Three instant impressions after the Seattle Seahawks held off the Tennessee Titans 30-24 to improve to 8-3:
Sloppy, but expected
Should anyone be surprised that victory proved to be a little more challenging than was probably expected?
In reality, a game that was mostly a slog is exactly the kind of game for which everyone should have prepared.
There was the general hangover around the disappointment of last week’s loss to the Rams. There was another cross-country trip that required leaving on Friday (with two more still to come next month). There was also the malaise of playing a 1-9 team in front of a partly empty stadium – albeit with plenty of Seahawks fans in attendance.
It wasn’t a letdown effort by any means from the Seahawks. But some of the overall sloppiness, some of the missed assignments, the breakdown on special teams, it all wasn’t surprising. The Seahawks were penalized 11 times. They had a pair of three-and-outs on offense in the second half and finished with only 22 minutes, 35 seconds of possession. The defense let Cam Ward be a consistent pest, looking a bit like the quarterback he was in college at Washington State and Miami. Special teams allowed the first punt return for a touchdown in more than six years.
The upside for Mike Macdonald is a game like this provides plenty of teaching tape and an opportunity to get his team to sharpen its focus while also still enjoying a win.
JSN, MVP?
Do we need to start looking at what Jaxon Smith-Njigba is doing in the same context of what Cal Raleigh did for the Mariners?
Raleigh put together a season that had never been seen before by a player at his position and was deservedly in the conversation for the league MVP; arguably, he should have won it.
What Smith-Njigba is doing is starting to fall into a similar framework. He’s one of three wide receivers in league history to have at least 75 yards receiving in the first 11 games of the season. It took him less than 11 full games to set the franchise record for yards receiving in a single season. He’s leading the league in that category and it’s not particularly close.
Putting Smith-Njigba into the MVP conversation seems fair at this point. It’ll almost assuredly go to a quarterback – it almost always does – but if Smith-Njigba can keep this up for the next few weeks, and especially with some of the big games still to come, that talk will become a little more real.
It’s a season that is looking more and more like what teammate Cooper Kupp did in 2021 with the Rams. Kupp ended up getting one MVP vote that season, but he was named the NFL offensive player of the year.
A good zero
It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of a game that ended up being closer than expected, but the Seahawks committed zero turnovers. That’s a big step after Sam Darnold’s four interception game last week against the Rams and the 12 total turnovers over the previous four games.
The overall turnover number is still higher than anyone associated with the Seahawks would like, but avoiding any against the lowly Titans is a positive step.