Julian Love says Seahawks’ defense had the right response to loss to Bears

Defense has remained the strength of the Seattle Seahawks this year, but it has been a bit of an uneven season on that side of the ball for the defending Super Bowl champions.

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While the Seahawks have twice held an opponent to just three points in a game this year and have five games total where they allowed two scores or less in regulation, they have also allowed over 30 points in a game three times.

The most recent of those three contests was Seattle’s worst showing of the season, a 34-17 loss at home to the Chicago Bears on Nov. 2. And it’s something veteran safety Julian Love said didn’t sit right with the team.

“You can’t really sugarcoat it, we were all pissed off,” Love told Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob on Monday. “Everybody in that room felt like they needed to do more, needed to do better. It was the complete opposite of what we want, style-wise. Forget the results – just like style-wise, straight up, we got beat.”

The Seahawks turned that into motivation, though, which not only propelled the team to a 17-3 win over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday but helped the defense come together more as a group.

“What was exciting is that the group was really energized in a good way,” Love continued. “I feel like sometimes when that happens, it could really go left. People start to finger point, give that whole, ‘Oh, I did my job’ type of mindset. I’m just so happy we didn’t do that. Nobody did that.

“Everyone’s like, alright, I’ve got to double down on the process on what I’m doing. And as much as we can, we try to take it out on the Cardinals, because the previous game left a bad feeling for us. We were happy that we could turn it around and have a good week.”

Following the win over the Cardinals, the Hawks lead the NFL by a healthy margin in yards allowed per game at 244.2, over 35 less yards per game than the No. 2 team, the Minnesota Vikings (who have allowed 2,240 total yards in eight games compared to 2,198 by Seattle in nine games). They’re also tied for fourth in the NFL at 18 points allowed per game, which is less than a point more than the league-leading 17.2 points they allowed per game last year.

Love believes that the “Dark Side” defense is primed to lead a push down the stretch just like a year ago when Seattle won 11 of its last 12 games in the regular season.

“All the numbers, points scored against us, yards against us, were very similar and in fact sometimes better this year. It shows that we’re still finding our way,” Love said. “You’ve got to be playing your best football toward the end of the year, down the stretch. We hope we’ve learned a lot of hard lessons this year. I’m the optimist of the group, and I think it’s a blessing that we’re able to be in this spot with everything in front of us still.

“I think the defense can really take it up a notch, become who we are. People weren’t calling us the ‘Dark Side’ until Week 17, 18 last year. And so I think we can really show people what we’re about. But it takes a lot of work still. We still are climbing that mountain.”

Hear the full Wyman and Bob conversation with Seattle Seahawks safety Julian Love in the video at the top of this post, in the podcast at this link or in the audio player below. Catch Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob live from 2-7 p.m. weekdays.

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