Rapid Reaction: Seahawks Overcome Blunders, Edge Texans 27-19 on Monday Night Football
SEATTLE, Wash. - Despite committing four turnovers and playing their sloppiest game on offense all season long, the Seattle Seahawks used a stifling effort on defense paired with a trio of touchdown drives to fend off the Houston Texans for a 27-19 victory on Monday Night Football.
While he didn’t have his finest game with a lost fumble and interception, Sam Darnold threw for 213 yards and linked up with Jaxon Smith-Njigba for a touchdown. Out of the backfield, Zach Charbonnet found pay dirt twice near the goal line, capping off two drives with punishing short yardage scores. Ernest Jones finished with a team-high 11 tackles and intercepted C.J. Stroud to lead a defense that held the Texans mostly in check until a late touchdown drive.
Moving to 5-2 on the season, here are five takeaways from Seattle’s Monday Night Football victory at Lumen Field:
1. The unstoppable Darnold/JSN connection remains en fuego.
Producing almost 700 receiving yards in Seattle’s first six games, nobody has been able to come close to stopping Smith-Njigba in the early stages of his third NFL season. But the Texans entered Monday night with the top-ranked defense in the league and a star-studded secondary highlighted by All-Pro cornerback Derek Stingley Jr., presenting the best challenge yet for the rising star. As it turned out, however, he was more than up for that step up in competition. He posted five catches for 60 yards in the first half alone, including beating cornerback Kamari Lassiter on a quick slant for an 11-yard touchdown on the final play of the opening quarter.
Coming out of the break, Smith-Njigba continued to give Stingley and the rest of Houston’s secondary. Facing 4th and 1 in Houston territory, Darnold linked up with his star receiver on an 18-yard out route to move the chains, eventually leading to a field goal. Two possessions later, he toasted Lassiter on a fade route and the quarterback feathered a 26-yard deep ball over the top of the corner, setting up another Myers field goal to push the lead back to eight points. Pushing well past the 100-yard mark for a third straight game, he turned a 3rd and 7 into a 19-yard gain off a slant with significant yards after the catch to extend another drive and pave the way for Charbonnet to punch it in from two yards out late in the third quarter, giving him five 100-yard games already, tying for the second-most in franchise history in a season.
2. Away from Smith-Njigba, the Seahawks’ offense was far from clicking on all cylinders with turnovers galore.
As has been the case much of this season, the connection of Darnold and Smith-Njigba ended up being decisive in securing a win. But this will be a rare victory where the offense will need to do extensive soul searching after numerous mistakes allowed the Texans to stay alive in a game they should have been blown out in, as the Seahawks coughed up the football four times in a sloppy performance, starting with a trick play miscue. With a chance to go up three scores in the second quarter, after driving down to the Texans 21-yard line, offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak called a receiver pass for Cooper Kupp, only for the wideout to overthrow Smith-Njigba into the hands of Calen Bullock for an interception that abruptly ended a promising drive.
Going to the second half, multiple drives ended as a result of self-inflicted mistakes with Darnold at the center of the struggles. Dropping back on 3rd and 7 deep in Seattle’s territory, the quarterback worked off his initial read and then inexcusably ran backwards, spinning out to his left and losing the football on a strip sack that was recovered by Will Anderson in the end zone for a touchdown to cut the deficit to 17-12. Later in the half, tight end Elijah Arroyo fumbled immediately after making a catch over the middle and the Texans recovered near midfield, while Darnold made one of his worst throws of the season on the next possession with cornerback Derek Stingley undercutting a seam route to tight end AJ Barner for an easy interception. Fortunately, neither of those last two turnovers resulted in any points, but against a better offense, it would have been a recipe for a disastrous prime time melt down.
3. A ferocious front seven makes life tough on CJ Stroud, Texans’ offensive line.
One week after racking up 17 quarterback hits against the Jaguars, the Seahawks weren’t able to quite replicate that ridiculous production against the Texans. But they made Stroud more than uncomfortable from the outset, as he dropped back more than 15 yards on the opening drive with Demarcus Lawrence bearing down on him and ended up getting sacked at the goal line by Uchenna Nwosu, narrowly avoiding a safety in the opening minutes. Later in the second quarter, linebacker Ernest Jones came through untouched on a blitz and coaxed a backward pass from the third-year quarterback that linebacker Drake Thomas recovered, only to fumble before reaching the end zone as the Texans recovered the ball out of the back of the end zone for a touchback.
Finishing with a sub-50 percent completion rate, Stroud continued to take punishment throughout the final two quarters, as safety Ty Okada blew him up coming from the second level on a safety blitz to thwart a drive and Lawrence got his hands on the quarterback for another sack. Overall, the defense amassed seven quarterback hits and three sacks along with a plethora of other pressures that sped up his clock in the pocket, limiting Stroud to a paltry 4.7 yards per attempt and a 59.0 passer rating that only was bumped up by a late desperation touchdown pass to running back Woody Marks that cut the deficit down to eight with a hair over two minutes to play in regulation.
4. Picks, pass breakups, and drops keep Houston’s aerial attack in check.
For the third straight game, the Seahawks had to weather the storm in the secondary without cornerback Devon Witherspoon and safety Julian Love, leaving an undermanned unit to deal with Nico Collins, Jaylin Noel, and the rest of the Texans receivers. Thanks to the effective pass rush up front, however, a reserve-laden defensive backfield held up quite well once again, racking up pass breakups in bunches. Playing one of his best games so far in the league, rookie safety Nick Emmanwori broke up a pair of passes, while cornerback Riq Woolen swatted away a deep ball to Xavier Hutchinson and Josh Jobe got his hands on a couple of balls along the sideline to knock away from incompletions, providing little room for Stroud to squeeze the ball into receivers.
While tight end Dalton Schultz nearly went for 100 receiving yards as the lone bright spot for the Texans, Collins only produced 27 yards before exiting late with a concussion, battling drops while also dealing with physical, effective coverage against him on the outside. Meanwhile, Thomas and Jones made their mark in the middle as well, with the former tallying a trio of pass breakups in an impressive outing as the full-time starter at the WILL position and the latter registering a tumbling interception early in the third quarter that set up a field goal for Jason Myers. Overall, the defense racked up 12 pass breakups on 49 pass attempts.
5. Continuing a season-long trend, run defense stays an impenetrable force for Seattle.
Far from a potent rushing attack, the Texans tried to establish some semblance of balance early with Nick Chubb and Woody Marks out of the backfield. But an overwhelmed offensive line couldn’t generate push against the likes of Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy, and Lawrence, who lived in the backfield from the outset. Thomas blew up a Chubb run for a three-yard loss on the game’s opening drive and Williams followed up with a key 3rd and 1 stop for a loss on the ensuing possession, forcing back-to-back punts. Lawrence later stuffed a 4th and 1 run by Marks in the second half, hauling him down for a one-yard loss and a turnover on downs.
As a team, the Seahawks finished with seven tackles for loss, including six of them defending the run as the Texans failed to get anything going establishing the line of scrimmage and complementing Stroud. Aside from a long scramble from the quarterback late, Houston’s running backs rushed for under 2.5 yards per carry with Chubb and Marks combining for 31 yards on 15 carries, getting completely shut down from the outset by a stingy defense that dominated throughout the contest. Making the road opponent one-dimensional allowed the pass rush to pin ears back and tee off on Stroud, a formula for success in any game.
