It’s funny how quickly the perception of an NFL season can change. On Nov. 16, the Seahawks fell to the Kansas City Chiefs and had a 6-4 record. Their season was hardly over, but at that point the Seahawks were three games behind the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC West, and just weren’t playing anything like the team that won the Super Bowl in February. A division title seemed out of reach and a playoff berth was very much in doubt.
Three weeks later, the Seahawks are 9-4, control their destiny in the division, have a very real shot at a first-round bye, if not the NFC’s No. 1 seed, and perhaps most importantly, are back to playing the way they did on their way to a championship last season.
After dominating Arizona and San Francisco in back-to-back 19-3 victories, the Seahawks were dominant again on Sunday, this time stifling one of the league’s best offenses to earn an impressive 24-14 victory over the NFC East leading Philadelphia Eagles.
“We take a lot out of it because it’s such a good football team in a very difficult setting,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll told reporters after the game.
Here are five takeaways from another impressive Seahawks victory:
1. The defense is as dominant as ever
There was little doubt that Seattle’s defense had turned a corner after holding the Cardinals and 49ers to a total of two field goals over the past two games, but this was still an impressive performance nonetheless considering the Seahawks were facing a team that came into the game averaging 416.2 yards and 31.3 points per game. The Seahawks might have held another team without a touchdown if not for special teams miscues, they bottled up LeSean McCoy, forcing Mark Sanchez to try to beat them with his arm, which he couldn’t, and they held the Eagles to just 139 total yards, the lowest total for a Chip Kelly-coached team at any level of football.
“They took this challenge very much to heart, because they respect (Kelly),” Carroll said. “There’s really nothing they can’t do when they’re playing this tight and playing together.”
It may have been surprising to most to see Kelly’s Eagles held in check, but as safety Earl Thomas put it when talking to reporters after the game, “We expect to dominate every time we step out there.”
2. Byron Maxwell is thriving in dual role
With Jeremy Lane again sidelined with a glute injury, cornerback Byron Maxwell started at his usual spot at right cornerback, but also played frequently inside in nickel packages, with Tharold Simon then coming in as the third corner in Maxwell’s usual spot on the outside. Maxwell, who is in the final year of his contract, played very well in both role, only increasing his already high value in free agency thanks to that versatility. Maxwell’s ability to play inside also lets Simon get on the field, and the second-year corner, who had his first career interception, has played well of late aside from his penchant to rack up penalties.
3. Baldwin and the receivers stepped up
Whether you’re of the belief that Seattle’s receivers aren’t good enough, or that Russell Wilson isn’t trusting them to make plays, it’s impossible to argue that the Seahawks haven’t been getting a ton of production from their receivers this season. On Sunday, and especially in the second half, Wilson did trust his receivers to make plays, and they rewarded that faith b y making big catch after big catch, with Doug Baldwin, Jermaine Kearse, Paul Richardson, Kevin Norwood and Ricardo Lockette combining for 13 catches. Leading the way was Baldwin, who had five catches for 97 yards and a score.
4. Seattle’s offense and defense combined to dominate time of possession
There are two dangers when facing an up-tempo offense like the Eagles run. One, the defense can get tired if it can’t get stops and get off the field, and two, if the offense can’t sustain some drives, it puts a potentially tired defense in a bad spot. Neither of these were issues for the Seahawks, who possessed the ball for 41 minutes, 56 seconds compared to 18:04 for the Eagles. Philadelphia isn’t interested in running time off the clock, but that’s still a staggering imbalance, the result of Seattle’s defense not allowing long drives—Philadelphia never had a possession of more than six plays, and its longest drive covered just 54 yards—and also of Seattle’s offense staying on the field. The Seahawks were a respectable 7 of 16 on third down, including conversions on third-and-15 and third-and-13, and had four possessions of 10 or more plays.
5. Special teams not so special (again)
The Seahawks had a bad run of special teams play midway through the season, but that could largely be explained away because of the team’s injury situation. But after seemingly turning a corner in that area, the Seahawks again had a bad day in the third phase of the game. The Eagles have been great on special teams this year, but it wasn’t their play that hurt the Seahawks as much as it was unforced errors. Most notably, punter Jon Ryan dropped a snap, giving the Eagles a short field they turned into a Jeremy Maclin touchdown, and he followed that with a shank before finishing strong with three punts downed inside the 20. There were questionable decisions in the punt and kick return games, though Pete Carroll said Doug Baldwin was told to not field any punts if in doubt because of the wind. Paul Richardson, however, might lose his green light to bring the ball out of the end zone after bringing two out from deep and failing to get back to the 20.
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