Will Dissly, Seattle Seahawks.
In a Falcons vs. Seattle Seahawks matchup, not many fans expected to see an aerial battle. Surprise, The teams threw for over 500 combined yards. Atlanta’s Marcus Mariota is not known for his accuracy, but he was able to pile up over 220 yards through the air while Geno Smith got over 320 yards.
This game was a back-and-forth battle throughout. Seattle opened the scoring with a field goal on their first drive. The Falcons responded by driving 75 yards down the field for a touchdown. On the Seahawks’ second drive, they countered with a touchdown of their own.
With the score now 10-7, it wasn’t easy to guess what would come next. The Falcons tied it up with a field goal as both teams continued to trade blows.
By the end of the third quarter, Atlanta pulled ahead 27-23. Unfortunately for the Seahawks, this ended up being the final score. So in a tightly contested game, the Falcons come out on top.
They can attribute a large part of that victory to 141 rushing yards and 1 touchdown from Cordarelle Patterson. He seemed to break a run at any time.
Additionally, Atlanta was a combined 11 of 20 on third and fourth down. The Seahawks’ defense struggled to get off the field.
That brings us to the studs and duds from this week’s game.
The duds were a little harder to determine this week than they were after the San Francisco game. Harder but not incredibly difficult. These are the worst of this week’s loss.
Let’s start with someone who doesn’t usually make this list, left guard Damien Lewis. As one of the veterans on the Seattle Seahawks offensive line, the team counts on him to be steady. His performance was neither veteran-like nor steady.
This was especially true in the fourth quarter. Lewis had two separate holding penalties that ended up killing those scoring drives. The offense was already struggling in the second half, and he seemed to add insult to injury with his play.
Results might have been different without Lewis’ mistakes.
Next up is the Seattle Seahawks run defense. If you can say what they did on Sunday even qualifies as a run defense.
The unit gave up 179 yards on 31 carries which averages out to 5.8 yards per carry. That’s 1.3 YPC more than they had coming into the game. The Falcons also scored 2 of their TDs on the ground this week.
Cordarrelle Patterson led the way with an average of 8.3 yards for each of his 17 carries. The Seahawks run defense was pitiful, and it ultimately cost them this game.
The biggest dud of this week’s game has to be the Seahawk’s second-half offense or lack thereof.
When the team needed to score points at crunch time, Seattle managed to get a field goal, a punt, and an interception on their final three drives. After the half, the Seahawks could not find any sense of offensive rhythm. Seattle looked inept against a defense they should have been able to score points against.
Kenneth Walker III had a couple of nice runs, and Tyler Lockett had some nice grabs, but in the end, Lewis’s holding penalties and Smith’s lack of passing accuracy led to this week’s defeat.
For the most part, Seattle played a good game. That is up until the final few offensive series. There were some studs.
Cornerback Tariq Woolen didn’t have a particularly great game. However, it’s not necessarily what happened; it’s what didn’t happen.
He allowed receptions on 3 of 5 targets for 52 yards. But what gets lost in those numbers is that Mariota threw at the Seahawks fifth round rookie corner only 5 times. Woolen is starting to feel like a potential lockdown corner.
Sunday’s game was a throwback to 2020. Well, at least for Seattle Seahawks kicker Jason Myers.
Last year watching Myers kick was like watching a tv medical series when they show compound fractures. In other words dicey and hard to look at.
Myers was money this week, just like he was for the Seattle Seahawks two years ago. While none of his field goals were particularly long, the kicker went 3 for 3. He converted both extra point opportunities.
One last thing that sometimes gets overlooked. Myers kicked off six times, and none of them were returned. Atlanta had to start each post-Seahawks scoring drive from the 25-yard line.
If Atlanta’s defense had to pay attention to D.K. Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, someone else on the Seahawks had to be open. Many times it was their tight ends.
While no individual piled up huge stats, Will Dissly, Colby Parkinson, and Noah Fant as a group was very productive.
That’s a combined stat line of 9 for 9 on targets for 105 yards and a touchdown. Any non-George Kittle or Kelsey team in the NFL will gladly take that kind of production from their tight ends.
Next week the Seattle Seahawks travel to 1-2 Detroit.