Seahawks Instant Reaction: 710 ESPN Seattle on 40-34 win over Bucs

The Seahawks escaped with a 40-34 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in overtime on Sunday, improving their record to 7-2 on the season.

Seahawks 40, Buccaneers 34: There’s only 1 Russell Wilson | Recap

As we do after each game, we have collected the instant reactions of 710 ESPN Seattle’s voices to give a look at what you can hear throughout the day Monday on the air. Here’s what the hosts have to say:

Jim Moore – Bob, Dave and Moore

I’m guessing the Seahawks gave the game ball to Russell Wilson after throwing five touchdown passes. Or Tyler Lockett after 13 receptions. Or DK Metcalf after 123 receiving yards. Or Jacob Hollister for making two TD grabs, including the game-winner in overtime. Or you could even give it to Chris Carson after rushing for 105 yards against a Tampa Bay run defense that was No. 1 in the league.

But I’d think about giving one to the Tampa Bay player who called tails for the overtime coin toss. It came up heads, and that was that. If the coin had come up tails, I think we’d be talking about a Buccaneers’ upset at CenturyLink Field because I don’t think the Seahawks’ defense would have stopped them.

This promises to be another week of wondering how good the Seahawks are, even though their 7-2 record says they’re very good, good enough to be tied with Green Bay for the third-best record in the NFC. And they survived on a day in which the Packers were favored over the Chargers and the Vikings were favored over the Chiefs, but both lost.

The Seahawks didn’t just overcome a shaky defense that allowed Jameis Winston and Mike Evans to pick them apart, they prevailed in spite of a really shaky day by kicker Jason Myers, who missed an extra point and two field goals, including a 40-yarder that would have won it for Seattle at the end of regulation.

Now the attention turns to next Monday’s matchup in Santa Clara with the unbeaten 49ers and a chance to pull within a half-game of the NFC West leaders. As much as that sounds improbable when it took everything they had to beat the 2-6 Bucs, the Seahawks have a habit of playing up or down to their competition and are also known for a solid prime-time record under Pete Carroll.

Plus we’ll see Josh Gordon make his debut against the 49ers, and the thought of having him to go with Lockett, Metcalf and Carson just might give the Seahawks enough firepower to overcome their obvious issues on defense.

The Groz – 11:45 a.m. every day with John Clayton

I’ve said many times that there are no style points in the NFL. Like late Raiders owner Al Davis said, “Just win baby,” and the Seahawks did that for the seventh time in nine games to set up their showdown in San Francisco next week. But this is not a feel-good win for the most part.

The good: Russell Wilson was terrific as usual, throwing five touchdown passes and leading the offense to nearly 500 yards. DK Metcalf had a breakout performance. I’m not sure how much Josh Gordon is going to help but your 1-2 combination of Lockett and DK was good for 19 catches, 275 receiving yards and three touchdowns.

The bad: This is a 2-6 Tampa team that you barely bested in overtime. The defense was bad on nearly every level. The D-line was pushed around. You couldn’t coax a turnover out of Jameis Winston. The defense had a couple of critical breakdowns late. Chris Carson’s fumbling problem returned and Rashad Penny was invisible. Remember when you had a kicker you could count on? Wasted timeouts late, and the Seahawks were lucky to scrape by.

Simply said, this kind of performance may work against a 2-6 team, but the Seahawks don’t play another team with a losing record again until three days before Christmas. It’s hard to see success coming unless the defense can reverse form and come up with the kind of success that the offense has had.

The key stretch of the season begins Monday in San Francisco.

Tom Wassell – Tom, Jake and Stacy

With 8:20 to go, the score was 27-24 Seahawks. I texted my co-hosts Jake Heaps and Stacy Rost, commenting that while so much had already happened in the game, there was so much time to go that a lot that could still happen. Boy, did it ever…

I’m not going to get too much into specific plays here because there were so many big ones on both sides that both helped and hurt the Seahawks. I want to talk about the identity of the team. In 2013-14, they were dominators. In 2019, they’re fighters. They don’t give up and they don’t rest on their laurels. When they’re presented with adversity (i.e. missed kicks), they go right back to work and execute right up to the very end.

