SEATTLE — The Seahawks were, somehow, still alive.
After giving up 21 points off their own turnovers for the second time on the young season, Seattle found itself driving for game-saving points down 32-29 to its rival and the NFC West-leading San Francisco 49ers in Week 5 on Sunday afternoon.
With star receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba over 100 yards with a touchdown already on the day, quarterback Sam Darnold let a ball fly down the left side on third-and-10 for his go-to option on what would’ve been a 30-yard gain to put Seattle in position to win it in the red zone with around a minute to play.
Smith-Njigba leaped to cradle the ball as it came in over his shoulder, but to the shock of everyone in the stadium, the reigning Offensive Player of the Year had the ball slip through his hands. After a diving attempt at a first down on fourth-and-10 from Cooper Kupp came up short, Seattle was forced to come to terms with an avoidable loss to drop to 3-2. To make matters worse, San Francisco improved to 5-0 to take a solid divisional lead at this early junction of the season.
“Catch the damn football, at the end of the day,” said Smith-Njigba when asked what he learned from the crucial miscue. “I know I’ll make the next one.”
For head coach Mike Macdonald, Sunday wasn’t the kind of team game he wants to see from his squad.
“In terms of playing complementary football the way that we want to play here as Seahawks, and become the team that we want to become, we’re not there yet,” Macdonald said postgame.
Of course, Smith-Njigba was a key component of why Seattle found itself in the game late. He had just set the Seahawks up at the 50 with a 35-yard catch-and-run, and his TD in the third quarter sparked wonder in the home crowd, as he shifted gears on a short catch to go 16 yards to the house untouched on what turned out to be a five-catch, 102-yard day. Darnold finished the 18-for-29 with 195 passing yards, adding a touchdown and two interceptions to bring his season tally to five picks in just three complete games.
“You gotta tip your cap to (the 49ers); they played a good game, but… those are all things that I can control,” Darnold said. “Just can’t be putting the ball in jeopardy like that.”
Of course, on the other end was Seattle’s defense that was consistently holding the 49ers off the board when San Francisco was faced with longer fields. On top of that, Seattle recovered two fumbles (one on a muffed punt) and got a Nehemiah Pritchett interception during a strong third quarter that Seattle won 13-0. Ultimately, some tough scrambles from Niners quarterback Brock Purdy led to a TD to Brandin Cooks and an ensuing two-point conversion to Mike Evans before kicker Eddy Pineiro hit a 44-yard field goal at the two-minute warning for what ended up as the game-deciding points.
As the first half played out, however, the Seahawks offense knew that its defense was keeping the team above water.
“There’s frustration, without a doubt there’s frustration,” Kupp said. “You’re very aware of how good the defense is playing… offensively, we put the defense in a lot of really tough positions.”
Through the first half, San Francisco’s offense scored two touchdowns. The first came after Darnold threw an interception on his first drive for the second straight game after a rough start against the LA Chargers last week, this time to Renardo Green while targeting Smith-Njigba. Evans, who finished with a dominant performance to the tune of seven catches for 113 yards and a score, leveraged his size advantage to beat Josh Jobe for a TD off a slant route.
After Seattle running back Emanuel Wilson (20 carries, 61 yards) scored his lone TD of the game to tie it up at 7-7, the defense got two more stops, only for Wilson to be stripped by 49ers star linebacker Fred Warner.
Christian McCaffrey made it 14-10 for San Francisco on an 11-yard glide to the end zone a play later.
With Seattle down 14-13, the Seahawks offense received the ball inside the five-yard line with under 20 seconds to play in the first half.
Despite running back George Holani having fumbled of his own accord on the prior field-goal drive, offense coordinator Brian Fleury and company stuck with him on a run right out of the endzone.
San Francisco got penetration, and Holani was hit by defensive tackle Gracen Halton, resulting in an end-zone fumble that was also recovered by Halton to make it 21-13.
All 21 opposing points were directly off turnovers.
“Defense, special teams, they deserve this win,” Smith-Njigba said. “As an offense, myself, feel like we let them down.”
The defending champs, led in part by linebacker Ernest Jones IV, aren’t the types to point fingers, though.
“Nobody’s fault,” Jones said. “We could’ve executed better in the red zone… we got to get stops. You turn those touchdowns into three points, you may be looking at a different game.”
At the end of the day, however, there were positives for a Seattle team looking at Thursday matchup with an AFC contender in the Denver Broncos.
Defensive tackle Byron Murphy II sacked Purdy, who hadn’t been sacked at all in four games, twice by the early second quarter and had three tackles for a loss. And for a “Dark Side” defense regarded as one of the best in the NFL, Seattle didn’t allow San Francisco to score off a non-turnover situation until the Cooks’ TD in the fourth quarter.
“I feel good. Honestly, I still feel the same as I did before the season started,” Jones said, referring to “little things” being the difference in Seattle’s two losses. “We could very well be sitting in the same thing 5-0 just like (San Francisco).”
