Seahawks move into first place in NFC West with win over Chargers

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – As Seahawks rookie running back Kenneth Walker III turned to leave the podium following a feel-good meeting with the media Sunday, the saying on the back of his shirt became visible to all.

“I put my strength into being afraid of limitations,” it read.

Had Walker been wearing that shirt on the field Sunday, it’s all the Chargers’ defense would have seen as he sprinted away on a 74-yard touchdown run that sealed Seattle’s 37-23 victory over the Chargers at SoFi Stadium.

But it also is a fitting motto for a Seahawks team that continues to shoot holes in all the limitations others set for it before the season.

Left for dead following the trade of Russell Wilson to Denver, the Seahawks suddenly find themselves alone in first place in the NFC West at 4-3, the only team in the division with a winning record – the defending Super Bowl champion Rams are 3-3 and the go-for-broke 49ers and Cardinals 3-4.

“That’s fun, too,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said. “Yeah that’s good. Seven weeks in, look where we are.”

And the Seahawks did it Sunday playing the final three quarters without receiver DK Metcalf, who was carted off the field with a knee injury suffered with 1:55 remaining in the first quarter.

That Metcalf was immediately declared out seemed ominous. But it wasn’t clear immediately just how bad the injury is.

“The X-ray showed nothing there, but we’re gonna have to take him back (to Seattle) and get him tested and checked out with MRIs and all that stuff to make sure,” Carroll said.

The announcement of the injury came just as the Chargers cut an early 17-0 Seattle lead to 17-14, one piece of bad news seeming to pile onto another.

But no matter.

A Seahawks team that had every right to teeter in that moment instead righted itself quickly and outscored Los Angeles 20-2 from midway through the second quarter until late in the fourth quarter when the Chargers tacked on a garbage-time touchdown.

They did so with Walker rushing for 168 yards in just his second career start; Geno Smith completed 20 of 27 passes and threw two picture-perfect touchdown passes to Marquise Goodwin in another performance that showed that Seattle might, somehow and unbelievably, be as good at quarterback if not better than it would have been with Wilson; and a defense that has taken a drastic and almost unfathomable turn for the better the past two weeks shutting the Chargers down every time it mattered.

After allowing 111 points in games against Atlanta, Detroit and New Orleans, Seattle has held Arizona and L.A. – and its highly-hyped quarterbacks Kyler Murray and Justin Herbert – to just 32 in the past two games. And that includes a special-teams touchdown by Arizona and the aforementioned meaningless mop-up time touchdown Sunday.

“To do it really two weeks in a row, even made more progress in this game, I think, all around, it feels good to our guys,” Carroll said. “They can feel it. They can feel their defense. They can feel what they’re doing and how they fit together. And this is what can happen when you start moving.”

Seattle defensive players again gave ample credit to the philosophical change made last week to allow players to attack at the snap instead of reading and reacting – essentially, playing one gap instead of two.

But they also talked about players-only meetings the team began holding more of following the 39-32 defeat against New Orleans.

“It was time to tighten up, time to just have better chemistry and just work together, you know what I mean?” said safety Ryan Neal, who sparked the defensive effort Sunday by helping on a stop on fourth down on the Chargers’ first series at the Seattle 32 and then an interception on the second series. “We took some steps in having extra meetings outside what we do normally with players only and just seeing how we see stuff. And it always works better that way when you do that, because then you get to hear each other kind of speak on plays and concepts and stuff like that and just being able to get some stuff corrected throughout the week and, you know, it’s finally coming together.”

The defense wavered only once, allowing a 75-yard drive after Seattle had taken a 17-0 lead, which was then followed by a Dee Eskridge fumble that led to a short Chargers scoring march that cut the lead to 17-14.

But the Seattle defense then forced five consecutive punts from the middle of the second quarter to the middle of the fourth while the Seahawks’ offense helped quiet the Charger rally with two long marches of its own.

First came a 73-yarder just before halftime that culminated in a Smith 23-yard pass to Goodwin that made it 24-14 at halftime. Then came a 77-yard, 17-play drive that lasted 10 minutes and 20 seconds that ended in one of three Jason Myers’ field goals that made it 27-14 entering the fourth quarter.

A Chargers safety on a run by Walker after L.A. downed a punt at the 2 early in fourth quarter momentarily got the SoFi Stadium crowd excited. But the Seahawks then forced a three-and-out, the offense drove for another field goal, and after the defense then stopped the Chargers on downs, Walker took off on his run for the ages, taking a pitch from Smith and going around the right end virtually untouched for what was the longest run for the Seahawks since Tyler Lockett had a 75-yarder against Carolina in 2016.

“A 74-yard run?” Smith said. “That’s amazing right? Just for a guy to hit that crease and he was gone. I’m just sitting there – the best thing I did on that play was toss it to him. Having a guy like that who can explode at any minute is awesome.”

Walker, taken with the 41st draft choice out of Michigan State in April, downplayed his contribution, pointing instead to the blocking of the line, tight ends and receivers.

“It was wide open,” Walker said. “So I just ran.”

As he did, he carried the Seahawks into first place with him.

The Metcalf injury, if significant, will be a tough hurdle to overcome.

And the challenges just keep on coming for the Seahawks – up next Sunday are the New York Giants, the surprise team in the NFL at 6-1.

“We’ve got a long ways to go,” Smith said. “Four and three, you know it’s OK but it’s not the greatest. We’ve got a long ways to go and we’ve got to keep building.”

But with each week and each win, what the Seahawks are building suddenly seems far sturdier than anyone could have anticipated.