Seahawks improve to 2-0 with OT road win against Patriots

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Can you win a game in the fourth quarter? That was a question former Seahawks coach Pete Carroll used to ask his players during his 14-year reign. As was the custom, his players would respond with a resounding “yes.”

As the Seahawks came here Sunday for the second game of the Mike Macdonald era, the new coach figured this might be a game straight out of Carroll’s win-it-in-the-fourth-quarter playbook.

“We knew the game was going to come down to the fourth quarter,’’ Macdonald said following the Seahawks’ 23-20 overtime win Sunday. “Didn’t expect to come down to fifth quarter. But whatever it takes.’’

Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith thought it was maybe the fact that the game did indeed go into a fifth quarter (overtime) is why they won.

“I thought they fought all the way through,’’ Smith said of the Patriots. “Our guys, we lasted longer.’’

That statement was hard to argue after the Seahawks improved to 2-0 and moved into first place in the NFC West as the only team without a loss in the division.

The Seahawks appeared reeling on the ropes several times Sunday, only to every time find a way to fight back.

Things seemed especially dire when the Patriots drove to the Seahawks’ 25 with just over six minutes left, leading 20-17.

A TD would likely put the game away, while even a field goal would have forced the Seahawks to have to get into the end zone to win it.

The Patriots got neither as the Seahawks first got a stop, and Julian Love blocked the field goal to keep New England off the board.

And from there, every big play the rest of the way seemed to go the Seahawks’ way as they tied the game on a 38-yard field goal by Jason Myers with 55 seconds left, then won it on a 31-yard field goal with 4:31 left in overtime.

“Oh man, I knew we had them,’’ Smith said of his reaction following Love’s block of a Joey Slye 48-yard field goal with 3:54 left.

“I knew we had them. Even if he didn’t block the kick, I felt like we were going to go down and score. When he blocked the kick, I felt like it turned the momentum. You could see they put their heads down a little bit. Their defense was, like, ‘Oh, man, we have to stop these guys.’ That’s when we put our foot on the pedal and just started going after them and made some big plays.’’

Pushing the pedal the most was Smith, who first hit on 4 of 5 passes for 39 yards to get the Seahawks in position for the Myers field goal to tie it. Smith couldn’t get a yard on a third-and-1 that could have allowed them a few more plays to try to win it in regulation.

“I thought we got the first down, but we didn’t,’’ Smith said. “So the right thing to do there was to kick the field goal and go to overtime and give ourselves some extra minutes to go and get the win.’’

Things again looked tenuous when Smith called tails at the coin toss and it came up heads.

But facing a third-and-1 at the 39 on their first drive, the Seahawks again simply lasted a little longer than the Patriots.

New England put in its heavy package and handed the ball to 227-pound running Rhamondre Stevenson, who had gained 81 yards on 20 carries to that point as the Patriots rushed for 185 on the day. Stevenson finished with 81 on 21 as Seahawks middle linebacker Tyrel Dodson and lineman Jarran Reed teamed to stop him for no gain.

Dodson credited outside linebackers coach Chris Partridge, who handles some of the team’s short-yardage defensive strategy.

“Something I saw on film the whole week, and then just trusting myself to make the play,’’ he said.

Said teammate Leonard Williams: “(Stevenson’s) a big heavy back, he’s really good at falling forward, and T-Dot came through big.’’

Patriots coach Jerod Mayo said there was “some consideration’’ to going for it. “There’s always consideration in those weird spots. … I did what I thought was best.’’

Giving the ball back to Smith – whose 33 completions were a career high – turned out for the best only for the Seahawks.

With the Seahawks taking over at their 16, Smith hit two passes for 15 yards to get the drive going. Then he lofted a pass down the sidelines to Tyler Lockett, which turned into a 20-yard pass-interference penalty on New England’s Jonathan Jones, put the ball at the Patriots 49, and made the rest of the game seem inevitable.

Smith hit Zach Charbonnet out of the backfield for 7 yards on a third-and-6 when the Patriots brought an all-out “zero’’ blitz to get the Seahawks into the edge of field -goal range.

Smith said he saw the blitz coming, noting the Patriots had also lined up in a similar look in the quarter when the Seahawks exploited it for a 56-yard TD pass to DK Metcalf.

“That was a great call,’’ Smith said. “They went cover-zero early in the game. That was the big touchdown to DK, and it kind of scared them out of it. They didn’t call it for the rest of the game. We knew they would get back to it. That’s what they want to do in those critical situations. Grubb was on it. Made the right call.’’

A 16-yard pass to Lockett made the final Myers field goal a relative chip shot, and the Seahawks could happily celebrate the six-hour flight home.

It was a game in which the Seahawks overcame rushing for just 46 yards on 19 carries, a few ill-timed penalties, and a failed fourth-and-1 at the New England 23 on the first drive of the third quarter when the Seahawks had a 17-13 lead and appeared to be going for the kill.

They’d built that lead thanks to the Smith-to-Metcalf TD which came when two Patriots defenders in apparent confusion each decided to cover Charbonnet in the flat instead of one peeling off and taking Metcalf; and a 70-yard TD in the second quarter keyed by Lockett drawing a pass interference penalty in the end zone on third down.

After the fourth-down stop early in the third quarter, the Patriots had the upper hand for much of the rest of the second half, and things seemed bleak when Antonio Gibson slipped out of a Boye Mafe tackle to get to the Seattle 25.

Then came a third-down sack and Love’s block, typifying a day when the Seahawks seemed to come up biggest when it mattered most.

“I think the past two weeks we’ve really shown how close of a team we are when battling adversity,’’ Metcalf said, also referencing the 26-20 win over Denver last week.

“I know we are only going to get stronger and play better throughout the season.’’