‘Terribly frustrating’: Seahawks’ LOS woes continue vs Raiders
Nov 27, 2022, 5:59 PM
Josh Jacobs of the Las Vegas Raiders runs with the ball while being tackled by Quandre Diggs of the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field on November 27, 2022. (Jane Gershovich/Getty Images)
(Jane Gershovich/Getty Images)
Everything was set up for the Seahawks to rebound Sunday from their loss to Tampa Bay in Germany before their bye week.
Seahawks Instant Reaction: Seattle Sports on OT loss to Raiders
They were back at home after nearly a month away from Lumen Field, and they were playing a struggling Las Vegas Raiders team that entered the day 3-7, with two of those wins coming against the porous Denver Broncos.
Seattle jumped out early with an interception on the first play of the game and scored just moments later. Everything seemed to be going to plan.
But what started as a promising homecoming for the Seahawks ended in complete disaster as they allowed 576 total yards in a 40-34 overtime loss to the Raiders. The 576 yards are the third-most yards of offense the Seahawks have allowed in a single game in franchise history.
“That’s a terribly frustrating game for us,” head coach Pete Carroll said. “We had our chances to win the football game.”
The Seahawks did indeed have a number of opportunities to win this game, but quarterback Geno Smith was harassed by star edge rusher Maxx Crosby in the fourth quarter and overtime, and Smith wound up being credited with a fumble deep in Vegas territory in the fourth.
Seattle held Davante Adams, arguably the NFL’s best and most dangerous receiver, to a rather pedestrian game by his standards as he was kept out of the end zone and had 74 yards on seven catches.
You could argue the Raiders coached scared, too.
Head coach Josh McDaniels opted for a field goal on fourth-and-short on a second-half drive in which they’d ran it down Seattle’s throat. McDaniels later decided to run out the clock with two timeouts and 40 seconds left. Then they tried a field goal again on fourth-and-short, this time in overtime.
But the Raiders won at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, a story that was a retelling of what went wrong for the Seahawks in Week 10, only worse this time around.
Star running back Josh Jacobs not only kept the Raiders in this game but broke the Seahawks’ back in overtime to give the Raiders the win.
Jacobs was already having a pretty monster game before the contest went to overtime, but then he broke free on Vegas’ second OT drive for an 86-yard game-winning touchdown.
All in all, Jacobs had 303 total yards as he rushed for 229 yards and two scores on 33 carries and tied Adams for the team lead in receiving yards with 74 on six catches.
Some of those issues in the run game were because the Seahawks were extra focused on slowing down Adams, Carroll said, but they couldn’t win at the point of attack and didn’t tackle as needed.
“We gave up way too much in the running game,” Carroll said. “We did not play the run worth a darn in getting that done.”
The Raiders bullied the Seahawks’ defensive front en route to rushing for 283 yards while harassing Smith a ton, hitting him 10 times and sacking him three times.
It was similar to what went wrong in Germany, but in a much worse fashion, in part due to the quality of opponent.
While the Raiders rushed for nearly 300 yards and hit Smith a ton, the Seahawks had little pressure on Raiders quarterback Derek Carr and had only 65 rushing yards themselves.
Offensively, Carroll said that group wasn’t close to as balanced as needed.
“(We weren’t) consistent like we wanted to be,” Carroll said of the Seahawks’ run game. “That running output is not getting us what we want in terms of balance. That’s not what we’re looking for.”
In Week 10, the Bucs sacked Smith three times while the Seahawks didn’t make Tom Brady sweat at all. The Hawks also rushed for only 39 yards to Tampa’s 161.
Third downs were also a big discrepancy this game like in Week 10. The Raiders converted 8 of 14 third-down opportunities two weeks after the Bucs converted 10 of 15 third-down tries. The Seahawks, meanwhile, converted once vs. Tampa and just 4 of 9 on Sunday against the Raiders.
And all that being said, the Seahawks had plenty of opportunities to take the game over or put the Raiders away, which Carroll stressed after game.
“(When) we look at this film, we’re gonna see opportunities that got away from us that we just didn’t take care of,” Carroll said. “I gotta give them credit. They outplayed us and got their win. But it’s really frustrating because the game was there to be won.”
The loss slides the Seahawks out of a playoff position as Week 12 wraps up, with Seattle holding the eighth spot in the NFC playoff picture. Next up is a road matchup with the struggling Los Angeles Rams, last year’s Super Bowl winner, who are 3-8 just nine months after hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.