Seattle has the play makers (Russell, Lockett, Metcalf, Carson) to do whatever they want on offense, and an O-line to set the table for them. All day long, we saw one beautiful play after another from Wilson to Lockett, and when you have a duo that operates on as high a level as they do, anything is possible week to week and play to play.

As long as they didn’t turn the ball over too often, I never doubted that they would win this game. The margin for error was razor thin toward the end, but that’s how they’ve won games all year long. That kind of experience should help them come playoff time.

The defensive side of the ball is a different story. They had trouble tackling, penalty issues and some apparent confusion on assignments. That has to be cleaned up. Bobby Wagner even acknowledged as much after the game. But they did make a bunch of plays to get Jameis Winston and the Tampa Bay offense off the field too. Let’s give them a little credit.

The kicking was terrible. I’m not sure who’s available out there, but we should probably head over to Kickers-R-Us and see what’s in stock.

Is Russell Wilson the MVP of the league? It sure feels like it. Outside of total yards, he has the stats to back up that argument. It’ll depend on whether or not he can keep it up the rest of the way.

Wins over the Steelers, Browns, Rams and now the Buccaneers have all etched themselves into Seahawks history as classics. I’m certain that there will be a few more before this season is over. Let’s hope next Monday at San Francisco is one of them.

Bob Stelton – Bob, Dave and Moore

I know the Seahawks won this game. I know they’re 7-2 and right in the thick of the NFC race. But I’m incredibly conflicted after this game because it took overtime on your home field to beat a 2-5 team with a QB who was tied for the league lead in interceptions.

The play of this defense was beyond concerning. They allowed the Bucs to move up and down the field all day. While I know they have played bend-but-don’t-break defense all year, they broke today. And it started in the second half against Atlanta, when they broke there as well. How is the defense this bad? When you’ve got Wagner, Clowney, Reed, Ansah, Wright, Kendricks – how is it possible to have almost no ability to pressure the QB outside of the blitz?

It was also a brutal day for Jason Myers, who missed two field goals including what would have been a 40-yard game winner, and an extra point. Pete Carroll said after the game that he’s going to be their kicker moving forward and that they still have faith in him. The Seahawks have the toughest remaining schedule in the NFL and they need to get this thing figured out quickly.

The bright side of this one outside of the win is that Russell Wilson to Tyler Lockett is absolute money. Lockett had a career-high 13 catches on 18 targets for 152 yards and two touchdowns. It feels like Wilson’s almost single-handedly keeping this team a float. He threw for 378 yards, five touchdowns and, once again, no interceptions.

Throw in a big day for DK Metcalf, too – six catches for 123 yards and a touchdown. Chris Carson had a great day running the ball against the best rushing defense in the NFL, which was allowing just over 68 yards a game. Carson rushed for 105 yards on 16 carries. The problem was he fumbled twice, losing one of them.

What has been made clear through nine games is that the offense carries this team, and if they have an off-day, unlike in years past, this defense won’t be there to bail them out.

Brock Huard – Brock and Salk

Russell was Extraordinary

Lockett & Metcalf were spectacular

But none of it happens on this day without the Seahawk OL that set the table for their ballers to eat

Eat That W!!!!!!@Seahawks

— Brock Huard (@BrockHuard) November 4, 2019

Russell Wilson of 2019 is basically Mariner Closer Edwin Diaz of 2018.
Absolutely no margin for error & seemingly every game decided by one score. #HistoricallyGood pic.twitter.com/Or6KEhbLmQ

— Brock Huard (@BrockHuard) November 4, 2019

Hawks add Josh Gordon: Clayton on what it means | Wassell’s open letter