This Week in Seahawks History: Undefeated dreams end

This will be a weekly article series throughout the season looking back on what happened for the Seattle Seahawks 40, 30, 20, and 10 years ago this week. Unfortunately, it’s a loss-filled look-back, including a couple of undefeated runs coming to an end.

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40 Years Ago

Sunday, October 9, 1983

Game Log

The Seahawks finished their season series with the San Diego Chargers early in the 1983 season, playing them for the second time in four weeks. This time, however, the game was on the road and the outcome wasn’t as pleasant. It started off pretty decent at least.

Seattle scored the only points of the 1st Quarter when Jim Zorn threw a 7-yard TD pass to Harold Jackson. They extended their lead to 21-0 in the 2nd Quarter with consecutive 2-yard rushing TDs from Curt Warner. Then, the wheels fell off. Chargers backup QB Ed Luther threw 1 of his 7 career TD passes to Kellen Winslow, cutting the score to 21-7 before halftime. In the 3rd Quarter, it was Dan Fouts’ turn to throw a TD pass as he found Bobby Duckworth for a 59-yard TD. Chuck Muncie tied the game up at 21-21 in the 4th Quarter with a 1-yard TD run. Jim Zorn threw the game winning TD pass, but it was unfortunately to Andre Young of the Chargers as he returned an interception 40 yards for the clinching score in the 28-21 Seahawks defeat.

Perhaps the most disappointing part of this game was that Seattle lost while winning the turnover battle 5-2. Jim Zorn was 25/41 for 295 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT. Curt Warner had 19 carries for 73 yards and 2 TDs. He also caught 6 passes for 49 yards. Charle Young had over ¼ of his total receiving yards for the 1983 season in this game with 140 yards on 7 catches.

Kenny Easley and John Harris both had 1 INT. Jacob Green recorded 2.0 sacks. Jeff Bryant and Keith Simpson each had 1.0 sack in the loss.

30 Years Ago

Sunday, October 3, 1993

Game Log

Remember that thing I just wrote about the 1983 Seahawks finishing up their season series with the San Diego Chargers early? Copy/paste it here since the 1993 season did pretty much the same thing with these two teams playing twice in the first five weeks. This result is quite a bit better!

Rick Mirer got the scoring going with a 2-yard TD run to give the Seahawks a 7-0 lead in the 1st Quarter. San Diego answered back with a 2-yard TD run of their own from one of my favorite football names ever – Marion Butts. From there, the Seahawks pulled away scoring 24 consecutive points. John Kasay kicked a 33-yard FG in the 2nd Quarter followed by a 17-yard TD pass from Dan McGwire to Brian Blades to put the score at 17-7 at halftime. Chris Warren plowed in from 1 yard out in the 3rd Quarter for a rushing TD. Kelvin Martin caught an 18-yard TD pass from Rick Mirer in the 4th Quarter to give the Seahawks the 31-7 lead. San Diego scored the final (meaningless) TD of the game when future Seahawks Legend John Friesz threw a 11-yard TD pass to Anthony Miller as Seattle won convincingly 31-14. This was their 3rd win of the season, surpassing the 1992 win total after only 5 games.

Rick Mirer was 25/40 for 282 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT. Dan McGwire was 1/2 for 17 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT. Chris Warren had a rough 1.39 ypc average with just 32 yards on 23 carries but he did have 1 rushing TD. Brian Blades hauled in 10 catches for 132 yards and 1 TD. Kelvin Martin added 5 catches of his own for 85 yards and 1 TD.

Eugene Robinson had an INT for the third week in a row. Carlton Gray recorded the other Seahawks INT. Michael Sinclair had a heck of a game, accounting for all of Seattle’s sacks with 3.0 of those things!

20 Years Ago

Sunday, October 5, 2003

Game Log

Hey, no Chargers this game! Instead, the undefeated 2003 Seattle Seahawks headed to my home state of Wisconsin to take on Mike Holmgren’s former team in Lambeau Field. TLDR: it sucked!

Green Bay got the ball first, but didn’t do much with it, punting it over to the Seahawks. After two nice rushing plays, Shaun Alexander fumbled on his third attempt, and it was recovered by the Packers. Brett Favre threw a 34-yard TD pass to Donald Driver a few plays later to put GB up 7-0. Seattle answered on the next drive when Shaun Alexander made amends for his previous mistake with a 1-yard TD run to tie the game at 7-7. The Packers took the ensuing drive right down the field and former Seahawks Legend Ahman Green matched Alexander with a 1-yard rushing TD of his own to put GB up 14-7. Seattle embarked on a long drive, but eventually stalled out inside GB’s redzone settling for a Josh Brown 27-yard FG to cut the deficit to 14-10. The Seahawks defense had no answers for the Packers offense and Ahman Green scored his 2nd rushing TD of the day, this one from 3 yards out with less than a minute remaining in the half. Seattle cobbled together a quick scoring drive as Josh Brown nailed a 58-yard FG going into halftime to pull Seattle within 21-13. That’s as good as it was going to get.

