Winners and Losers from Seahawks 51 Lions 29

Did we witness the final home game of the Seattle Seahawks as we know them? Maybe, maybe not, but it was certainly a fun one to watch. A 51-29 beatdown of the hapless and severely shorthanded Detroit Lions produced by far the best offensive performance by the Seahawks all season, and we only wish we could’ve seen this more often throughout the year.

Time for the first Winners and Losers of the new year!

Winners

Russell Wilson

That was by far Wilson’s best game since returning from injury and one of his best games of the season regardless of health or opposition. A sharp 20/29 for 236 yards, 4 touchdowns, 0 interceptions, all three of his rush attempts (except kneels which don’t count) were for first downs. On 3rd down he was 7/11 and had a Cover-0 blitz TD to DK Metcalf. He was damn near faultless and it’s games like those that should dissuade you from wanting to move on from Russ. More often than not he looks like that and not what we’ve seen at times throughout this year and some of last year.

DK Metcalf

Well hopefully that should calm nerves... including DK’s. He got the ball and he went to work with 6 catches for 63 yards and a hat trick of touchdowns. We saw him catch the fade route in tight coverage, make a double move to juke out the safety, and get open on a rollout by Wilson for the last TD. He’s suddenly tied for 3rd in receiving TDs with 12 after these past couple of weeks. I’m pretty sure DK is still a damn good if not great receiver, despite the recent disconnect between him and Russ on the field.

Rashaad Penny

I don’t particularly care that the Lions and Texans and Bears aren’t any good. Penny looks good and the only reason he didn’t have more than 170 yards on the ground on Sunday was the Seahawks not having the ball but for a few minutes of the 3rd quarter due to the onside kick recovery. Penny is decisive, he’s showing power, he’s got the speed, and he looks so confident out there. We’ve been harsh on Penny on this site but he has worked his ass off and is having a phenomenal close to the season that should be praised. Whether the Seahawks re-sign him or not, he’s more than shown himself to be a starting caliber back when he’s healthy.

Tyler Lockett

Quiet day for the most part with just 3 catches for 24 yards and a touchdown that was pretty much a run but officially goes down as a pass. But the big stat for him is that he’s set a new career high for receiving yards at 1,075.

Phil Haynes

Really the whole offensive line was a winner with their dominant run blocking and great pass protection, but I focused on Haynes because he had a couple of key blocks on Penny’s touchdown runs and filled in very well for Damien Lewis, who’s on the COVID-19 list. It certainly was a hell of a lot better than watching another Kyle Fuller start. Feels like Haynes should stick around to compete for a roster spot next year.

D.J. Reed

He needs to be re-signed. Two interceptions on the afternoon plus three passes defensed. It looked like we’d go the whole year without a Seahawks corner getting an INT and Reed double-dipped.

Jordyn Brooks

Led the team in tackles with 10 but we know not all tackles are the same. He was instrumental in a lot of the run stuffs, which was his advertised specialty coming out of college. Only thing he gets dinged for is the face mask that gave Detroit another set of downs.

Shane Waldron

The execution was brilliant, the play-calling was great, everything except screen passes seemed to go well for the Seahawks. It was like Week 1 against the Colts (adjusting for opponent) but with the added bonus of long, sustained drives that weren’t reliant on explosives to score. There’s been a much more methodical approach to Seahawks scoring drives and perhaps not coincidentally it’s happened at the same time the rushing attack has thrived.

Jason Myers

Myers has had a less than stellar season but he was 3-3 on his field goal attempts and didn’t miss any of his PATs, and he had to kick a lot of PATs.

Losers

Ugo Amadi

This is a little tongue in cheek but some of it is serious. Amadi was flagged for holding and leads the team in penalties committed. Not all of them were legit but some were definitely warranted, and he wasn’t at his best in coverage. He did record his first career interception... only to fumble it out of bounds when he had a pick-six in his sights. It’s been somewhat of an up and down year for Amadi and we saw it even within this game.

Quandre Diggs

That’s not the first time in recent weeks that Quandre has allowed a huge run happen because of a missed tackle. Amon-Ra St. Brown’s first touchdown came as a result of missed tackles by Darrell Taylor and then Diggs, who was the last line of defense. He’s still someone I believe Seattle should re-sign but the hard-hitting safety has had some whiffs.

Scorigami lovers

The Seahawks needed another field goal or points of any sort on their last possession for their first Scorigami game since 2018. Unfortunately, Dee Eskridge’s end-around was a yard short of the end zone and with no timeouts left for the Lions, Seattle just ran the clock out. The crowd booed the victory formation and while I’m sure they mostly wanted more points regardless... some of them knew Scorigami was at stake.

Final Notes

• Cody Barton played well (at least on initial viewing) in Bobby Wagner’s absence. We’ve scarcely seen Barton on the field and with the possibility that Wagner won’t play next week, we could get an extended look at Barton and whether he should be starting in 2022 or at least getting more snaps.
• It’d be a bummer if that was Wagner’s final game as a Seahawk. First snap, do the splits on a screen pass, and that’s a wrap. I don’t want it to end that way and surely neither does he. This was the first time all year that he missed a defensive snap.
• Darrell Taylor and Bryan Mone combined for a 4th and 1 stop, but Taylor absolutely walloped Jamaal Williams at the goal line in the 3rd quarter and it was an awesome sight. Dude’s got the spirit of Kam Chancellor in him but at defensive end.
• Gerald Everett needs to be re-signed. He’s a quality all-around TE who breaks tackles, has some good speed for his position, and he’s a really good blocker. Everett is what the Seahawks presumably wanted Ed Dickson to be.
• Tim Boyle has no business being on an NFL roster. I don’t even get what he did in college to merit a signing at a pro-level. That’s the main caution I have with what we saw from the defense this afternoon.
• I’m just going to enjoy this win. It wasn’t a replica of the prime Seahawks teams but the mixture of an efficient Wilson, a superb rushing attack, and a defense that can generate turnovers had some element of nostalgia to it. Emphasis on some. We can debate the future of this team another day and we will have a lot of opportunities to do so.
• Oh yeah, you’ll get Enemy Reaction, too!