Ted’s Talk: Opportunistic Seahawks do birds dirty in Atlanta

Ted’s Talk: Opportunistic Seahawks do birds dirty in Atlanta
Field Gulls Field Gulls

I’ll be honest, at halftime with the Seattle Seahawks playing to a 6-6 tie with the Atlanta Falcons, I was becoming a little concerned with Seattle’s offense. At that point, their production in the last seven quarters had been one Zach Charbonnet touchdown and a whole mess of field goals. Seattle’s defense produced just as many touchdowns in that span thanks to Ernest Jones IV’s pick six against the Minnesota Vikings. In addition to the lack of scoring, there were so many drives that looked disjointed. Ill-timed penalties and plays getting stopped for a loss were far too commonplace. Look no further than the first drive of the game, where they lost yardage on all three plays and had to punt backed up against their own end zone. Things were looking pretty bleak at halftime as the doubts were starting to pile up.

Then Rashid Shaheed made his presence felt.

That huge kick return breathed life back into the Seahawks. Their defense, already playing like a group of wild banshees, kicked it up another notch and exerted even more pressure which led to more turnovers. Using these extra possessions, Seattle’s offense finally broke out of its slump scoring 24 points after the Shaheed touchdown to clip the Falcons’ wings en route to a 37-9 shellacking. It was an extremely satisfying second half that showed the immense potential of Mike Macdonald’s squad.

Seahawks Droppings

  • Seattle’s defense was finally healthy for the first time since Week 1 and it showed. Julian Love split time with Ty Okada – and most importantly – didn’t suffer any setbacks. Jarran Reed was back and forced a fumble on Bijan Robinson with his club. The Seahawks defense hasn’t given up a touchdown the last two games, holding firm in their red zone with backups in the late fourth quarter against Atlanta after two very stupid penalties that extended the Falcons’ drive. It was a matter of pride, and Seattle was having none of that nonsense whether they had the starters in or backups. You love to see it!
  • Speaking of things you love to see, Devon Witherspoon is always mentioned as playing better than his statistics would indicate. Coming into the game today, he had only one career interception. Make that two now, as Spoon somehow came up with a bobbling pick on a screen play. Really though, he deserved it since he was the one who blew up the play in the first place. Spoon was also flying all over the field, pressuring on blitzes, and making huge tackles. Oh yeah, and he broke up the pass that turned into Nick Emmanwori’s first career interception.
  • Whew, Nick Emmanwori. If you watched the game, you know what I mean. If Spoon was all over the field, Emmanwori was arguably even better with 6 tackles, 1 sack, 1 interception, and a blocked field goal. The fact that Emmanwori is playing this well as a rookie who missed time early in the season is...