What we learned from the Seahawks’ season-opening victory

The Seahawks have a quarterback with a bum ankle, a running game that never really got up to speed and one victory thanks to a last-minute touchdown.

Here’s a list of what we learned in Seattle’s 12-10 season-opening win over the Dolphins as well as what we’re still trying to figure out.

Three things we learned:

1. Seattle’s pass rush is – in fact – improved. The Seahawks had five sacks Sunday, which was more than Seattle had in all but one game last season. Not only that, but five different Seahawks had one sack apiece and it turns out the rumors of Frank Clark’s emergence have not been exaggerated. He was unstoppable in August for the second consecutive year and it appears that will carry over to the regular season this time given the consistency with which Clark was in Miami’s backfield. In fact, Bruce Irvin has OK’d Clark’s selection as the second recipient of the Danny O’Neil Lunch Program, which will be delivered on Thursday.

2. Russell Wilson is one tough hombre. We’ve never seen him hurt before. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been. He played through an injury to his non-throwing shoulder during the 2013 season. But we hadn’t seen anything so obvious as what happened on Sunday when Dolphins defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh stepped on Wilson’s right heel, causing his ankle to torque in a most extreme and unnatural way. He did not miss a play. “He almost welcomed the challenge,” coach Pete Carroll said. There’s not much doubt about whether Wilson will play Sunday in Los Angeles. We know he will. How much the injury limits Wilson and specifically his ability to peel out the back door of the pocket remains an open question.

3.  Earl Thomas was not his usual self. Thomas looked great in training camp, especially when you compare it to last year, when he was limited in August while coming back from offseason shoulder surgery. But there were three plays Sunday in which Thomas took angles that could be classified as somewhere between bad and awful. Then there was the pair of deep passes on vertical switch routes where Seattle looked very vulnerable on the backside. One was flat-out dropped by Miami’s Kenny Stills in the first quarter and the other was overthrown in the fourth quarter. “He wasn’t as sharp as sometimes he is,” Carroll said. “He’s had a great camp. He just felt a little bit off. I saw it as a rare game. I’m not worried about it one bit. I’m disappointed for him as he has such high expectations and all that as we do. He’ll bounce right back.”

Three things we’re still trying to figure out:

1. Is Jimmy Graham still as explosive as he used to be? For the past six months, the biggest question has been when Graham will be back. Now that he is back – and that’s a credit to the diligence of his rehabilitation – the question is whether he’ll be as dynamic as he was before suffering a torn patellar tendon. Graham was on the field for 17 plays against Miami, his involvement escalating from three blocking assignments in the first half to an important role in the fourth quarter, catching a pass for 11 yards on Seattle’s game-winning drive. Now that he’s back, the question is whether he’s as athletic and explosive as he was before his injury.

2. What the hell, Christine Michael? He has been the single most improved player in training camp. And he was largely impressive Sunday, but on a second-and-4 play in the final 2 minutes, he showed some of the knucklehead tendencies that led to the Seahawks trading him a year ago. Michael picked up a blitzing Dolphins defender, Bobby McCain. The problem was that Michael then stood and stared down at McClain, who was on his back. Then Wilson’s pass bounced off Michael. C’mon, man. Seriously. Staring down a guy you blocked while the football bounces off you?

3. Why didn’t Seattle run the ball better? For all the talk about Miami’s defensive line, let’s not forget the Dolphins ranked No. 28 in run defense last year, allowing 126.2 rushing yards per game. And while pass protection was considered a potential flaw on Seattle’s revamped offensive line, the Seahawks ranked third in the league in rushing yards during the preseason. Yet the season started with five straight passes by the Seahawks, who were never really able to get the traction they wanted running the ball.

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