Field Gulls
Are you ready for some very late Monday Night Football?
For the first time in team history, the Seattle Seahawks are playing a regular season home game at 7 pm PT. I guess we should also spare a thought for Houston Texans fans who have to watch their team play at 9 pm CT. Anyway, it’s time to make predictions for this last Seahawks game until November. First up, let’s review what happened last week.
Bold prediction: Seahawks have over 150 rushing yards
Bold? It was a stupid prediction.
Seahawks offense prediction: Elijah Arroyo scores his first touchdown
The wait continues. Even funnier is I predicted the same for Cooper Kupp in the Buccaneers game and he got it a week later. Maybe this means Arroyo scores tonight.
Seahawks defense prediction: The secondary overachieves
Despite some coverage busts and some good fortune with drops and bad Trevor Lawrence throws, I consider this a win for the Seahawks secondary. If it takes you 27 completions on 42 attempts to get 258 yards, you’ve not had a terribly efficient today.
Jaguars prediction: You guessed it, they’ll force turnovers out of the Seahawks
A couple of nervy moments but it was a clean game in terms of turnovers.
Game prediction: Seahawks commit too many mistakes, finally lose a road game
Another prediction I’m happy to be wrong about.
The NFL has been unable to stop the Sam Darnold to JSN combo all season. JSN has led the Seahawks in receiving yards in every game and he’s on pace to have one of the great single-season receiving yardage totals in league history. It’ll be tough sledding against a Texans defense that is No. 1 in points allowed and top five in FTN’s DVOA. Derek Stingley Jr is one of the NFL’s premier corners and the battles between him and Smith-Njigba will be fascinating to watch.
Knowing full well Demeco Ryans will be hell bent on limiting JSN, it might be time for someone else to step up for a day. Cooper Kupp could feature more out of his familiar slot role, A.J. Barner or Elijah Arroyo could try and work on PA boots and seam passes in the middle of the field, and maybe Tory Horton can bounce back after a 0-catch day.
This passing offense is very JSN reliant and it’s working well, but every once in awhile you need one of the “others” to step up, and that’s what I see happening. Someone other than Smith-Njigba will have the most receiving yards for Seattle.
The usage of Walker is interesting. Zach Charbonnet out-snapped him last week and supposedly they’re managing an ongoing foot issue, which is serious enough to do load management but not serious enough to ever put him on a regular season injury report. He’s essentially a non-option on third down because...
