Seriously, my heart is still pounding in the Emerald City after that one. The Seahawks fell to the Broncos 17-14 in overtime on Thursday Night Football, and it was a total gut punch. Losing like that, especially after the defense put in work, is just brutal.
Our Premier Defense Showed Up, But It Wasn’t Enough To Close It
Look, we rolled into Denver as one of the NFL’s premier defenses, no doubt about it. We’re talking limiting opposing aerial attacks to just 150 yards a game, a Top 3 third-down defense, and constantly generating turnovers. Everyone knows how tough it is to play against Mike Macdonald’s squad. And for a good chunk of that game, especially in the second half, our D was absolutely suffocating. Those Broncos? They put up two scoring drives early, including a monster 19-play, 79-yard march that ate up nearly nine minutes, and another 9-play, 74-yard drive capped by an RJ Harvey touchdown run. They even converted three third downs and a key fourth down in the first half! Our D gave up 130 yards in that first half, too.
But after that, the Broncos offense just vanished. They managed only one third down conversion in the entire second half and a pitiful 36 yards of offense across eight drives. I mean, their quarterback Bo Nix was, and I quote, “playing absolutely awful,” with “bottom of the barrel play from Nix every single week.” So, when their offense completely collapsed, you’d think our premier defense would have locked it down completely for the win. Denver’s defensive effort, with guys like Jahdae Barron and Kris Abrams-Draine getting reps and focusing on Jaxon Smith-Njigba, was the major reason they won. But it still stings that our D couldn’t secure the win when the Broncos offered so many chances in that second half.
Where Was The Attack, Sam Darnold?
This is where it gets tough to talk about. While Denver’s defense deserves a lot of credit for being “pretty darn good tonight” and limiting our guys, our offense just couldn’t get anything going, especially early. They held us to a measly 91 total yards of offense in the first half. Sam Darnold’s numbers? A rough 7-of-15 for only 52 yards passing through thirty minutes of play. That’s not getting it done.
And Jaxon Smith-Njigba, our absolute star receiver who’s been averaging over 115 receiving yards per game, was practically invisible. He was held to a shocking 2 catches for just 11 yards in that first half! That’s not the JSN we know and love, and it’s certainly not enough production from our passing game when we need it most. We need Cooper Kupp, Rashid Shaheed, and JSN to be threats from the jump, but it just wasn’t happening in Denver.
So, we walk away from Denver with a tough overtime loss. Our defense showed flashes of why it’s considered premier, but the collective effort, especially on offense, left a lot to be desired. If we want to compete, that offensive production, especially from Darnold and our playmakers, has to improve drastically. The 12s deserve to see an offense that can capitalize when the defense gives them opportunities. This one hurts, but we gotta pick ourselves up and figure out how to get our scoring drives back. No excuses.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Mile High Report.
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