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After a tough loss, Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald talked about the needs for his offense, and also his controversial fourth-down decision. And here are the Seahawks most to blame for the crushing Week 1 loss to the 49ers.
Jake Tonges caught a deflected pass for a late touchdown, slapping the Seahawks with a tough 17-13 decision on Sunday.
At the head of the blame list is a certain cornerback, who failed at the game’s end.
Trailing 13-10 with less than two minutes remaining, the 49ers faced a third-and-three from the 4-yard line. Brock Purdy made what appeared to be a terrible decision, lofting a weak pass that should have been picked off — potentially giving the Seahawks the victory.
However, Woolen simply didn’t make a play on the ball. Watch here.
#49ers JAKE TONGES GO AHEAD TD! pic.twitter.com/HVLLAXM68b
— OurSF49ers (@OurSf49ers) September 7, 2025
It doesn’t get much worse than that from the cornernack position. And it wasn’t only that play, according to a post on X by 247 Sports analyst Nathan Carroll.
“Riq Woolen with the single worst possession I’ve ever seen a CB have. Gets two absolute ducks that should’ve been easy INTs… leads to a 40-yard pass and a TD. Brutal.”
Head coach Mike Macdonald took the high road in the team’s loss, according to Seahawks.com.
“Guys played really hard [Sunday],” Macdonald said. “Obviously, a disappointing result. But a lot of the process up to this point I’m pleased with, which would have been the same answer if we would have made a couple of plays there at the end. The intent was there, the detail we’ve got to improve on as a football team. And we’ll do that. It started today, and we’ll go work our tails off this week and look forward to playing Pittsburgh on [this coming] Sunday.”
Seattle managed 84 on 26 carries. The longest run of the game came from Sam Darnold, who authored a nine-yard “sprint.”
“I think it’s fair to say when we’re not running the ball effectively, we’re either not hitting our targets or wrongly leveraged or maybe not taking the right path,” Macdonald said. “It can just be one of whatever things, it’s not like guys don’t know what to do, it’s just how to do them to a certain extent. We’ll get those things cleaned up as we go.
“You’re never going to play a perfect football game. That’s why the effort and the physicality are so important, because a lot of times, that makes up for a little lack of detail here or there. They’ve got good players too. That’s why the game of football is so great. It’s just back and forth, this battle of wills. When we’re on our stuff and when we’re rolling, I think we can be pretty dang good.”
Putting up...
