Field Gulls
We will take it. Ensnared in the spookiest home stretch of their already spooky existence, the Seattle Seahawks exorcised their home demons ahead of Halloween. Lumen Field is a Little Shop of Horrors no more. Indeed, the Scream-ing 68,632 in attendance Saw their favorite defense slowly but surely Chainsaw Massacre the Houston Texans on a pretty Psycho night for Seattle sports fans.
While the team across the street found a new way to torture its pre-tortured fans, and went down meekly in the ninth with the Silence of Lambs, the Seahawks rode their own brand of chaos to a victory that never felt in doubt. Sure, it was artificially close at half, eight-point game, and artificially close at the end, eight-point margin again. But only because the league office abolished safeties Monday afternoon without informing anyone but the officials. Okay okay okay, also because the Seattle defensive line spent three hours grinding their Houston counterpoints into Beetlejuice.
It ain’t textbook writing technique to present you the entire plot in paragraph three, but what the hell, it’s that kind of night, and you might already be tired of the Halloween movie references. The Seahawks won despite going 2 for 13 on third down, despite committing 12 penalties, while having a field goal blocked and giving the ball away four times, once for a strip-sack touchdown. They did everything necessary to lose, and still dodged defeat. Seattle was never going to lose this game.
Even with the stripes behaving as if their fantasy football team was facing the Seahawks D/ST.
Safety 1 was called two points in real time but overturned for forward progress. C.J. Stroud was running backwards the whole time. Contacted at the one, sure, but he was not making forward progress at the time, nor was he tackled until his knee was a foot deep into the end zone and the ball even further. If the rule was applied correctly here, the rule must be changed, @ Competition Committee. Also, Mike Holmgren, is there any way you can take care of this for us, thx pops.
Safety 2 was reversed and changed to a touchback. If Drake Thomas doesn’t soak his fingers in molten butter between possessions, this is a sure touchdown. If it goes through the end zone it’s a safety. If x or y other things happen it’s a safety. The Seahawks just happened to find the one option that gets them zero points.
Things remained pretty weird from start to finish, as Seahawks games are wont to do: another grungy, soothing-by-its-complete-lack-of-soothing type of victory that feels routine to our fandom. Like an old pair of pajama pants with enough holes to make your lower bits feel drafty, but so soft and familiar that you still reach for them first in the closet anyway.
After the teams politely traded punts, Seattle took over in Houston territory and ran five plays to gain 44 yards, on the back of Elijah Arroyo, what? Yep, Sam Darnold found him wide...