Seattle took the second-half kickoff and went three-and-out. GB took the ensuing drive right down the field and capped it off with an 11-yard rushing TD from Tony Fisher to make the score 28-13. The Seahawks drove the ball into Packers territory, but Matt Hasselbeck was intercepted by Darren Sharper who returned the ball near midfield. GB took advantage of the field position and Brett Favre finished the drive with a 2-yard TD pass to William Henderson to put GB up 35-13 just before the end of the 3rd Quarter. That would end up the final score as both of Seattle’s 4th Quarter drives ended with Hasselbeck incompletions on 4th down in Packers territory. Seattle came out of the bye with their first loss of the 2003 season. Yuck.

Matt Hasselbeck was 23/39 for 225 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT. Shaun Alexander had 20 carries for 102 yards and 1 TD. Koren Robinson led the Seahawks in receiving against his future team with 8 catches for 76 yards.

Unsurprisingly, there’s very little to write about the Seahawks defense since they gave up five straight TD drives. John Randle had 1.0 sack. That’s about it.

10 Years Ago

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Game Log

We just finished talking about the 2003 Seahawks losing their first game of the season, so we might as well rip the band-aid off and do the same for the 2013 ‘Hawks. Let’s get this over with.

Seattle shut down the Colts on their first drive, forcing a three-and-out. They took a 3-0 lead on the ensuing drive with a 42-yard FG from Stephen Hauschka. Once again, the defense forced a three-and-out to give their offense the ball right back. The Seahawks wasted no time working their way down the field and Russell Wilson found Golden Tate for a 10-yard passing TD and the quick 10-0 lead. The Seahawks defense came up with a third straight three-and-out to force another punt from some dummy named McAfee. Seattle’s special teams wanted in on the fun, so they blocked the punt. I remember this vividly because Jeron Johnson tried to recover the ball in the endzone but couldn’t corral it in-bounds and it was ruled a safety. Instead of a 17-0 lead, it was 12-0. Seattle got the ball back on the free kick but couldn’t do anything with it and punted it to the Colts. The defense had a rare miscue as Andrew Luck connected with T.Y. Hilton on a 73-yard bomb to cut the Seahawks lead to 12-7. Seattle drove into Indianapolis territory but settled for a 48-yard FG attempt. Notice, how I had to add “attempt” to that? The Colts blocked the FG and returned it 61 yards for a TD. Suddenly, the Seahawks were trailing 14-12 early in the 2nd Quarter. The Seahawks regained their composure on the following drive and Russell Wilson threw a 28-yard TD pass to Jermaine Kearse to take back the lead at 19-14. Indianapolis had their own sustained drive but ended up with a 41-yard FG from Adam Vinatieri to cut the lead to 19-17. Seattle had one more chance before halftime but couldn’t score and headed into the locker room ahead by a measly 2 points.

The Seahawks took the 2nd half kickoff down the field and finished with a 36-yard FG from Hauschka. Chris Clemons strip-sacked Andrew Luck on the following drive and Cliff Avril recovered the ball at the Colts 30 yard line, setting the table for the offense. In true Seahawks fashion, they got a 5-yard penalty for 12 players on the field and didn’t gain a first down on the drive. Instead, Hauschka added a 41-yard FG to make the score 25-17. It might have been nice to finish some of these drives with TDs. That definitely won’t come back to bite them. Oh look, the Colts took the next drive right down the field and Luck found Hilton again for a 29-yard TD pass. At least they couldn’t convert the 2-point try and Seattle still led 25-23. The Seahawks offense stalled on the next drive and settled for another Hauschka FG for the 28-23 lead. Indianapolis got the ball back on offense just before the end of the 3rd Quarter and proceeded to wear down the Seahawks defense for a nearly 7-minute TD drive, punctuated by a 3-yard Donald Brown TD run. The Colts converted the 2-point try this time, and they led 31-28. Seattle’s offense went three-and-out on the next drive, giving it back to the Colts who promptly executed a 4:38 drive that ended with a 49-yard Vinatieri FG at the 2-minute warning to extend their lead to 34-28. The Seahawks got the ball back with one more chance and – after a quick first down – failed to move the ball any farther with Wilson throwing a 4th down interception. Game over.

Seattle’s offense outgained Indianapolis by over 100 yards but were done in by scoring FGs instead of TDs. Russell Wilson was 15/31 for 210 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT. He also rushed the ball 13 times for 102 yards. Marshawn Lynch had also had 102 yards, but it took him 17 carries to reach that mark. Doug Baldwin had 5 catches for 80 yards. Golden Tate had 61 yards and 1 TD on 5 carries. Jermaine Kearse made his 1 catch count with 28 yards receiving and 1 TD.

Chris Clemons had 1.0 sack and 1.0 FF. Bruce Irvin also had 1.0 sack in the first defeat of the season. Thankfully, there won’t be too many of these to write about.