How the Seahawks ‘feasted’ on a mismatch vs the Chargers

There was a clear advantage the Seattle Seahawks had heading into their Week 4 matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers.

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The Seahawks came into the game boasting one of the top defensive lines in the league. The Chargers, meanwhile, have been dealing with suspect play on their offensive line for multiple seasons.

Add in three injuries to the Chargers’ O-line on Sunday, which included top offensive linemen Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater, and it was recipe for a dominant day from Seattle’s defensive front.

It turned out to be historically dominant.

According to a stat shared by ESPN’s Brady Henderson, the Chargers’ offensive line had just a 13% pass-block win rate, their lowest in the 10 years ESPN has been tracking the stat.

In addition to the stat Henderson shared, Seattle had 10 quarterback hits, sacked Justin Herbert four times, including forcing a game-sealing fumble in the final minutes, and pressured him on 21 of his 43 dropbacks.

Former NFL quarterback Brock Huard compared what Seattle’s defensive front did against the Chargers to a baseball team taking advantage of a bad relief pitcher during Monday’s edition of Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

“Maybe never a more favorable matchup then that Charger O-line (against the Seahawk D-line). And when you lose multiple guys going in and multiple guys during the game, you feasted like (you were facing) a bad reliever that comes in with an 8.00 ERA. You’ve got to take that guy apart, and they took him apart,” Huard said.

“Kind of fun to see Byron Murphy in that little ‘joker’ role again standing up, giving him a little head start on the rush… This 300-pound bowling ball is now going to get under my pads and destroy me. That’s a lot of fun for that offensive guard or center in the interior… I cannot imagine how sore Herbert was on that flight home last night.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player in this story. Listen to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app. 

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