The Seahawks are 3-1, but they are not very happy about how they have gotten there. That’s because they have not played very clean games the past two weeks.
Mike Macdonald was subdued after the Seahawks had to hold on for a narrow, penalty-filled 30-23 win over the Chargers on Sunday. It’s probably because he knows the 49ers are 4-0 and firing on all cylinders as they come to Seattle this week, while his team has played pretty sloppy football.
After a bad loss at Washington in Week 3, the Hawks came out with a vengeance against the Chargers – at least on defense. But that side played a little too aggressively at times, allowing the Chargers to rally from 21 points down to make it a one-score game in the fourth quarter.
It didn’t help that referee Scott Novak’s overzealous crew assessed a ridiculous 30 penalties to the Hawks and Chargers – a bunch of them completely uncalled for.
Ernest Jones IV indicated they were being nitpicky: “Anything they (saw), they were just on it. If you slow everything down, every play has a penalty in it.”
Seattle got nailed for a team-record 150 yards on 14 flags. A few of those calls were way out of line, but enough of them were legitimate (and then there were a few that CBS declined to show us, so we cannot make a judgment). Seattle was called for seven personal fouls – five on defense. A couple in the first half were bogus; a couple more could have gone either way.
Macdonald called them all “unacceptable on any level, however you slice it.” The Chargers scored on all three drives (17 points) that included defensive personal fouls. Each of L.A.’s two fourth-quarter TD drives included two 15-yarders against Seattle.
“We were off the field multiple times and we got penalties, so it’s cut and dry,” Macdonald said in explaining why the Chargers were hard to close out. “That’s not how we’re going to do business. That’s not how we’re going to play. It’s unacceptable.”
The offense has its own problems.
Sam Darnold ruined a first-play interception of Justin Herbert by Drake Thomas by throwing one on Seattle’s first offensive play (apparently the back-to-back picks to start a game were a first in NFL history). Darnold also had an intentional grounding in the first quarter as he got off to a rather rough start. But he also hit Emanuel Wilson for a 23-yard screen play touchdown right after the Chargers muffed a punt late in the first quarter.
The Seahawks pulled four takeaways in the game, which helped Darnold and the offense score twice on very short drives. Darnold also led the Hawks on a 68-yard drive to start the third quarter and put the Hawks up 27-6. But then the defensive penalties let Herbert and the Chargers claw back – and the offense failed to close out the game.
In the fourth quarter, the Hawks gained just 23 yards and were outscored 10-0. Uchenna Nwosu’s sack-fumble finally sealed it.
Brian Fleury had a couple nice calls – the screen play to Wilson and a 28-yard sweep by Rashid Shaheed out of the backfield. But he also failed to see that Seattle was dominating on the ground whenever it ran to the left. At halftime, the Hawks had gained 64 yards and scored twice on five attempts to the left side, while gaining just 18 yards on 10 right-side runs. He needs to recognize in-game trends better.
The Hawks also continued to struggle on third downs. They converted just 3 of 12 and now rank 31st in the NFL at 31.1%.
So, with the undefeated 49ers cruising into Seattle, the Hawks have a lot to clean up.
“We’re grateful for wins,” Macdonald said. “It’s frigging hard to win, which is awesome. But it’s also that we’re not there yet. So we’ve got to go to work, you know?”
