SEATTLE – The celebration lasted barely longer than the suspense in the game itself.
Not that the Seahawks didn’t enjoy their 44-13 win over the New Orleans Saints on Sunday at Lumen Field, which served as a convincing end to their perplexing woes at home, snapping a 1-7 skid that dated to last September and included a frustrating loss to the 49ers in the season opener two weeks ago.
“Very important,” receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba said. “This is our home, you know. If somebody walks in here, we’ve got to take care of that and let them know that, and it feels good for the 12s to have our back and for us to handle business and keep doing that the rest of the year.’’
And not that they didn’t celebrate Tory Horton’s team-record 95-yard punt return that highlighted one of the best special teams performances in franchise history, Sam Darnold’s perfect passer rating in the first half or taking a 38-6 lead at halftime, which was tied for the third-most points the Seahawks have ever scored in a half and allowed the second half to serve as a prolonged party at Lumen Field.
“It was a fun game,’’ said Smith-Njigba, who battled a flu bug on Friday and Saturday but recovered in time to play Sunday. “Everybody was flying around. Special teams units were doing their thing, defense was doing their thing and the offense came alive. It was a fun game all around.’’
But once the din died down, the Seahawks immediately began to look ahead.
Not only is there a game looming Thursday night in Arizona – a contest the Seahawks need to win to keep pace in the NFC West – but the way they beat the Saints only further convinced them that there may be a lot of bigger things ahead for the Seahawks in 2025 than a fun Sunday afternoon against a struggling team with a second-year quarterback who has never won an NFL game.
“We understand that we can be a really good football team and we’re determined to get there,” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said after the largest margin of victory win in his 20-game head coaching career. It was also the eighth win in 11 games dating to midway through last season.
Safety Ty Okada, who got the first start of his career in place of injured Julian Love, called it having “a never satisfied mentality.”
“I think coach Mike does a really good job of instilling that in us,” Okada said. “And I think we’re going to look back at this film and see that there are a lot of areas where we fell short. And we have some really big goals as a team and in order to attain those, we know that we have to play some incredible football. We’ll go back with a fine-toothed comb on this one and we can’t be satisfied with that win.“
Mistakes were few early as the Seahawks scored on their first seven possessions and took a 21-0 lead just 10 minutes and 38 seconds into the game, tying the record for the most first-quarter points in team history.
It was an onslaught that made clear that the home woes had ended, at least for this day, and reminded Okada of a recent visit the team had from Seahawks legendary cornerback Richard Sherman.
“He was like, ‘You have to feed these fans and they will be the loudest fans in the world for you,’ ” Okada said. “We feel that. It’s up to us to make that happen. To be able to build that trust again with the fans and continue to put a great product out there for them to get excited about and for them to rally behind, that’s what we always strive to achieve.”
The Seahawks unmistakably did that Sunday.
For the second straight week, they scored a touchdown on their first possession on a 12-yard pass from Darnold to Smith-Njigba, kept alive when New Orleans’ Bryan Bresee was called for unnecessary roughness when the Saints appeared to have gotten a third-down stop.
The Seahawks defense stopped the Saints and New Orleans’ Kai Kroger made the mistake of punting the ball to Horton, He evaded a tackle attempt by Velus Jones Jr. after catching the ball at the 5, used a block from Nehemiah Pritchett to find a seam and got a block around the 40 from Chazz Surratt, who raised his arms in the air after flattening his man, realizing Horton was gone.
“I’m not going to say that I told you all,” Smith-Njigba said with a smile to a group of reporters in the locker room, reminding them of how he had sung the praises of Horton early in training camp. “But we all know how special he is.”
Then came another stop, another Saints punt and another big play. This time, it was backup safety D’Anthony Bell – elevated off the practice squad on Saturday – bursting free over the right side to block the kick.
Bell was left unblocked when Saints upback Jack Stoll moved inside to his right at the snap to block up the middle.
“It was something that coach Jay (special teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh) seen all week, so we was prepared for them to get in that formation and we wanted to take advantage of it,” Bell said. “We got the opportunity in the game and it worked out.”
Surratt, a backup linebacker signed in late August after being released by the 49ers, tried to scoop-and-score but couldn’t get control of the ball, with the Seahawks getting it at the 11.
Bell said not scoring was the only disappointment of the play.
“But next time,” he said with a smile.
The Seahawks scored two plays after the blocked punt to take a 21-0 lead and that was basically the ballgame, with more than three quarters left to play.
Even if the outcome seemed over at that point, more highlights came: a Darnold 45-yard pass to Smith-Njigba that set up one TD and a Darnold 14-yard scoring pass to Horton that gave the rookie three scores in the past two games.
Darnold finished with two TD passes and a 154.2 passer rating for the day – he had a perfect 158.3 at the half. He has four TD passes in the past two games for a 104.7 passer rating for the season , right on par with the 102.5 he had during his breakout campaign last year with the Vikings.
“He’s just playing really good with great confidence and he’s decisive,” Macdonald said.
Backups played much of the last quarter as starters got some early rest in preparation for the trip to Arizona with the only injury of note an ankle issue incurred by rookie fullback Robbie Ouzts.
Macdonald, too, heard the cheers Sunday.
While he enjoyed them, he made it clear he hopes it’s just the first of many times he experiences that this season at Lumen Field.
“It’s important for us to play this way at home,” Macdonald said. “It was great to do that for them, so we got to do it more often.”