Run defense ‘didn’t start fast enough’ in Seahawks’ loss

The Seattle Seahawks’ recent improvements on run defense were at the heart of their midseason turnaround, sparking a four-game win streak that vaulted them atop the NFC West.

Observations from Seahawks’ humbling 30-13 loss to Packers

But in Sunday night’s 30-13 loss to the Green Bay Packers, Seattle’s run defense took a step back early on.

And it put the Seahawks in a hole they couldn’t recover from.

Green Bay leaned heavily on its high-powered ground attack during its first two drives, piling up 66 rushing yards on 12 carries while marching downfield for back-to-back touchdowns to stake an early 14-0 lead. Seattle held the Packers to just 74 yards on 22 carries the rest of the way, but the damage had been done.

“We just got going too late,” Seahawks linebacker Ernest Jones IV said. “When you’re playing a good football team like that, you can’t get down how we were.”

Green Bay star running back Josh Jacobs, the NFL’s third-leading rusher, got the ball early and often. On the Packers’ first two drives, he ran for 46 yards and a touchdown on eight carries and added three catches for 38 yards. He finished with 94 yards and a TD on 26 carries, along with four receptions for 42 yards.

“We’d been doing such a good job the past six weeks of stopping the run, and we just didn’t early on,” Seahawks safety Julian Love said. “And so it allowed them to open up their game and kind of get everything going.

“We let a pretty good running back just get started early, which defensively you can’t do. … We cleaned it up as the game went on, but you can’t be that loose early on.”

Lucky TD No. 13 for Jacobs!#ProBowlVote + #JoshJacobs pic.twitter.com/EDVNCJEDKW

— Green Bay Packers (@packers) December 16, 2024

Over its previous five games, Seattle had allowed just 91.6 rushing yards per game. The Packers surpassed that mark by halftime.

“There were some plays that we normally make that we didn’t, and there’s plays that they outplayed us and earned those yards,” Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said. “And I can call a better game too and have a better plan.

“You want to feel like you’re ahead of the game, and we just didn’t start fast enough,” he added. “So we’ll look at why and figure out schematically on what we can do better.”

Green Bay uses a lot of motion on offense, but Jones said the Packers threw in some wrinkles with their motion that confused the Seahawks early on.

“In any game, those first 15 plays, you’re gonna get new stuff from offenses,” Jones said. “And they came out, tweaked a few things, kind of attacked the areas that had given us problems early on in the year.

“Credit to them,” he added. “They came out (and) won the game. They executed their game plan and we didn’t.”

Seattle cut the deficit to 23-13 in the fourth quarter, but the early hole proved too much to overcome – especially with backup Sam Howell in at quarterback after Geno Smith exited with a knee injury midway through the third quarter.

“The main thing that Mike stressed in this game was that we had to start fast, and we didn’t,” Love said. “And so we were just playing catchup the whole game.”

Seattle Seahawks news and analysis

• Seattle Seahawks Injuries: The latest on Geno Smith’s knee and more
• Rost: What Seattle Seahawks’ 30-13 loss to Packers showed
• Instant Reaction to ugly night for Seattle Seahawks in loss to Packers

Follow @CameronVanTil