Seahawks make a long list of mistakes in loss Buffalo

SEATTLE — The Seahawks may not have made all of the mistakes than can be made in a football game, but they made most of them in a 31-10 loss to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday at Lumen Field.

There were interceptions, fumbles, personal fouls, bad snaps, 13 Seattle penalties and infighting.

This game had it all.

“That was a good football team that outplayed us in three phases,” said Seahawks rookie head coach Mike Macdonald, whose team was without star receiver DK Metcalf. “And then it gets out of hand when you’re doing the things we did today.

“The long and the short of is we got outplayed, outcoached, and we’ve got to go make it right.”

It was quite a setback for Seattle, which fell to 4-4 a week after a convincing win in Atlanta.

The Seahawks struggled to get much push from the offensive line, and running back Kenneth Walker III was bottled up for 12 yards on nine carries. Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith completed 21 of 29 passes for 212 yards, an interception and no touchdowns.

“I’m not really sure what went wrong,” Walker said of the running game. “We practiced it throughout the week. We talked about the run game, but we just didn’t play well. We didn’t execute how we should against a good defense.”

Buffalo (6-2) took advantage of Seahawks errors, and owned the football for much of the game. The Bills, who outgained Seattle 164 yards to 32 on the ground, used drives of 14, 12, 11, seven and seven plays, and picked up six of their first seven third downs. Meanwhile, the Seahawks turned the ball over twice and were 1-for-7 on third down.

Bills quarterback Josh Allen completed 24 of 24 passes for 283 yards and two touchdowns. Running back James Cook rushed for 111 yards on just 17 carries, and Khalil Shakir finished with nine catches for 107 yards.

Seattle’s offense showed some promise in the second quarter, but catastrophic mistakes prevented Seattle from staying with the Bills.

The Seahawks, who didn’t pick up a first down until the first play of the second quarter, marched to the Buffalo 2-yard line with 9:51 to go in the half. After Walker’s 1-yard loss, Seahawks center Connor Williams’ shotgun snap sailed well over Smith. Walker picked up the loose ball and managed to run it from the 29 to the 22.

The Seahawks false-started on the next play, but that was waived off because the play clock had run out for a delay of game penalty. Though a mess, the Seahawks trailed only 7-3 after Jason Myers’ 38-yard field goal.

Seattle got the ball back after cornerback Josh Jobe intercepted Allen’s pass and returned it 33 yards to the Buffalo 7. But on fourth-and-goal from the 1, Williams foot drifted back too quickly after his snap. Smith tripped over Williams’ cleat, then stumbled again over guard Anthony Bradford’s, and fell for a 6-yard loss.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” said Smith, who was penalized for taunting for throwing the ball at a defensive lineman’s head after being run out of bounds. “I thought we prepared really well this week. I thought the guys were dialed in, and I thought we had great energy.”

“Obviously it didn’t show up on game day. We had too many self-inflicted wounds. That’s been our story this season.”

After the failed fourth-down play, the Bills used nine plays to drive from their own 7 to the Seattle 24. Allen threw an incomplete pass, but Seahawks linebacker Derick Hall hit the Bills quarterback well after he’d released the ball and was flagged for roughing the passer. That led to a scuffle between Hall and defensive tackle Jarran Reed.

Instead of a field goal attempt, the penalty led to bad feelings between defensive players that likely got worse when Allen found tight end Dalton Kincaid for a 12-yard TD pass. The play capped a 12-play, 93-yard drive for a 14-3 Bills halftime advantage after Smith kneeled out the remaining final seconds under raining skies and reigning boos from many of the 68,704 football fans in attendance.

“It seems like it calmed down,” Macdonald said of the players’ emotions. “It wasn’t a smart penalty. That’s not how we train our guys to attack quarterbacks.”

Trailing 17-3 in the third quarter, defensive tackle Austin Johnson intercepted Smith. Jobe was thrown into the wall in front of the stands for an unnecessary roughness call, but he retaliated against Keon Coleman for a flag of his own.

Down 24-3, Seattle put together a seven-play, 51-yard drives that featured a Smith fumble, a holding call on rookie guard Christian Haynes, a false start on tackle Charles Cross, Smith’s taunting penalty and an illegal formation call on tackle Michael Jerrell that was declined after an incomplete pass on third down. Michael Dickson, perhaps the best Seahawk of the day, then punted the ball 68 yards. He averaged 61.3 yards on his four kicks.

It was just that kind of day.

Macdonald believes the two teams are not as far apart as the scoreboard showed.

“I think everybody on that field knows our best can compete with them,” Macdonald said.

In an up-and-down season thus far, the Seahawks will need to reduce the mistakes that have cost them in four losses this season when the Rams Lumen field on Nov. 3.

“It was extremely frustrating,” Seahawks safety Coby Bryant said. “Obviously we wanted to come in and keep in rolling. … We just beat ourselves.”

The game’s box score can be found here.

This story originally appeared in seattlesportsnow.com, of which Aaron Coe is a co-founder.