Seahawks finally find the end zone, beat the Niners 12-9

Published 1:30 am Sunday, September 17, 2017

SEATTLE — It took far longer than anyone expected, but the Seattle Seahawks at long last found the end zone.

Russell Wilson’s 9-yard scoring toss to Paul Richardson with less than eight minutes remaining was enough to withstand an upset bid from the San Francisco 49ers as the Seahawks won 12-9 before 68,729 fans on a drizzly afternoon in their 2017 home opener at CenturyLink Field.

“Ugly as hell,” was fellow receiver Doug Baldwin’s post-game assessment. “Very ugly. But we did enough. And it doesn’t really matter how it looks as long as you get the job done. Fortunately enough, Paul Richardson, I can’t say enough about him.”

Baldwin went on to recount that Richardson suffered a dislocated right ring finger that protruded from the skin on the first drive of the game for Seattle (1-1). Richardson had the finger sewn up in the Seattle locker room and returned to score the team’s first touchdown of the year.

It came more than seven and a half quarters into a season in which the Seahawks are once again expected to contend for the NFC title.

“We had a game to win,” Richardson said. “That was the goal before it happened. That was (still) the goal when I got it sewn up.”

It was a vintage Wilson broken play that led to the winning score. Wilson danced around as the pocket collapsed, then found Richardson near the front left pylon at 7:06 in the fourth quarter.

“There is no challenge — we practice it,” Richardson said. “It’s one of our repetitions. I think we do really good at it in practice and we’re going against the best defense in the league so we get really good work in. I don’t think it’s difficult. It’s more or less like, ‘How can I help Russ when he’s scrambling?’ If he can help us by getting the first down, then he’s going to attack the line of scrimmage and go get the first down.”

Wilson finished 23 of 39 for 198 yards on a day in which both offenses sputtered. Wilson delivered several throws over his receivers’ heads, and the Seahawks were plagued with three crucial drops — including two potential touchdown catches on their first three possessions.

But the Seahawks managed to answer Robbie Gould’s go-ahead 34-yard field goal at 11:36 in the fourth quarter with the Richardson touchdown, and forced a three-and-out to get the ball back with 4:47 remaining.

They never relinquished possession as rookie Chris Carson carried five straight times for 41 yards as the Seahawks ran out the clock. Carson finished with a team-high 93 rushing yards.

“I thought Chris has shown us nothing but positive stuff,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said. “There is a style about the way he runs that you might recognize — high knees and chomping and eating that ground up. He’s really downhill at you. We’ve seen it for a long time and we just keep hoping to see it continue.”

Wilson and the Seahawks caught their share of breaks as San Francisco’s Rashard Robinson had would-be interceptions knocked away from him on Seattle’s first two possessions of the third quarter.

But they had plenty of bad luck, too. On Seattle’s opening third-quarter possession, Tanner McEvoy dropped a third-down pass at the 28-yard line that would have moved the chains. Instead Jon Ryan came on to punt for the fifth time and the score remained 6-6.

It was McEvoy’s second costly drop. His first came on Seattle’s third possession of the first quarter following a Bobby Wagner interception. It would have been a touchdown. Instead it resulted in a Blair Walsh 27-yard field goal that gave Seattle a 6-0 lead.

C.J. Prosise also dropped a potential touchdown pass on Seattle’s first possession of the game. Wilson’s toss hit Prosise in the hands only to bounce to the turf, and the Seahawks settled for a 25-yard Walsh field goal and a 3-0 lead at 8:38.

“Tanner has phenomenal hands. C.J. Prosise has phenomenal hands,” Wilson said. “Those guys can really catch the football, but for whatever reason the ball was just not bouncing the best way for us. … That’s going to happen. We don’t all make every play perfect.”

But while the Seattle offense had trouble reaching the end zone, the Seattle defense kept San Francisco out. The 49ers tallied just 248 net yards, including 99 through the air.

“Our job is to stop the other team,” defensive end Michael Bennett said. “It doesn’t matter how many (times) we have to go out there. The ones that we’re afforded we go out there and try to stop them. It’s just what we have to do.”

San Francisco running back Carlos Hyde finished with 124 rushing yards, but the majority came on two carries on the 49ers’ final two possessions of the first half. Hyde’s 61-yard run to the Seattle 22 brought the 49ers into the red zone for the first time.

However, Bennett stymied the drive with a third-down sack of Brian Hoyer, and Gould’s first field goal cut Seattle’s lead to 6-3 with 1:55 to play in the half.

Following a Seattle three-and-out, the 49ers used a 27-yard run from Hyde and a 15-yard face mask penalty on Cliff Avril to set up a 37-yard field goal that tied the game 6-6 with 17 seconds to play in the half.

“Obviously we gave up the big plays and those should’ve been nothing plays a couple of times,” Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman said. “A couple missed tackles, so we definitely want to hold them to less than nine points in a game like that, especially with the way that it was going offensively. (We) want to be stout.”

The score remained 6-6 until Gould’s third field goal gave San Francisco its first lead of the season.

Wilson and Richardson made sure that lead was short-lived.

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