Seahawks Quick Hits: The Buffalo Bills bullied Seattle all day long

Unlike the Seahawks’ first loss of the season in Arizona during Week 7, Week 9’s 44-34 loss to the Buffalo Bills never seemed to trend in Seattle’s direction.

Seahawks lose 44-34 to Bills | O’Neil’s column | Instant Reaction

The Seahawks quickly fell behind 17-0, and after finally pulling within one score in the third quarter, Seattle gave up a nine-play, 82-yard touchdown drive early in the fourth quarter that put an apparent end to any sort of comeback.

After a 5-0 start, the Seahawks have now lost two of their last three and sit at 6-2 heading into a Week 10 showdown with the Los Angeles Rams. Before we look ahead to that matchup, let’s look at what went wrong for Seattle in Buffalo.

Wilson takes a beating, and his turnovers result in points

As time was winding down in the game, the FOX broadcast showed that quarterback Russell Wilson was knocked down 16 times by the Bills’ defense, most of any quarterback in the NFL this season.

Buffalo’s defense recorded five sacks to go along with 11 QB hits, and the Bills had Wilson off his game from the start.

Wilson finished with 390 yards, two touchdown passes and a rushing touchdown, but that aspect of the box score doesn’t tell the whole story at all.

Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll preaches winning the “turnover battle,” and the Seahawks did anything but that with Wilson tossing two interceptions on forced throws on fourth-and-short early in the game and third-and-long late in the game. Wilson also lost two fumbles.

HUUUUUGE play by AJ Klein!

📺 #SEAvsBUF on FOX pic.twitter.com/hRgzL5FiKy

— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) November 8, 2020

Now, the fourth-down play got blown up from the start and Wilson didn’t want to throw the ball away or take a sack. I get it. But the throw wasn’t great, and it was a similar spot on the long third-down play. He’s doing what he can to try and get his team back in the game. But even with the high passing numbers, it just never seemed like Wilson was on his game when it was still in reach aside from a long touchdown pass to David Moore.

Four turnovers from Wilson is incredibly uncommon, and in a 10-point loss, those four turnovers resulted in 16 Bills points.

Defense gets gashed, even with seven sacks

Yeah, you read that right. The Seahawks’ struggling pass rush took Bills quarterback Josh Allen down seven times.

But really, that didn’t matter as Allen torched Seattle’s secondary to the tune of 415 yards and three touchdowns.

Making it look easy!

📺 #SEAvsBUF on FOX pic.twitter.com/7nR9voX8l1

— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) November 8, 2020

He added a rushing score for good measure.

Josh Allen calls his own number!

📺 #SEAvsBUF on FOX pic.twitter.com/Y2v6hhxJ4c

— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) November 8, 2020

Allen looked like the MVP candidate he appeared to be earlier in the season, but the Seahawks’ defense didn’t appear to really test him despite the seven sacks.

The Bills had a simple enough game plan: Throw the dang ball. Buffalo had just 19 rushing attempts for 34 yards and many of those carries came late.

Then, when it seemed like the Seahawks had adapted and were finding their footing with their blitzes, the Bills used two screen plays on different drives to extend those drives and ultimately get the win.

This was also a game where No. 1 cornerback Shaquill Griffin was desperately missed. Quinton Dunbar looked lost and was playing sometimes 10 yards off of the line of scrimmage, calling into question the health of his knee that limited him in practice during the week. Tre Flowers had some nice plays, but it’s hard to say anyone in that secondary had a good game after what Allen did to them.

As 710 ESPN Seattle’s own Danny O’Neil said on Twitter, the Seahawks may need Griffin back to replace Dunbar, not Flowers. Dunbar has had the lingering knee issue, and whether it was that or just an off day, he looked lost at times.

#Seahawks gonna need Shaquill Griffin to get healthy so Tre Flowers can replace Quinton Dunbar.

— Danny O'Neil (@dannyoneil) November 8, 2020

And just to throw some more numbers/history out there, the 44 points allowed were the most allowed under Carroll since he took over in 2010 and the most the Seahawks have allowed since 2009. The offense gifted 16 points to the Bills through four turnovers while the Seattle defense failed to record a takeaway. Not exactly Carroll’s ideal recipe for success.

On a day when the Seahawks finally got some sacks, it didn’t matter. A little ironic after the last year and a half.

Penalty on Adams epitomizes Seattle’s tough day

After starting the last four games for Jamal Adams at strong safety, Ryan Neal burst through the Bills’ offensive line and recorded what looked like the Seahawks’ eighth sack of the game on a third down while Seattle was down seven.

But instead, Adams, playing in his first game since suffering a groin strain in Week 3, was called for illegal contact on Cole Beasley and gave the Bills a new seat of downs. That resulted in a Zack Moss rushing score to make it a 14-point game.

The penalty itself makes sense and was the right call, even if some will argue against it due to it looking like they just ran into each other and Beasley tripped. But it just kind of encapsulated how it wasn’t the Seahawks’ day. Right when it seemed like the Seahawks would have a chance to go down and tie the game up in the second half, it got taken away.

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