Field Gulls
The Seattle Seahawks have won every game they’ve played this season except for the ones wherein catastrophic turnover timing has doomed them.
Actually, they’ve won a couple of those as well.
At 20 turnovers, the Seahawks now lead the NFL in the least-desired category that exists, except losses, I suppose. Sam Darnold has already called it “unacceptable” – which it is for a team that has been competitive in a 10-0 attempt. Falling short a couple of times and making two others much closer than they need to be, the final obstacle that faces Seattle’s playoff outlook this season is their own inability to keep the football.
And the Tennessee Titans aren’t going to help.
It’s been rather popular in the Seattle sports scene this week to call the upcoming match against the Titans a “get right game.” Multiple outlets from 710 radio to the Sea Hawkers Podcast – whom I like very much, by the way – have used the popular sports idiom.
I’d like to present one counter-argument before the events of this weekend leave the Seahawks with another 15+ point victory and the NFL’s top point-differential heralds them as just fine.
Simply that Tennessee sucks so bad that Sam Darnold won’t get any meaningful growth out of the game.
During his lament this week, Darnold said the first phrase that really bummed me out all season. Here, again as I’m sure you’ve seen it, is the quote:
“Just having a better understanding when the ball’s snapped [of] what the coverage is and when a guy is going to come open and when he’s not. When I say ‘get stuck on a progression,’ I mean just seeing one side of the field and feeling like there’s a chance that someone’s going to get open over there rather than just moving on and clicking through my progression as I normally do.”
Darnold has been a true champion of team-oriented leadership this season. I’ve loved the change at QB, as it sounds much of the roster has as well. He takes responsibility, doesn’t boast, doesn’t give things away.
This though was a worry because it’s the closest thing to confirming fears that many have had all season. In the most meaningful games, against the most challenging teams, will Sam Darnold play differently?
Did not like the admission from the quarterback that he did. Did not like it at all.
And here’s why the Titans do absolutely nothing to solve this.
They’re bad.
Specifically, they’re just not a complicated, cohesive, blue-chip defense at all. And so the Seahawks can go out there and “solve” their run game with 185 yards for three TDs, or Darnold can have a turnover-free 300 yards and we can all come back here next week proclaiming “fixed!”
But that is not the real issue, is it? Darnold destroys bad teams. In fact, he plays pretty well against good teams, too. Since beating them, the Houston Texans have become the NFL’s number 1 defense, and it...
