Bizarre Opening Week for Seahawks, NFC West Concludes With Rams as Only Team in Loss Column

Weird things tend to happen in bunches during the opening week of a new NFL season, and for the Seattle Seahawks and the rest of the NFC West, that certainly proved to be the case as three of the four teams within the division grabbed victories.

Moments after lowering their second-ever Super Bowl title banner at Lumen Field, the Seahawks watched star quarterback Sam Darnold hobble into the locker room after just six offensive plays, and they failed to score a single point in the first half as they fell behind 10-0 in the third quarter against the Patriots. Under such circumstances, most teams would have folded, but that wasn’t the case for coach Mike Macdonald’s championship-tested squad.

Led by Drew Lock under center and an opportunistic defense that picked up where it left off winning a Lombardi Trophy as the No. 1 scoring unit in the league last season, Seattle stormed back with 13 unanswered points. Playing with calm and poise running new coordinator Brian Fleury’s offense, Lock threw for 187 yards and completed 72% of his passes with a 45-yard touchdown pass to Jaxon Smith-Njigba and no turnovers, while rookie runnng back Jadarian Price rushed for 52 yards on just 10 carries to lead the rushing attack.

Defensively, the trio of Nehemiah Pritchett, Julian Love, and Josh Jobe picked off MVP runner up Drake Maye three times in the fourth quarter, with Jobe’s icing the game inside 30 seconds left to play in the end zone as the Seahawks celebrated their comeback victory in front of a boisterous sellout crowd.

Overcoming plenty of adversity to open the season 1-0 and dodging a bullet with Darnold avoiding serious injury, Seattle got to enjoy an extended break between games, first watching as Brock Purdy and San Francisco took it to the favored Los Angeles Rams in Melbourne, Australia on Thursday for a 27-7 rout. The 49ers managed to crush their rivals despite losing rookie receiver De’Zhaun Stribling during the game with an ankle injury and entering the day without second-year defensive tackle Alfred Collins, who suffered a season-ending injury in practice earlier in the week, appearing to benefit from a much smarter travel plan going down under a week before the game.

San Francisco rattled off 24 unanswered points after Los Angeles took a 7-3 lead in the second quarter, paced by Purdy’s three touchdown passes to Mike Evans, Deebo Samuel, and Demarcus Robinson. On the opposite side, Matthew Stafford endured a rough opener, throwing for just 155 yards with no touchdowns and an ugly interception.

Most shockingly, newly-acquired Rams superstar Myles Garrett had a lackluster team debut without a single pressure on Purdy as tackle Trent Williams locked up him all day long. Adding to the misery, he will reportedly undergo arthroscopic knee surgery and land on injured reserve days later, meaning he will miss at least the next four games.

Elsewhere in the division, the Cardinals kicked off the Mike LaFleur era with an unexpected win over the Chargers at SoFi Stadium, led by a strong effort from starting quarterback Jacoby Brissett. The veteran signal caller threw for 277 yards and a touchdown with no turnovers and top-five pick Jeremiyah Love found the end zone for the first time to open the scoring on Sunday as Arizona put 26 points on the scoreboard to pull off the upset.

Helping the Cards snag one of the biggest upsets of the season, the defense made life difficult for Justin Herbert and the Chargers, who averaged north of 12 yards to gain on third down, converting just two out of eight of those opportunities. Los Angeles only picked up 17 first downs for the entire game, rushing for just 81 total yards while Herbert threw a costly interception in the fourth quarter.

Considering how well Arizona played against an opponent many analysts have pegged as a Super Bowl sleeper in the AFC, Seattle won’t have an easy matchup to open divisional play next weekend in Glendale. Coach Mike Macdonald will test his defensive wits against LaFleur, who came to the desert after several seasons on Sean McVay’s staff as an offensive coordinator in Los Angeles. Expect to see the first-time coach revisit some of the concepts that worked effectively for the Rams in their three matchups against the Seahawks a year ago.

As for the other two NFC West teams, the Rams will have sights set on bouncing back against the New York Giants on Monday Night Football at home, likely bringing the much-anticipated return of Aaron Donald back from retirement after the perennial All-Pro didn’t travel to Australia. The 49ers will look to stay atop the division early with the underdog Dolphins, who lost to the Raiders in Week 1, coming to town for a Sunday afternoon battle at Levis Stadium.