Seahawks – 24

Giants – 7

Frustratingly slow starts are merely a fact of life when dealing with the Seattle Seahawks. They are as unavoidable as death or taxes, and Sunday’s game versus the New York Giants was no exception. Coming off the bye Seattle traveled east to the Meadowlands, the site of their triumphant Super Bowl XLVIII victory. There they would face the struggling Giants who were fresh off their first victory of the season nearly two weeks ago in Denver.

The Seahawks were expected to handle the overmatched Giants, and for the most part, they were. Seattle was moving the ball on offense, the defense was holding a New York team with no weapons to practically nothing, and were absolutely owning the time of possession nearly 22 minutes to 9.

Except they were losing. Despite such dominance on paper, the Seahawks actually trailed 7-3 at the half. Even though they held the ball far longer and were racking up yards against a solid Giants defense, Seattle was unable to accomplish the primary offensive goal: score. Overthrows and drops are two words to describe the plentiful missed opportunities in the first half.

There was one goal-line sequence where Seattle ran 10 plays within the Giants 10 yard line and came away with absolutely zero points. They should have walked away with a touchdown, but on fourth down, Jimmy Graham dropped the surefire score.

Later, Thomas Rawls lost a fumble that was nearly returned for a touchdown. Eli Manning capitalized and found rookie tight end Evan Engram for the only New York points of the day. Seattle’s offense looked atrocious, something no one wanted to see after an extra week off. Doug Baldwin was even seen shoving coach Tom Cable and yelling at him.

Luckily, Seattle showed once more why they are a second-half team. Once a team allows the Seahawks to start rolling, even ever so slightly, it is a very hard thing to stop the momentum from snowballing into something unstoppable. Midway through the third quarter, Russell found Doug Baldwin for Seattle’s first touchdown of the day and claimed a lead they would not relinquish. Seattle’s second was set up by a Jarran Reed strip sack of Manning, which was recovered by Frank Clark. Russell handed the ball off to JD McKissic, who then lateraled it back Wilson, who bombed it deep for Paul Richardson to score after wrestling it away from Giants safety Landon Collins.

The Seahawk snowball had become a full-fledged avalanche when the day was finished off with Wilson’s third touchdown of the game to Graham, earning him some redemption. Wilson found Graham in the exact same corner of the exact same end zone as the earlier drop too. Russell finished the game 27/39, 334 yards and a passer rating of 121. The Seahawks are now 13-0 in the regular season when Wilson has three touchdown passes in a game.

The Legion of Boom also showed up in a big time, holding the Giants to 177 total net yards. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter before Eli topped 100 yards passing.

Seattle ran off 24 unanswered points to win the game and improve to 4-2 on the year. The Seahawks are 5-0 all-time in MetLife stadium, 6-0 vs the NFC East on the road since 2012, and tied the Giants/Seahawks series record at 9-9 with their fourth straight win over Big Blue.

Four straight wins is the longest winning streak either team has had over the other in this series.

The Good

The MVP of this game was easily Doug Baldwin who could not be stopped. After a somewhat mediocre start to 2017, Baldwin exploded with 9 catches for 92 yards and a score in what was easily his best game of the year. His connection with Russ was in playoff stretch mode, and if it weren’t for an overthrow he could have had an extra 63 yards and a second touchdown.

Entering Sunday’s contest was his 77^th consecutive game played, which is tied for fourth longest active wide receiver streak. Such dependability has allowed him to Seattle’s 6^th all-time reception leader, Seattle’s 4^th receiving yards leader, and Seattle’s third-best in receiving touchdowns.

The Bad

Although Seattle rushed for over 100 yards as a team, it came from five different runners carrying the ball a total of 30 times. The best performance came from Thomas Rawls, but he only managed 36 yards on the ground. The Seahawk run game is still very much a work in progress, and it will be something that needs to be kept an eye on going forward if they are able to get to 100 yards like this going forward.

Considering the fact that not every offense they face from here on out will be as pathetic as New York’s, 30 carries a game might be a tall order when the opposing offense will be on the field longer.

The Ugly

For as good as the Seahawks were, their offense was a bit of a disaster for the first half and certain plays in the second. Graham followed his brutal touchdown drop with an even more excruciating drop to kill a drive on third down the very next series. Russell’s fade routes in the end zone were uncharacteristically inaccurate, as was his overthrow of a wide open Baldwin in the third.

The frustrating thing was this was completely on the offenses fault, the Giants defense didn’t have some miraculous secondary play, or any major hits to knock balls loose… it was just failure on Seattle’s part.

The good news here is that these miscues are correctable. Graham does not normally drop such easy catches, nor is Wilson that bad at deep passes consistently. Realistically, Seattle’s offense was two plays away from dropping 38 points on the road. Despite the mind-numbing mistakes, the Seahawks offense overall was not bad. They still scored three touchdowns against a good defense on the road, they still have over 100 yards rushing, and they were able to sustain long drives.

If we are upset that Wilson only had a good day when he could have had a great one, and we have to "settle" for "only" 334 yards and three scores, then that says a lot in it of itself. I firmly believe that Seattle continued their upward trajectory of offense. Ultimately, I saw more good than bad.

Looking ahead

The schedule seems to become a tad more favorable for Seattle in the coming weeks. The Seahawks return to the Pacific Northwest for two back to back home games. First up they will take on the Houston Texans, led by rookie phenom Deshaun Watson, followed by Kirk Cousins and the Washington Redskins. Watson is making an excellent case for rookie of the year as he is tied with Tom Brady and Alex Smith for second in passing touchdowns this season at 15. The Texans are 3-3, but still, have managed to play excellent offensively since their week one disaster against Jacksonville. Playing the Legion of Boom in Seattle will be an excellent litmus test for how good the young quarterback truly is.

Defensively, they are without mega-star JJ Watt and Whitney Mercilus, so not having them to terrorize Wilson will be a blessing for the Seahawks offensive line. Seattle has an excellent opportunity to extend their winning streak to four games, something they were unable to do last season.