

Like all exhibition games, there were good plays and not-so-good ones in Saturday’s preseason game between the Seahawks and the Titans.   One bright spot in Saturday’s contest was that  Sam Howell showed he is a capable backup. Howell had complete command of the offense, completing  11 of 14 passes for  153 yards and a jaw-dropping pass to Easop Winston Jr. for 23 yards. Kenny McIntosh separated himself for the moment with George Holani in the battle for the third running position behind  Ken Walker  II and  Zach Charbonnet.

The Seahawks had a  12 to 7 halftime lead due to solid offense and defense performances.  The Solid performance by the defense held the  Titans to 136 total yards and a 2-6  (33%) third-down percentage. The only first-half blemish was a missed extra point by Jason Myers. His 48-yard field just before half more made up for the blemish.

INCONSISTENT SECOND HALF

The second half was a different story for the Seahawks.  P.J. Walker took over for Howell at quarterback and struggled to move the ball down the field. Walker’s first two passes of the game were incomplete, and he finished the day completing four of eight passes for  38 yards.  In fairness to Walker, he was under duress most of the time but managed to engineer a five-play 22-yard drive that was capped by a 50-yard Jason Myers field goal.

The drive was on the back end of a  Ty  Okada interception.  Okada’s interception was the Seahawk’s only turnover of the game.   Mostly, the Seahawks struggled to get the  Titans off the field. Poor tackling and self-inflicted wounds were the culprits. The Seahawk’s defense had six second-half penalties and gave up 202 offensive yards.

BIG TAKE

After the game, head coach Mike Macdonald was asked about his team’s performance. The young and big picture-focused Macdonald gave a diplomatic but authentic answer.

“All right. Disappointed we didn’t win the game. And as you’re going through it, there’s just so many things that we need to execute better situation wise. But there’s also a lot of good stuff on tape too, a lot of stuff we improved on from last week, said Macdonald. “  So, that’s the message to the guys, ‘Hey, let’s stay steady,’ Let’s attack the reasons why we lost and where we fell short and then keep improving on the other stuff and make sure we have a heck of a week before we play Cleveland (Browns) and close out the preseason.”

The building of an improved Seahawks team will progress. Lessons will be learned from mistakes, and as long as those mistakes are not repeated, the team will steadily improve. Saturday, the backups made mistakes when it came to execution on both sides of the ball. Some of those were scheme mistakes, and some were mental mistakes. Most can be corrected through commitment and determination. The following two weeks will show how committed and determined the players are to making the team.

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