Most NFL teams can say this. That includes the Seahawks:
Most NFL teams can say this. That includes the Seahawks:
If the quarterback didn’t turn over the ball on his final plays of two one-score games, Seattle would be unbeaten.
Yet it’s true.
For how remarkable Sam Darnold has been leading the league in passing yards per throw and at the top in efficiency, he’s lost the ball under pass-rush pressure late in their only two defeats, games the Seahawks were in position to win. He lost a fumble inside the 20-yard line with his team down 17-13 and 36 seconds remaining in the opener Sept. 7. San Francisco’s Nick Bosa pushed Seattle right tackle Abe Lucas into Darnold’s arm, dislodging the ball. Bosa recovered. Seattle lost.
Last weekend, Seattle and Tampa Bay were tied at 35 with 58 seconds left. Buccaneers safety Antoine Winfield Jr. blitzed free through the left side of the Seahawks’ line. He hit Darnold as he was trying to throw, maybe the ball away, in the direction of wide receiver Cooper Kupp over the middle. Winfield’s hit caused the ball to hit off a defensive lineman’s helmet into the arms of diving linebacker Lavonte David for a crushing interception in Seattle’s end of the field. The Bucs ran out the clock from there to the winning field goal as time expired.
Now Darnold and the Seahawks (3-2) are in Florida to play surprising Jacksonville (4-1) Sunday (10 a.m., Fox television, channel 13 locally). The Jaguars, coming off a win over defending AFC-champion Kansas City Monday night, have been creating and getting more turnovers than anybody in the NFL.
Jacksonville has 10 interceptions and four fumble recoveries in five games. The Jags’ turnover margin of plus-eight is the league’s best.
Guess what Darnold and the Seahawks have focused on this week, as the top key to Sunday’s game.
“We’re always focused on ball security, protecting the football, whether it’s in the pocket, being smart outside the pocket, and just taking care of the football, in general, for myself, but also everyone has on offense,” Darnold said. “Even kick return, everybody just forcing themselves to have really good ball security — not just this week, but every single week.
“But obviously they do a great job of taking the ball away. And we know that.”
Darnold’s film study of the Jaguars, plus watching their win over the Chiefs Monday night from his couch, showed him why Jacksonville gets so many takeaways.
“They do a great job when ball carriers are out in space of punching the ball out, just attacking the football,” Darnold said.
“You see them all over the tape tying their pressures in with their coverages, understanding where passes are, where they’re more vulnerable as a defense with their pressures. And I feel like their DBs and linebackers do a really good job of getting into those certain spaces.”
The Jaguars’ Devin Lloyd leads the NFL with four interceptions through five games. That’s unusual for a middle linebacker in a 4-3 scheme, which Jacksonville runs.
“He flies around,” Darnold said of the Jags’ first-round draft choice from Utah in 2022. “He’s a really good player. Both of their backers (including eighth-year veteran Foyesade Oluokun) are really good. We’ve got our hands full there.
“But again, they do a really good job in making everything look the same, especially in their third-down packages.”
That brings us to the second key to Sunday’s game...
Success on early downs
The last two games, the Seahawks’ running game has started to gain some consistency. They romped for 100 of their 122 yards on the ground against Tampa Bay last weekend in the second half. The game before they romped for 155 yards rushing while winning at Arizona.
The better running has meant shorter third downs. That has meant more conversions, more controlling field position, and 58 points scored the last two games. The Seahawks are eighth in the NFL converting 43.6% of their third downs this season.
That’s far better than last season. Seattle converted only 37.6% of third downs in 2024, 21st in the 32-team NFL. A large reason for that: the Seahawks’ average yards to gain on third down were a ridiculous 8.9 yards. That was because their were 29th in the league in rushing offense. This season, 25 of Seattle’s 55 third downs have been 6 yards or fewer. The Seahawks are 20 for 25 (80%) converting those.
They are only 4 for 30 converting third and 7-plus yards.
If lead back Kenneth Walker and number-two Zach Charbonnet can run on the Jaguars, who are 11th in rush defense (97.8 yards per game), then nearly half their third downs can be 6 yards or fewer again on Sunday. That would put the Seahawks in fewer risky situations the Jaguars defense thrives in to create turnovers.
Tackle somebody. Anybody
Two games ago, the Seahawks were one of the NFL’s top two defenses. They were second in the league allowing 15.7 points per game. No foe had scored more than 17 points against them.
But they have allowed 55 points in the last 66 minutes of game time. Seattle led at Arizona 20-6 with 6 minutes left, then allowed the Cardinals to score two late touchdowns to tie the game Sept. 25. The Seahawks escaped with a win only after Arizona botched a kickoff for a 40-yard drive start for Seattle, to Jason Myers’ winning field goal on the final play.
Last weekend in allowing the Buccaneers 38 points in Seattle’s latest home loss, the Seahawks’ season-long issue of poor tackling became acute.
In September, the problem was in the secondary that has yet to go a full game playing all its regular starters because of injuries galore. Last week against Tampa Bay, the missed tackles spread across the entire defense, from front to back.
Linemen missed tackles. Linebackers missed tackles. The cornerbacks and safeties, starters and injury fill-ins alike, missed tackles. Derion Kendrick, the nickel defensive back with Devon Witherspoon still out with a bruised knee ligament, stood in the middle of the field and watched two Buccaneers ball carriers run by him rather than even try to tackle them on consecutive plays near the goal line in the first half.
Even Pro Bowl end Leonard Williams played what coach Mike Macdonald acknowledged Friday was one of his poorer games.
“Look, we love Leo. We love him. He’s probably our best player. But he didn’t have his best game against Tampa Bay,” Macdonald said.
“We could go all the way through the whole roster, and nobody played their best football. We didn’t call our best game. We didn’t prepare for our best game.
“And we all know that. We’re trying to grow from it.”
They’ve reviewed how they are teaching form tackling. They’ve looked at the drills they are doing in practice (where they, as throughout the NFL, do everything but bring guys to ground to preserve players from injury between games). If it doesn’t get better Sunday against the Jaguars, the Seahawks will likely, suddenly, be 3-3.
“I think the thing is just taking an extra step on the guys getting their body on them, and it’s hard to do that when you’re not in pads (practicing),” said veteran defensive tackle Jarran Reed, who Sunday in Jacksonville will be giving another of his fiery messages he has each week on the field at the end of pregame warmups. “So, you have got to put more emphasis on it when we’re in practice. The thing that we’re doing now is make sure we’re taking the extra step, making sure we get in contact with the guy, not taking to the ground but putting a body on the body.
“I think we’ve done a good job tackling this season. Way better than some of the past seasons. And it’s a quick fix. That’s the NFL, right? Stuff happens in games, and you get to come back and you get the chance to change those things.”
Reed says: “Now that we’re on it, I think the guys are taking the initiative inside themselves to make sure that each guy takes the next step when they are there to make those plays. And once again, we’ve got to hold each other accountable.
“So, we’ve all got to be ready for constructive criticism, and we’ve got to take that, and we have to hit head on.”
Category: General Sports
