Halftime Observations: Opportunistic Defense Leads Seahawks to 13-0 Lead vs. Vikings

While the Seattle Seahawks couldn’t get out of their own way on offense for most of the first 30 minutes, a pick six by linebacker Ernest Jones and two Jason Myers field goals propelled the home squad to a 13-0 halftime lead over the visiting Minnesota Vikings.

Here are three quick observations from the first two quarters of play at Lumen Field:

1. Vikings’ blitz packages and disguises wreaking havoc on Seahawks’ offensive line so far.

Squaring off against his former team, Sam Darnold took four sacks in the first two quarters, nearly equaling a third of his season total in the first 12 games in the process. To the quarterback’s defense, the majority of those sacks came off of immediate pressure where he didn’t have a fighting chance to even check his hot route, a credit to Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores for finding creative ways to confuse the Seahawks up front. On the opening series, disguising a blitz with only four rushers coming, Jonathan Greenard blew past Abraham Lucas immediately, forcing the quarterback to bail to his right into two other defenders for a drive-ending sack. One series later, llinebacker Eric Wilson came unblocked through the A-gap and got to Darnold on third down again to force a punt.

Things didn’t get much better in the second quarter for Darnold either. After a 21-yard completion to Cody White and hard-nosed running by Zach Charbonnet advanced the Seahawks into the red zone, the Vikings got after him again on third down. This time, Andrew Van Ginkel shed a block back inside and got to the quarterback for a drive-stalling sack, leading to a Jason Myers field goal. On the next possession, a nightmarish scenario played out with Darnold getting blasted from behind on first down by edge rusher Dallas Turner, coughing up the ball inside the Seattle 20-yard line to set up Minnesota with amazing field position.

2. Making Max Brosmer look like an undrafted rookie, Seattle defense feasts post-Thanksgiving.

While the Vikings entered Sunday with optimism regarding their untested quarterback, Brosmer faced an incredibly difficult, if not impossible, situation going against one of the best defenses in the NFL for his first career start. Things started relatively fine for the Minnesota product, as he completed four of his first five passes with his lone incompletion coming on a terrible drop by receiver Jordan Addison. But pressure got to him early and often, with Uchenna Nwosu’s opening drive sack not counting due to a Josh Jobe penalty and Leonard Williams getting after the rookie for a sack that did count to force a punt.

Fast forwarding to the second quarter, Minnesota had the perfect setup to help Brosmer by recovering Darnold’s fumble at the 13-yard line while trailing 3-0, gifting the quarterback incredible field position to at least get a field goal, if not taking the lead on a touchdown. But on 4th and 1, the Vikings ran a play action rollout and Demarcus Lawrence sniffed it out immediately, chasing the rookie back more than 15 yards before coaxing a game-changing bad decision. Instead of taking a sack, Brosmer tried to unload the ball and found a wide open Ernest Jones, who returned the pick 85 yards for a defensive touchdown, executing a 10 or 14-point swing.

3. A very questionable final two minutes of game management from Mike Macdonald deserves to be scrutinized.

Set to receive to open the second half, the Seahawks had a prime opportunity to create significant separation against the Vikings following the two minute warning, as Lawrence hunted down Brosmer for a third down sack on the first play after the break. But Macdonald oddly decided not to burn one of the Seahawks three timeouts, instead letting the clock tick down to inside a minute. He continued to hoard his timeouts from there, letting more than 35 seconds of game time tick off before finally burning one with 23 seconds left in the half. After a completion to Rashid Shaheed went out of bounds for a seven-yard gain, Darnold had back-to-back passes batted down at the line, leading to Myers’ second field goal with the Seahawks still having two timeouts in their pocket. While getting three points is still a positive, it can be argued the home team didn’t maximize on a chance to blow the game open with incredibly conservative clock management, and if the game ends up getting close after the half, that sequence could end up being a pivotal miss.