“Just imagine when it’s all three phases clicking.” – Mike Macdonald to his team after a mistake-filled 27-19 win over Houston
If you had told us the Seahawks would score 27 points and beat Houston by eight on Monday night, we would have taken that. Heck, we still will – since the Hawks moved to 5-2 and kept pace with the NFC leaders with a 27-19 win.
But, as the quote above shows, even Mike Macdonald was dreaming about the blowout that should have been – and the day his team plays a complete game.
Early on, it looked like this might be one of those. The Hawks jumped to a fast 14-0 lead and kept threatening to blow the game wide open in the first half. But they kept turning the ball over, committing penalties and having other odd things happen. What should have/could have been a 24-0 halftime lead instead was just 14-6. And despite their dominant defense, the Hawks never could put away the Texans until the final seconds.
The Hawks pulled out a rare win by an NFL team that committed at least 10 penalties, was minus-3 in turnovers and converted under 25% of third downs.
They also lost a safety (on a ref reversal) and a defensive touchdown (coughing up the ball just before scoring) and had a kick blocked.
As Sam Darnold said, “What a weird game.”
Much like last week in a 20-12 win over Jacksonville, the Hawks’ defense made things normal through its domination. The unit tallied three sacks, seven QB hits, 28 pressures, 10 tackles for loss, 12 passes defensed, one interception and three fourth-down stops.
Macdonald said, “We picked our offense up today on defense. … Once we get all three phases going, rolling in games, that’s when you have games that are not coming down to the last possession.”
Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy II, Uchenna Nwosu and DeMarcus Lawrence continued to lead the charge up front. Murphy was third on the team with six tackles. The three others combined for two sacks, four tackles for loss and four QB hits. Nwosu now has six sacks to lead the team – a great comeback season after the past two injury-plagued years.
Ernest Jones led the way with 11 tackles and also picked off a pass for the third time this season. Drake Thomas continued to grow into his role as the starter alongside Jones; Thomas recorded five tackles, two TFLs, three passes defensed and a QB hit.
Ty Okada had perhaps his best game as the fill-in for Julian Love, with nine tackles, a blitz sack, a TFL, a leaping end zone pass knockdown and a QB hit.
Riq Woolen and Josh Jobe played well on the corners as the Hawks allowed just 117 yards to Houston receivers. Woolen and Jobe each had two passes defensed – although Jobe dropped two potential picks, which prompted Macdonald to invoke the Leslie Frazier School of Ball Skills again.
So, we know how the Hawks won – that defense.
Why was it so close then? The offense.
Klint Kubiak’s unit started fast, with Zach Charbonnet scoring to finish a short-field drive and Jaxon Smith-Njigba topping off an 80-yard drive with a TD catch.
But then Cooper Kupp threw a pick on a gadget play from the Houston 21-yard line (ruining a likely TD drive) and Jason Myers’ 53-yard attempt was blocked after the offense inexplicably did not try to score a touchdown at the end of the half. They wasted 20 seconds after a run to the Houston 40 and then threw a third-down incompletion before the botched kick. Houston then got within range for its own field goal to end the half. Instead of a possible 24-0 lead, Seattle was up just 14-6 due to those mistakes.
Seattle went just 2 of 14 on third downs and turned it over three times – including a Darnold sack-fumble in the end zone that Houston recovered — while still struggling to find any consistent running game. The Hawks finished with 118 yards on 33 runs, with Kenneth Walker and Charbonnet both finding a few creases on the night amid some major blocking struggles on most of their runs. Macdonald was as dissatisfied as everyone else: “We’re searching for answers.”
The offense still largely continues to be Darnold and JSN. The star receiver had 123 of Seattle’s 213 receiving yards and became the first player in team history with 100 yards and a TD catch in three straight games, according to ESPN Research.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: The Hawks do not want to keep relying on JSN to be almost their entire passing offense – and most of their offense, for that matter. Macdonald clearly knows that – and he can see a day when the Hawks play a complete game.
“Just imagine when it’s all three phases clicking.”
CHAWK TALK: Everything being said about the Seahawks 
Swear off the momentum-killing trick plays. Kupp’s interception is the blunted what was shaping up as an early blowout. No trick plays have contributed anything
Accept that Kupp is a #3 at this point in his distinguished career. Some teams are about to go into fire sale mode. See if one of them will accept 2026 draft capital for a solid WR
Stick with plan for Walker and Charbonnet. I guess I’m a minority here plus I’m not huge on Charbonnet, but it does seem like Kubiak is starting to play to Zach’s strengths as a short-yardage guy and clock eater
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