Seahawks-Cowboys recap: The good, the bad, and the ugly

The Seattle Seahawks beat the Dallas Cowboys 27-17 on Thursday in their preseason dress rehearsal. These are thoughts about it.

The Good

• Russell Wilson: Wilson played an outstanding game on Thursday night. The third preseason game is universally considered the “dress rehearsal” game for the regular season and Wilson proved that he is ready to pick back up where his 2015 season left off. He finished the night on 16-21 passing, with 192 passing yards, and two touchdowns including a Tilt-A-Whirl-esque passing touchdown to Tyler Lockett. Coming into this season many pundits questioned whether Wilson could continue the passing performance of last season; last night proved that the answer is “yes.”
• Christine Michael: Michael’s name has appeared on this list in all three preseason games. His turnaround is nothing like we’ve seen from another player during the Pete Carroll era in Seattle. Michael finished the game with 58 yards on 7 carries and a 8.3 yard per carry average. Michael’s adept athleticism turned up again last night as he was making decisive cuts behind the line of scrimmage and downfield as well as bursting through the gaps created by his blockers. The Seahawks are very deep at running back this year and Michael’s performances have added so much versatility and depth to what Seattle can do in the backfield this year.
• Earl Thomas: The secondary as a whole played a very good game, but it was Earl that I noticed the most. His coverage in man and zone was superb and he always seemed to be right next to the receiver whenever a ball was caught. Thomas’ tackling looked perfect as he wrapped up his man and brought him to the ground with relative ease. His speed and acceleration, both of which were evident on Thursday, are second to none at the safety position. Thomas play Thursday night projects this to be another All-Pro year for the 7th year safety.
• Offensive-Line: The o-line, which was many fans concern heading into the preseason, have played really well as a unit the past three weeks. The combination of Sowell-Glowinski-Britt-Ifedi-Gilliam seems to be the direction the team is heading to start the opener against Miami. This combination has performed proficiently and effectively in the interior and the Sowell-Gilliam tackle duo have shown to be the most stalwart in their stopping of defensive edge rushers. Dallas isn’t praised for their defensive line prowess, but compared to last year this offensive line has the potential to be a positive for the team.

The Bad

• Jeremy Lane: Lane was the biggest letdown on defense for Seattle. K.J. Wright did get a touchdown caught over him whenever he should’ve picked it off, but Lane looked almost disinterested in the game. His blew coverage many times during the game and as a result Lane’s man usually had the ball delivered to him for a nice gain. Lane is an exceptional talent at corner so I don’t think this will be a continuous issue for him, but tonight it was the biggest blemish on an otherwise good secondary and defensive performance.

The Ugly

• Nolan Frese: This is the second week in a row that Frese had issues with snapping the ball. His poor snap last week resulted in Steven Hauschka’s only missed field goal of the preseason. He had two more bad snaps tonight that didn’t affect the game but should still give cause for concern. Although a thankless job, long snapping has zero room for error in the NFL. I understand from a salary cap perspective why the Seahawks cut ties with Clint Gresham earlier in the offseason but I think it is time they give him a call. I’ll be surprised if Seattle decides to stick it out with Frese and not bring in Gresham before the season opener.

The Seahawks had a great game across the board on Thursday night. Ezekiel Elliott played well and showed holes in Seattle’s run defense, however, I don’t think this is concerning when you factor in that Dallas has arguably the best offensive line in the NFL and that the team had no way of game-planning against Dallas’ use of the former Buckeye. Regardless, the Seahawks “dress rehearsal” for the regular season went smoothly and next week’s game can be solely focused on fleshing out the bottom end of the roster.