INGLEWOOD, Calif. — There are and will continue to be questions about quarterback Sam Darnold following his four-interception day in the Seattle Seahawks’ 21-19 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday at SoFi Stadium.
But there shouldn’t be any doubts about what Seattle has on the other side of the ball: a championship-level defense.
Facing Sean McVay and the Rams’ offense was Seattle’s toughest test since Week 5. Against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Seattle’s defense allowed 38 points and 426 yards, in part because the unit was short-handed up front (missing DeMarcus Lawrence, and Derick Hall left after eight snaps) and in the secondary (missing Devon Witherspoon and Julian Love, and Riq Woolen left after 37 snaps).
The Seahawks fielded a healthier unit on Sunday, albeit without defensive tackle Jarran Reed and Love (both are on injured reserve), and they delivered their best defensive performance of the season when adjusted for opponent quality. Stafford entered Week 11 on a heater, having thrown 13 touchdown passes with zero turnovers while averaging 7.4 yards per attempt in his previous three games. He was averaging 269.7 passing yards before Sunday’s game.
Seattle held Stafford to 130 passing yards, 4.6 yards per attempt and a 53.6 completion percentage, season lows across the board. He threw a 1-yard touchdown to receiver Davante Adams in the first quarter and a 6-yard touchdown to tight end Colby Parkinson in the fourth. The Seahawks did not shut Stafford down, but they cooled him off.
They also stood up on critical downs. Stafford had nine dropbacks on third and fourth down. He completed just three passes and moved the chains once on a 10-yard pass to receiver Puka Nacua in the first quarter. Stafford’s only fourth-down attempt was thwarted on the opening drive when outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu leaped and threw off the timing, leading to an off-target pass at the feet of tight end Tyler Higbee.
“I have to make that throw,” Stafford said. “I got the guy up off the feet like I wanted to and then just didn’t make the throw. They had a nice plan. They did a nice job against us.”
The typically sure-handed Adams dropped a couple of third-down passes that skew the numbers a bit. But Seattle largely had answers for the Rams’ offense on the most important down of the game. That’s why the time of possession was heavily in Seattle’s favor and the Rams had just 249 yards, their second-lowest output of the year.
“Our defense was getting turnovers and getting us in short fields, but it was a little bit of a strange game for us momentum-wise, for us to get out there and see what was going on,” Stafford said. “Then we didn’t sustain drives long enough there in the fourth quarter or really in the second half to also get into a rhythm. They did a nice job getting us off the field on third down in some of those instances.”
For the first nine weeks, the longest run Seattle had allowed to a running back was just 13 yards. Then Arizona’s Emari Demercado had a 55-yard run in Week 10, primarily because of a missed tackle by safety Ty Okada. In the first quarter on Sunday, running back Kyren Williams had runs of 30 and 34 yards.
“Any runs that come to the middle of the field (are) mine,” linebacker Ernest Jones IV said, accepting the blame on both plays. “I wasn’t where I needed to be, so that’s how they get 60-something yards.”
Jones did not offer any second-level resistance on either run, but had safety Coby Bryant not missed tackles on both plays, Williams would have had only 22 or 23 total yards on those two carries. Jones, Bryant and the rest of the defense tightened up the remainder of the game. Williams had just 15 yards on six carries and produced just one first down in the final three quarters. Running back Blake Corum finished with 10 yards on eight carries.
“It wasn’t really too (many) adjustments,” Bryant said of the defense after the first quarter. “It was just us calming down, playing our style of football. And that’s what we did.”
Bryant made up for his missed tackles by forcing the Rams’ only turnover, punching the ball out of Nacua’s hands early in the third quarter, two plays after Darnold’s second interception. Inside linebacker Drake Thomas recovered, and Seattle drove for a field goal to cut the deficit to 14-12.
Los Angeles finished with 21 points, but two of its three scoring drives were the product of short fields off Darnold interceptions and netted a combined 28 yards. The Rams went the length of the field just once on a 10-play, 74-yard drive in the first quarter. They had 1 yard in the second quarter and only 114 yards in the second half.
Seattle’s defense played at that level despite Darnold putting them in bad spots. Los Angeles’ only scoring drive of the second half came off an interception that set the home team up at Seattle’s 25-yard line. The defense did give up a 10-yard run on third-and-1, which the unit feels is inexcusable regardless of the field position. The next play was a touchdown because Parkinson tossed Okada to the ground; that’s also not something the defense is going to blame on its quarterback.
When Jones said after the game that defense “could have got better stops,” those are the moments he’s referring to.
Regardless, Seattle’s defense gave the team a chance to win on the road against an elite offense while not receiving much support from the other side of the ball. On the biggest drive of the game, the defense stood up and returned the ball to its offense.
Los Angeles took over with 2:17 left, leading 21-19. Seattle had three timeouts. A couple of first downs would have iced the game. Nacua ran for 18 yards on the first play, prompting a Seattle timeout. The next two plays were runs by Williams and Nacua for no gain because of great individual tackles by Thomas and Bryant. Stafford then threw incomplete on third down.
“We’re dogs,” Nwosu said. “Any situation you put us in, we can come out on top of. We showed that today. The defense showed a lot of resiliency, a lot of fight. We got our offense’s back. Sometimes, things don’t go the way we planned. That’s why we’re a team and we fight for each other.”
Macdonald’s defense ranks fourth in points per drive, fifth in EPA per play and sixth in points per game. It has feasted on bad offenses and just went toe-to-toe with an elite one.
Beyond the numbers, Seattle’s performance Sunday was impressive because Macdonald was able to deal with Los Angeles’ strength — heavy personnel — while staying within the confines of his own system. Seattle mostly countered the Rams’ 13 personnel (one back, three tight ends, one receiver) with its nickel package and often deployed six defensive backs on early downs, anticipating that, independent of personnel, the Rams would throw the ball. Macdonald arguably won the chess match with McVay on Sunday.
Consistency is a prerequisite for being elite, so these next games against the Titans, Vikings and Falcons matter as well, even though those offenses haven’t been very good. But Sunday’s game showed Seattle’s defense is the type of unit that can guide a team through the playoffs, as long as the offense holds up its end of the bargain.
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