The Seattle Seahawks offense is broken, but Sam Darnold is not

After not allowing opponents to score a touchdown for 9 consecutive quarters, the Seattle Seahawks said “this looks fun, let me try!”

Six scoring drives. 18 points.

Six scoring drives if they’re touchdowns gets you 42 points. Field goals don’t win postseason games.

Unless, apparently, Jason Myers is on a hot one.

I’ll just get it out of the way early: Seattle doesn’t win that game with early-season Myers. Seattle doesn’t win that game quite a few years of his career Myers. But right now, Jason Myers hasn’t missed a kick since before Thanksgiving and he is a superhero.

But yes. The offense is broken. How? Why?? We dive in after these brief messages.

I don’t know who Brian Drake is – he looks like a guy I used to play volleyball with – but allow me to disagree. This is the premise of this piece: significant problems on offense exist right now, but Sam Darnold is not the problem. A second contention: Darnold is currently damaged, but he’s not broken, and he’s on his way to repair.

How did we get here?

Let’s frame the argument this way, statistically. Seattle had a dynamically better game than the Indianapolis Colts. Here’s the breakdown:

• 264 passing yards to 118
• No interceptions to one, +1 in the turnover margin
• 5.3 yards per play to 3.7
• 7.1 yards per pass to 4.2, the type of thing you’d expect comparing a good quarterback to a bad (old) one
• Time of Possession quite close – 29 minutes to 31 in favor of Indy

Furthermore, Sam Darnold led the ultimate game-winning drive with 47 total seconds on the clock, Philip Rivers did not.

And yet, on 11 drives, only six of them scored, and only field goals.

I was at the game in person this time, which always adds a layer of perspective you just don’t get on the TV. I remember one time on a pitch left to Zach Charbonnet, seeing the hole open up far before he got there, whooping it up as it materialized into the big run of the game.

One time. It was eight yards. It was the longest run of the game.

Unfortunately, we are back to that. The run game is a massive problem. Seattle’s in the bottom-third of the league in rush yards per game this month, and it’s getting worse. 2.3YPC was the final mark against the Colts.

The inability to run the ball is both a symptom and a cause of the current offensive disastrophe. The following series began with a penalty on the kick return and ended with fans booing the offense off the field when the punt team came on.

Undeniably the worst drive of the series. Every single play contained a Colts player in Seattle’s backfield, plus a false start.

The problem is what we hoped it wasn’t this year, but that which it has been for years, now. The offensive line continues to struggle.

Others noticed as well.

This is becoming long-winded so let’s just support the observations of the faithful 12s with 31 yards on 8 carries for Zach Charbonnet (bad) and 17 yards on 9 carries for Kenneth Walker (horrible).

What it’s created is an offense so one-dimensional that is unable to get out of its own way. Which is fine if things are going well, but this game also held false starts and offensive offsides galore.

The offensive line is the problem. The result is the ineffective run game. The secondary result is an offense that has no real way to dig out of deep holes right now. The collateral damage is Sam Darnold, but again I will purport that he’s not broken.

I saw several moments of hesitation yet again today. I also saw a greater willingness to navigate the pocket – specifically to step up through the middle. He is rattled by several weeks now of team figuring out how and when to pressure this line, but he’s growing and throwing through it.

And come final two drives, Darnold was team leader and controlled commander. Three total incompletions on drives of 82 and 25 yards, for the lead-taking and game-winning field goals.

He’s still jittery. But though the offense as a whole is in shambles right now, Darnold has posted 20/30 and 22/36 in consecutive games.

This is good news. And in a week when three playoff hopefullys just essentially had their seasons ended by already-eliminated teams, the ability for a battered QB to win two game-winning drives in the fourth quarter when it finally mattered is a big deal.

On to the Rams.