Seahawks Instant Reaction: 710 ESPN Seattle on 13-10 loss to Saints

The Seahawks have fallen to 2-5 on the season after a particularly frustrating 13-10 loss Monday night to the New Orleans Saints.

Seahawks lose to Saints: Takeaways | Fast Facts

As we do after every Seahawks game, we have collected the instant reactions to the loss from some of 710 ESPN Seattle’s voices. Read what they have to say below, and be sure to hear their full thoughts throughout Tuesday during The Mike Salk Show, Jake and Stacy, and Wyman and Bob, as well as the weekly Pete Carroll Show with the Seahawks head coach at 9:30 a.m.

Bob Stelton – Wyman and Bob

The Seahawks are 2-5 and 0-3 at home. We can sit here and repeat ourselves as to the reasons why, but they’re the same reasons that have existed all season.

The defense has been brutal, although tonight’s game falls on the shoulders of this offense. Special teams have been anything but special with two more missed field goals tonight. The coaches have been out-coached the entire season with few exceptions.

But the biggest culprit tonight was obvious. The offense is incapable of putting two solid halves of football together. And in this game, they couldn’t put two solid drives together! It’s easy to blame it on the absence of Russell Wilson and Chris Carson, but this offense was struggling with them, too.

We had visions of the Rams’ high-octane, up-tempo offense when Shane Waldron was hired as offensive coordinator. We have yet to see anything that even resembles what we saw in LA. Again, we can blame the fact that Geno Smith is in there – and by the way, if it wasn’t clear before it should be now: Geno is a backup for a reason. This offense set a franchise record last season. They now look light years away from that team with almost the entire cast returning.

The defense definitely played better but still just not good enough. It only gave 13 points and that should be good enough to win at home, but with the offense falling on their face after the long DK Metcalf TD and two missed field goals, 13 was too many.

The reality is that the Hawks have a number of really talented players, but as a team they’re just not very good.

The Groz – 710 ESPN Seattle host emeritus

Thank God for the Peyton and Eli show. It made a painful-to-watch Monday night game between the Saints and the Seahawks palatable. Well, not really.

On a rainy night in Seattle, the Saints and Seahawks bore little resemblance to their perennial playoff teams of the last decade. The Saints just did a little bit more to come away with the win, 13-10.

The Saints had the best player in this game, Alvin Kamara, and they got him the ball 30 times. They only managed 13 points so it wasn’t exactly a great strategy, and Jameis Winston was terrible, but it was good enough this night.

On the fifth play of the game, Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore fell down and DK Metcalf went 84 yards. That one play was nearly 40% of the Seahawks’ offensive output. They couldn’t run the ball consistently, and it very disappointing that Rashaad Penny wasn’t even a factor. Geno Smith showed you why he’s a backup quarterback, and to their credit the Seahawks don’t expect him to be anything but that. But man, that offense…

The defense was by in large fine. You give up 13 points, you expect to win, especially at home. Seattle also the special teams game, and look, there are a lot of other negatives I could get into, but I guess my main takeaway is this Seahawks team without Russell Wilson is not good. Not good at all. Which makes the Jacksonville game on Sunday anything but a sure thing.

Mike Lefko – Wyman and Bob

With a backup quarterback against a good defense, the margin for error was slim to begin with, but the Seahawks did themselves no favors with a handful of costly mistakes in this one. Two missed field goals, a taunting penalty on offense, roughing the passer, and jumping offsides on fouth-and-5 – it piles up, and it’s actually a credit to the Seahawks’ defense (or Jameis Winston struggling to throw downfield) that it was only a three-point loss.

The Saints’ rush defense entered as the second-best in the NFL, and what worked so well against the Steelers was nowhere to be found tonight against Demario Davis and New Orleans’ run-clogging defenders. There just did not seem to be a lot of faith in Geno Smith to throw the football, which certainly is understandable based on the weather conditions, but lining up and continuing to run right up the middle was not the solution tonight. The only scoring “drive” the Seahawks had in the second half came directly off the forced fumble when they took over in Saints territory: four plays, zero yards.

The Seahawks also could not find Alvin Kamara in space, and the Saints were content to take those short looks, amounting to the tune of 10 receptions for 128 yards and a touchdown. A maligned defense didn’t give up any big plays tonight but couldn’t get off the field on two first-half scoring drives which totaled 86 and 85 yards, respectively.

Ultimately it came down to the Seahawks’ inability to throw the ball. The Saints talked all week about making them one-dimensional, and they did. After the 84-yard TD pass to DK Metcalf, the Hawks finished with only 83 yards passing the rest of the night.

It’s a short week but it will feel quite long until the Seahawks get a chance to get back on the field Sunday against the Jaguars.

Justin Barnes – The Mike Salk Show

Whoever had the Seahawks starting the season 2-5 with this many marquee names on the roster, please step forward and claim your prize.

I attended the game in my usual seats (shout out to Section 327), and after slogging my way up the stairs in the wind/rain, I still felt confident that they’d find a way to pull this one off. You had to. This was a must-win, right? I believed the defense could hold it together long enough for Geno to piece together a late win in the fourth quarter, and it actually felt true midway through the first quarter.

The Seahawks’ defense looked pretty good for a squad that was giving up 400-plus yards a game just a couple weeks ago, but the Saints’ defense was better. And some dude named Alvin Kamara was better, too.

The Seahawks left points off the board and Geno’s offense didn’t play well enough. It’s hard to see much else from 450 feet above the ground, so forgive me for the oversimplification.

For those that weren’t there, the Matt Hasselbeck Ring of Honor ceremony at halftime was fantastic. Matt was fired up and gave a great speech that had me tearing up and reminiscing about the good old days (and the bad old days when I couldn’t give my tickets away), but do yourself a favor and watch the ceremony after you read this if you haven’t already. Matt rules, as we’ve been learning on The Matt Hasselbeck Show from 9-10 a.m. every Wednesday on 710 ESPN Seattle.

I’m not willing to start calling for people to get fired, cut or traded, and I say that with full acknowledgment that the W-L record looks tragic to all of us right now. Maybe I’m just an optimist, but I won’t set anything on fire or crawl into the dark corner until I know when No. 3 moves from the imaginary huddle to the real one. This wasn’t a blowout and Jameis didn’t embarrass the Hawks on primetime. They had their chances and just didn’t convert them. Keep believing.

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