Some games are losses; others are three-hour self-inflicted wounds.
The Seattle Seahawks’ 33-31 loss to the Washington Commanders certainly felt like the latter.
Seattle piled up 437 yards of offense compared with Washington’s 258. The Seahawks averaged 6.8 yards per play, Sam Darnold threw for 379 yards and four touchdowns, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught 10 passes for 128 yards and two scores. Somehow, all of that still wasn’t enough.
The Seahawks fell to 2-1 because the mistakes were too significant to overcome. Washington deserves credit for taking advantage, but Seattle should leave this game thinking much more about what it did wrong than what the Commanders did right.
Here are the three biggest problems the Seahawks need to fix.
1. Stop Giving The Ball Away
Nothing mattered more Sunday than Seattle’s three turnovers.
The Commanders didn’t turn the ball over once. Seattle did it three times, and Washington turned those mistakes into 21 points. In a two-point game, you don’t need advanced analytics to see how damaging that was.
Rookie running back Jadarian Price started the trouble with a first-quarter fumble that gave Washington the ball at the Seattle 21. Six plays later, Marcus Mariota found Rachaad White for a touchdown and a 7-0 lead. Price had only one more carry before halftime after the mistake.
Darnold’s first interception was more forgivable. The pass was deflected before Sonny Styles intercepted it, and Washington again took advantage with a touchdown drive. Seattle will replay the second interception all week.
With the Seahawks trailing 27-24 and driving to take the lead late in the fourth quarter, Darnold tried to find AJ Barner over the middle. Kain Medrano jumped the pass and returned it 50 yards for a touchdown, suddenly turning a three-point game into a 33-24 Washington lead.
Darnold bounced right back and led a 68-yard touchdown drive in barely a minute, finishing it with a seven-yard scoring pass to Cooper Kupp. That response was impressive, and Darnold played well for most of the afternoon, but Seattle can’t keep asking its offense to overcome giveaways that immediately become points.
Through two weeks, Seattle’s ability to protect the football had been one of its strengths. Against Washington, that completely flipped. The Seahawks don’t need to become conservative, but Darnold and the offense need to know when a play isn’t there and live for the next one.
2. Seattle Has To Find A Running Game
Darnold threw 45 passes Sunday, and it wasn’t difficult to understand why.
Seattle’s running backs combined for just 39 yards on 17 carries. Price gained 15 yards on five attempts, Emanuel Wilson had 14 yards on nine carries, and George Holani added 10 yards on three attempts. That’s nowhere near enough production for an offense that wants to stay balanced.
The problem goes beyond the raw yardage. Seattle rarely looked like it could line up, hand off the ball, and consistently gain four or five yards. That put even more responsibility on Darnold in his first game back after missing Week 2 with a glute injury.
Darnold handled that responsibility pretty well. He completed 31 of 45 passes for 379 yards and four touchdowns, while Smith-Njigba once again looked nearly impossible to contain. Seattle clearly has enough talent to win games through the air.
But asking Darnold to throw 40-plus times every week isn’t the formula Seattle should want.
A better running game would keep the Seahawks out of obvious passing situations, make play action more dangerous, and take pressure off Darnold to create nearly everything offensively. It would also give Seattle another way to control games instead of turning every important possession into a quarterback-driven exercise.
The passing game looks dangerous. The running game needs to start carrying some of the weight.
3. The Defense Has To Finish Games
Here’s the frustrating part for Seattle’s defense: for most of Sunday, it played well enough to win.
Washington finished with only 258 total yards. Mariota threw for 183 yards, while Jacory Croskey-Merritt managed only 36 yards on 19 carries. The Seahawks didn’t spend the afternoon getting pushed around by Washington’s offense.
Then Seattle needed one final stop.
After Darnold’s touchdown pass to Kupp cut Washington’s lead to 33-31 with 2:51 remaining, the Seahawks had three timeouts and a legitimate chance to get the ball back. Washington had converted only one of its first 11 third downs.
On third-and-9, White ran around the right side for 19 yards. A few plays later, Washington faced third-and-7, and Mariota scrambled for nine more. Those two plays allowed the Commanders to run out the clock without giving Darnold another opportunity.
That’s the sequence Mike Macdonald will hate.
Seattle’s defense had done its job for most of the afternoon, especially against the run. But great defenses have to be at their best when everyone in the stadium knows exactly what needs to happen. Washington needed two first downs to end the game, and Seattle couldn’t stop either one.
That’s also where the Seahawks missed an opportunity against a Commanders team playing without Jayden Daniels. Seattle held Washington to four yards per play overall and still allowed 33 points because of short fields, turnovers, and those two enormous late conversions.
The defense doesn’t need a major overhaul after one game. It does need to be better in those moments.
A Fixable Loss, But Still A Bad One
The encouraging part is that none of these problems look impossible to correct.
Seattle moved the football extremely well. Darnold looked healthy and productive in his return. Smith-Njigba continues to look like one of the NFL’s premier receivers, and the defense held Washington below 300 yards.
But the Seahawks learned Sunday that impressive statistics don’t erase costly mistakes. Three turnovers, almost no production from the running backs, and two failed third-down stops at the end were enough to waste a lot of good football.
Seattle is still 2-1, so there’s no reason for panic. There is plenty of reason for annoyance, because this was a very winnable game against an 0-2 opponent starting its backup quarterback.
The Seahawks don’t need to reinvent themselves after one loss. They need to stop giving games away, find some balance on offense, and finish when the defense gets a chance to close the door.
Fix those three things, and Sunday’s loss becomes an early-season lesson. Don’t fix them, and the next one might be considerably harder to shrug off.
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