Seahawks’ offense struggles in 18-11 preseason loss to Vikings

Published 10:30 pm Thursday, August 18, 2016

SEATTLE — For the second straight week the Seattle Seahawks’ first-team offense was stuck in neutral, and this time the back-ups couldn’t quite come to the rescue.

Marcus Sherels returned an interception for a touchdown with 1 minute, 23 seconds remaining in a tie game, giving the Minnesota Vikings an 18-11 victory over the Seahawks on Thursday night in preseason action at CenturyLink Field.

Seattle’s backups, who were the difference in the Seahawks’ last-second 17-16 victory over Kansas City last Saturday in their preseason opener, rallied to tie the score at 11-11 midway through the fourth quarter after the starters were shut out in the first half. However, Sherels stepped in front of a Trevone Boykin pass and returned it 53 yards for the decisive score.

Boykin nearly pulled off some late-game magic for the second straight week as he drove the Seahawks to the Kansas City 5-yard line with less than 30 seconds remaining, but a sack and an incompletion ended the game.

“I love the way our guys played in finishing this thing,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “In the second half the defense gives up 50 yards and the young guys are clawing and scratching and give us a chance. We should have won that game. We really missed it up by taking the sack on second down, you always get rid of the football there. We should have had two more shots.”

While there was more late drama, the bigger story for Seattle was the struggles of the first-team offense. Seattle had it’s first-team offense on the field the entire first half, but could get little going as the Seahawks ventured into Minnesota territory only once in five drives. Running back Christine Michael gained 55 yards on 10 carries and showed the same sort of burst he displayed in Seattle’s preseason opener, but otherwise the Seahawks had all kinds of trouble moving the ball, managing just 106 yards of total offense in the first half.

“In the first half we had 40 yards of sacks and six penalties or something like that, it makes it really hard to get going,” Carroll said. “We have to clean that stuff up. Playing like that doesn’t give you a chance to express all the hard work and the players that you have and the skill. That’s a big focal point for us.”

Of particular concern was the pass protection. A week ago Seattle’s first-team offensive line played three series and didn’t allow a single sack. But on Thursday the Seahawks’ first-team O-line allowed quarterback Russell Wilson to be sacked four times in the first half. The first two of those were coverage sacks, but the last two were instances of the line being unable to handle Minnesota’s blitz.

“I know you’re looking at the sack numbers and thinking, ‘Oh jeez, what’s that mean?’ We were covered up a couple times and we have to get the ball out, throw it away so we don’t take the big plays. Russ can do a better job of helping us there when we get stuck. Sometimes we try really hard to get out, trying make a bigger play and the pressure eventually gets through.”

Wilson, whose day was done following the first half, finished the game 5-for-11 for 77 yards, and through two preseason games the Seattle offense has yet to score a point with Wilson in the game.

Boykin played all but one series in the second half, and he and running back Troymaine Pope sparked Seattle’s offense into life. Pope, an undrafted rookie signed two weeks ago, gained 86 yards on 10 carries and scored Seattle’s only touchdown, and Boykin went 10-for-20 for 127 yards with an acrobatic conversion of a two-point attempt. But it wasn’t enough for the Seahawks.

After the teams traded eight fruitless possessions to begin the game, the Vikings finally broke through on the game’s ninth. Minnesota took advantage of big passing plays to tight ends Kyle Rudolph and McCole Pruitt, as well as a roughing-the-passer penalty on Seahawks defensive tackle Jarran Reed, to drive inside the Seattle 5-yard line. Two plays later Jerick McKinnon ran it in from the 1. The ensuing two-point conversion gave the Vikings an 8-0 lead.

Minnesota was then able to travel the length of the field in the final 1:09 of the first half with Blair Walsh, who infamously missed the potential game-winning kick when the teams met in the first round of the playoffs last season, hitting a 27-yard field goal as time expired to make it 11-0.

The Seahawks offense finally got untracked in the fourth quarter with the third team in the game. Pope was the driving force as he busted off a 27-yard run to set up his own 4-yard TD run with 12:49 remaining. Boykin then made an acrobatic leaping play on the two-point conversion as Seattle pulled within 11-8.

It was more Pope and Boykin on Seattle’s following drive, which culminated with Steven Hauschka’s 49-yard field goal with 5:46 remaining to knot it at 11-11. The Seahawks then had a chance to win it after Walsh missed a 47-yard field goal with 2:09 remaining, but that didn’t account for Sherels.

Extra points

The Seahawks had three players leave the game injured. Linebacker K.J. Wright went back to the locker room late in the first half after being shaken up on a play, but Carroll said he was unaware of any injury to Wright. Tight end Nick Vannett and Reed both left the game in the third quarter because of ankle injuries, but Carroll didn’t think either were major. … Minnesota played the game without star running back Adrian Peterson or No. 1 quarterback Teddy Bridgewater. Neither were listed as unexpected to play before the game began. … Seattle had four projected starters who did not play because of injury, those being strong safety Kam Chancellor (groin), tight end Jimmy Graham (knee), running back Thomas Rawls (ankle) and defensive tackle Jordan Hill (groin). The Seahawks hope to have Chancellor and Hill back for next week’s preseason game against Dallas, while the team hopes Graham and Rawls will be ready for the start of the regular season.

For more on the Seattle sports scene, check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/heraldnet/tag/seattle-sidelines, or follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.