Analysis: Handing out grades for Seahawks’ win over Patriots to move to 2-0

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – After two weeks of the NFL season and Sunday’s 26-20 overtime win here against New England, the Seahawks are in first place in an NFC West division some have said could be among the best in the league this year.

Mike Macdonald is also the only Seahawks head coach in team history to win his first two games.

And the Seahawks are 2-0 for only the third time since the Super Bowl season of 2013, the others coming in 2019 and 2020, years when the Seahawks finished with 11 and 12 wins, respectively

So, it’s hard not to feel good about where the Seahawks are just eight days into the season, even if for periods Sunday the team seemed doomed for a long, disappointing flight home.

“Man it’s big,” linebacker Tyrel Dodson said as music played in a joyous locker room. “It’s hard to get a win. A dub is a dub at the end of the day. We’ve just got to keep stacking these dubs.”

Onto grades that the final few drives on each side of the ball made look a lot better.

Quarterback

Whatever Geno Smith might have been asking for when he approached the team about an extension before the season he’s proving worth it. However you want to break this game down, the Seahawks do not win this game if Smith doesn’t play the way he did, hitting 33 of 44 for 327 yards, a TD and no interceptions – and that’s with at least five passes that could be called drops. He threw a pick on his first pass of the season last week but has been almost flawless since.

Grade: A

Running back

The running game was a slog with Kenneth Walker III sitting out with an oblique injury. The Seahawks gained just 46 yards on 19 carries. You can’t put all that on Zach Charbonnet as there were times there wasn’t a whole lot of push up front. Still, there were also times you thought Walker figures out how to get more out of some of those runs. That’s also why Walker is the starter. Charbonnet hung tough and made a pivotal play with his catch for seven yards on the third-and-6 in overtime. No other running back played.

Grade: B-minus

Wide receiver

The Seahawks had two 100-yard receivers in DK Metcalf (10-129) and Jaxon Smith-Njigba (12-117, each career highs). Yet Tyler Lockett, who had just 2-15, made two of the biggest plays of the game by drawing two pass interference penalties, one that set up a TD in the first half and the other that keyed the OT drive. True, Metcalf had two drops and JSN one. This is how people drew it up when talking about how good this receiving corps can be this season. And consider that the Pats held the Bengals to just 154 yards passing a week ago.

Grade: B-plus

Tight end

Not a stellar day here. Noah Fant had two drops, one on a third down in the third quarter. And AJ Barner was called for a holding penalty that nullified an apparent pass for a first down to Fant. The Seahawks may be missing the run blocking that it hoped the injured Pharaoh Brown would provide, though it’s hard to know how much since Brown has yet to play.

Grade: D

Offensive line

The big picture is the Seahawks putting up 358 yards and 5.4 per play against a defense that went into Cincinnati and held the Bengals to 224 and 4.7 last week. The Seahawks appeared to rely heavily on quick-hitting throws, especially early on, in anticipation of having challenges with New England’s rush. As noted earlier there was not a lot of room for Charbonnet to run. Right guard Anthony Bradford had two penalties and has four in two games. The Seahawks were stuffed on a fourth-and-1 in the third quarter and the third-and-1 at the end of regulation. But there was just enough time on some of the key plays at the end, notably the third-and-6 pass to Charbonnet at the end, to make this an OK day overall.

Grade: C

Defensive line

The Seahawks gave up 5.1 yards per rush and continues to seem overly reliant on Leonard Williams for the pass rush – he had four of the team’s eight QB hits and 1.5 of the team’s three sacks. Their four-man pass rush seemed sporadic at best even with Williams wreaking havoc. But it came up big at the end, and Byron Murphy II appeared to have another promising game with half a sack and four tackles.

Grade: B-minus

Linebackers

The Seahawks had to go with rookie Tyrice Knight at weakside linebacker for the second half after Jerome Baker left in the second quarter after his hamstring injury acted up again. Knight seemed to play credibly enough, finishing with seven tackles. Tyrel Dodson had eight tackles and maybe the defensive play of the game with his stop of Rhamondre Stevenson for no gain on the third-and-1 in overtime. As for the OLBs, Boye Mafe had a missed tackle that turned into a 45-yard gain. But he also had a sack and two QB hits before leaving late with a knee contusion. Derick Hall had one QB hit missing some time to be evaluated for a concussion. It’s a group that’ll get only better when the injured Uchenna Nwosu returns.

Grade: B

Cornerbacks

As New England coach Jerod Mayo lamented later, the Patriots didn’t get much done in their downfield passing game – only tight end Hunter Henry had a gain of longer than 7 yards. That’s a credit to the sticky coverage of the corners. Devon Witherspoon will want back the two penalties he had that helped key a New England field -goal drive in the second quarter.

Grade: B-plus

Safety

All those yards by New England’s tight ends – Henry had 12 receptions for 109 – fall in part on the safeties and the middle of the defense. But Rayshawn Jenkins made a big third-down stop on New England’s first drive of the second half and Julian Love had one of the big plays of the game with his fourth-quarter blocked field goal.

Grade: B

Special teams

A game-changing day for this group. Jason Myers hit all three field goals, all in clutch situations – end of first half (44), end of regulation (38) and overtime (31). Michael Dickson helped set up the end-of-half field goal with a 58-yard punt that pinned the Pats back at their own 8 and flipped the field. Love had the blocked field goal. The return and coverage games were good with Dee Williams bringing back one punt for 23 yards to help set up the end-of-first-half field goal.

Grade: A

Coaching

There were some interesting decisions, to be sure, notably the call to go for it on fourth-and-1 in the third, which backfired, and the decision not to go for it at the end of regulation. Both were certainly not the wrong decision, and that the Seahawks won helps paint the conservative manner in which they handled the end of regulation in a positive light. They executed well at the end of the first half to steal three critical points. The early offensive game plan made sense to get rid of the ball quickly. And while it’s a big IF, if you take out the 45-yard run that the Seahawks had pinned in the backfield the Patriots otherwise gained 140 yards rushing on 35 carries, a 4.1 average that isn’t great, but not the 5.1 relative disaster it looks on paper.

Grade: B