Seahawks dismal in all areas in 30-13 loss to Rams to open season

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll walked briskly into the interview room following Sunday’s stunning loss to the Los Angeles Rams, took to the podium and delivered a 352-word opening statement to the assembled media.

He ended with these eight: “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Indeed the Seahawks do.

Far more than anyone could have anticipated when kickoff arrived on a glorious late summer afternoon that seemed to fit the high hopes and expectations greeting this season.

Three hours , 2 minutes later, when the clock mercifully struck zero, few of the 68,683 who’d been in the stands when the game began remained.

And those who did mostly booed after a 30-13 defeat that was stunning both in its outcome and in the manner in which it happened.

This was not a fluke.

The Seahawks had no turnovers, and only three penalties until the outcome was decided. It was the Rams who early on had untimely penalties and dropped passes and a few misfires from Matthew Stafford seeming to give away some points, which allowed Seattle to take a 13-7 halftime lead.

But once the Rams evened out their mistakes in the second half, they simply flattened the Seahawks, scoring on all five of their second -half drives while holding Seattle to one first down – which came thanks to a Rams penalty, one of just two they had in the second half.

L.A. outgained Seattle 257-12 in the second half, with 9 of Seattle’s yards coming on the meaningless final play of the game, and had 17 first downs to Seattle’s one.

So what happened in the second half?

Several players mentioned the Rams showing a little more effort than the Seahawks.

“They wanted it more and played harder and executed better,” said quarterback Geno Smith.

Carroll, though, didn’t seem to have an easy explanation for it. As he noted, not only was Seattle ahead at the half, but the stats were also basically even – the Rams had 169 yards to Seattle’s 168.

Seattle scored on its first three drives and missed a field goal on its fourth, never punting until the third quarter.

“We were in pretty good shape,” Carroll said of what he thought at the half. “Moved the ball well in the first half, and really felt like we should be able to take the next step and take control of the football game. I thought we were in great shape to do that.

“It’s shocking to me now that we weren’t able to take advantage of that. … I like being ahead which we were, and I like the fact that we moved it. They also scored on the first drive and didn’t score on any of the other drives. So, we felt like we had a real shot. I don’t think we were cocky at all. We surely didn’t talk like that.”

But then Carroll added the obvious: “We didn’t respond well enough” in the second half.

That’s a polite way of putting it.

Seattle never got any pressure on Stafford – only two QB hits and no sacks in 38 attempts – and after he looked a little rusty early, he caught fire in the third quarter, hitting on 7 of 10 for 122 yards as the Rams took a 17-13 lead (Stafford finished 24-for-38 for 334 yards).

Defensive tackle Jarran Reed – in his first game back with the Seahawks and one of three new starters on a remade defensive line that Seattle is counting on to lead to massive defensive improvement this season – candidly admitted the front didn’t do its job.

“We have got to get to the quarterback, plain and simple,” Reed said. “We have to get home. We have to win our one-on-ones and we have to communicate as one. That’s unacceptable. That’s on us. We have to take that to the chin. We have to go get better starting Monday.”

The Rams essentially put the game away early in the fourth quarter with a 14-play, 79-yard drive in which Cam Akers scored on a 1-yard run on fourth down. The drive was kept alive thanks to an illegal hands-to-the-face penalty on Seattle corner Tre Brown that would have forced the Rams to kick a field goal and keep it at 20-13.

Instead, the TD put the Rams ahead 24-13 with 9:45 left, and with the way the Rams were dominating a Seattle offense playing by then without injured offensive tackles Charles Cross (toe) and Abraham Lucas (knee), that was pretty much that.

The loss was the worst at home for Seattle since a 42-7 defeat to the Rams in 2017. But that was a Rams team on its way to a division title and a Seahawks team staggering to the end of the season after suffering a bevy of losses to injuries of key players.

This, meanwhile, was a Seattle team thinking it can compete for the NFC West title against a Rams team in mostly rebuild mode after winning a Super Bowl two years ago, save for a few key veterans such as Stafford and defensive tackle Aaron Donald – but not star receiver Cooper Kupp.

A few stats told the story well – the Rams had 426 yards to Seattle’s 180, converted 11 of 17 third downs (including all five on the first TD drive of the game) to Seattle’s 2 of 9, and held the ball for 39:23.

Carroll called the game “a third-down disaster.”

Putting a fittingly ugly capper to a sordid day, DK Metcalf was called for a taunting penalty late in the fourth quarter, with safety Quandre Diggs then getting an unnecessary roughness penalty a few plays later.

“I’m surprised, yes, I am,” Smith said of the outcome. “I didn’t expect to come out and lose at all, let alone in that fashion.”

Most players, though, stuck to noting that it’s just one game and there’s a lot of season left to figure things out.

“It’s not end-all, be-all Week 1,” said safety Julian Love. “It’s a long season. This team is tough and we’re going to bounce back.”

That’s certainly the hope.

But as Carroll noted, there’s an awful lot of work to do between now and next Sunday when Seattle travels to play a Detroit team that was one of the big stories of the first week of the year after beating the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs on the road.

Seattle, in fact, has three of its next four on the road (against Detroit, the Giants and the Bengals) sandwiched around a home game against the Panthers – meaning it could get late early if things don’t turn around quickly.

“This is a big challenge for us to bounce back,” Carroll said. “Look what we’re going against. Going to go against one of the hottest teams in the world coming up in Detroit. We’ll see how this goes.”