Field Gulls
Seattle Seahawks games are many things, but never easy. They’re joyful and dispiriting, agonizing and thrilling. Hell, they have a way of switching between all four of those in a single quarter.
Coming into Week 3 at Lumen Field against the New Orleans Saints, who’d looked pluckier than their 0-2 record indicated, it was logical to observe all the usual fanbase fanspace for fanfrownyface. Hadn’t the Seahawks lost seven of their past eight home games? (Yes.) Hadn’t the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune felled Seattle’s top two defensive weapons and sickened their top offensive threat? (Also yes. Assume the questions are Yes until further notice.)
And then, the game itself put all perturbation to rest. It was 21-0 before you could blink, 38-6 at half, and the entire fourth quarter was fifteen minutes of mercy rule. For the second week in a row, the Seahawks scored seven on their opening drive, won in all three phases and easily dispatched a foe that a good team should easily dispatch.
Of all frickin’ things, it was a relaxing Seahawks victory on a perfect fall afternoon, bracketed by other key wins from other local teams, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Anyway. All three phases. That definitely includes this franchise record 95-yard punt return from winged rookie sensation Tory Horton.
The only Who Horton heard on the way to the end zone was the breathy thud of New Orleans’ kicker having the wind knocked out of him by Chazz Surratt, who we most definitely will get to later.
We’ll get to almost everything, but the everything was a lot more than usual today. With your permission, a cross-sport analogy. You know what they say about baseball — in part, you go to a game because you never know what you’ll see for the first time.
Today’s first? Kellen Moore throwing in the towel before it even had a chance to dry. A recent Seahawks coach used to say you can’t win the game in the first, second or even the third quarter. Well, the Saints staff proved that wizened coach wrong, in a roundabout backwardsy sort of way. They did something I’ve never seen in an NFL game: they conceded before the two-minute warning. No, not THAT two-minute warning. The first one. To set the stage for a sec:
Seattle had been scoring at will in the first half. After the score reached a preposterous 35-3, Moore found himself contemplating fourth and two at the Seattle 33. Having moved the ball already 42 yards on the drive, a go made sense. A long field goal takes you from a four score game to a four score game. There is no point. And yet there he is, sending out the kicking team. (Missed the kick but that’s immaterial.)
I understand that Moore had gone for it on the first drive and come up empty. Then watched his squad mis-execute their next chance on fourth and one, leading directly to the blocked punt....
