Seattle Seahawks Totally Dominated By St. Louis Rams… Still Win Game

Credit: Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports

In a game that you are totally dominated by the other team, how do you win? I watched the Seahawks suffer through this scenario and I still don’t know. I will be the first to admit that that was a pathetic performance by Seattle on a national stage, but we can’t say the Seahawks aren’t entertaining on Monday Night Football, with their previous game being the Fail Mary against the Green Bay Packers. Tonight they won in what should be seen as a terribly inefficient game by both teams, but when it comes down to one last play to win or lose, it makes for entertaining television does it not?

This game can be broken down in three words…terrible offensive blocking. The offensive line, which has had it’s fair share of trouble all season, just gave hope to 31 teams out there. There was absolutely no respect for our passing game…none. It was like the Rams brought a gun to a knife fight. They dared us to beat them and for 95% of the game we couldn’t. If it wasn’t for a great play on the ball by Golden Tate we would have finished the game with 7 points and under 100 yards of total offense.

I am sad to see the Seahawks falling into their norm, one game, one injury. Sidney Rice went out with an injury and we don’t know the extent, at least as of this writing. Every game we lose somebody, we can’t afford to keep doing this. Imagine if our injured players were on our beleaguered offensive line? The Bye week can’t come quickly enough.

3rd downs continue to plague us on both sides of the ball. We were able to convert a measly 2-11 on 3rd down. However, because it wasn’t challenging enough to have a terrible 3rd down conversion rate lets create a new dilemma, total first downs. We had a whopping 7 first downs…for the whole game. And do we even need to discuss the fact that they were able to amass 135 total yards? (My inner voice keeps repeating “pick your battles, pick your battles”) Okay, I’ll just let that one go.

Is it too much to ask for Mr. Bevell to get a bit more creative with his offensive play calling? Dropping straight back every time to run and throw the ball gets old very quickly when the other team is stacking the box, pinning their ears back and rushing the quarterback unabated. Could we try a bubble screen, play action, read-option or a roll out every once in a while just for kicks and giggles? Let’s open the play book back up and try something unique, especially when nothing else is working. What it looked like was we opened the play book alright…and showed it to the other team.

The Rams consistently had good field position all night compared to Seattle’s pitiful starting locations. To make matters worse we found ourself going backward with penalties on several occasions placing us further inside our own territory. This took any hope of running the ball away and left us passing, which meant they could pressure the quarterback and drive our team backward. A terribly vicious cycle.

I give Kellen Clemens credit, he did a very admirable job in a tough situation. He wasn’t great, but admirable. Throwing two picks early could have really hurt his confidence but he continued to stay in there and throw the ball. He only threw for 158 yards…but that was 19 more than Russell Wilson. He definitely showed a lot of tenacity and moxie in battling Seattle. Zac Stacy acted out his best impression of beastmode against our stout defense. His 134 yards overshadowed any semblance of running game that we tried to muster. Most of Stacy’s runs were against the grain, with the line moving one way and him moving the opposite. I think a ‘missing persons’ report went out for Tavon Austin who continues to be noticeably absent from this team’s offense…very peculiar if you ask me.

This was the kind of game that you looked for a hero…any hero would do. Enter Golden Tate stage left. Run. Jump. Catch. Taunt. Score. Thank you Golden for creating the only highlight of the evening, you seem to have a knack for the spectacular (especially on Monday Night Football). I wonder if Hallmark makes a ‘Thank You Mr. Tate, For All That You Do’ card?

If this game was meant to send a message to the other teams in the NFL, then I think we succeeded…we just sent the wrong message. The message I received was ‘get pressure on our QB and the Seahawks can be beaten’. Go Hawks!