Up to this game, Russell Wilson was having quite the remarkable start to his season and was the leading contender to win the league wide MVP award. Then this game happened.

Presently, this team was only go as far as Wilson can take them. Even in their five victories, most of their wins were narrowly decided. That is a sure sign of a team with blemishes riding a hot quarterback. Today, the quarterback was considerably cooler, and largely because of that, in the fourth quarter, they got it handed to them as a team.

Still, in this loss, there are some positive silver linings. I will start with those.

The Good

Jamarco Jones continued to play pretty well at right guard in place of the DJ Fluker and running back Chris Carson had nice gains running to the right.

Tyler Lockett continues to be a productive weapon for Wilson and had another solid game.

Rookie phenom receiver DK Metcalf was having a good game up until that play late in the fourth quarter. I’m going to trust that that play will never ever happen again moving forward in his young bright career.

Chris Carson continued running hard and part of me wonders if Seattle should have stayed with him more when Wilson and the passing game was struggling.

Rookie safety Marquise Blair looked good in the starting defense. He made the defense look a lot faster, and he made his presence known both against the pass and run. In my opinion, this might be the best sign for the defense moving forward, even better than the return of defensive tackle Jarran Reed. Seattle’s secondary needs a player with more presence and he delivered that. I hope he stays a starter.

Cornerbacks Shaquill Griffin and Tre Flowers both had good games.

Jadeveon Clowney didn’t get sacks but he got good pressures.

It was really nice to see Jarran Reed back, and around the ball.

The Bad

Russell was playing decently up until the last few minutes of the first half when he tossed a lazy pass to Jaron Brown near the sideline, and former Ram and Husky Marcus Peters picked it off for an easy pick six. Bad timing for Russ to toss his first INT for the year. Credit him for regrouping and leading the offense to a field goal drive to tie it at the end of the half, but it seemed like the offense started the second half without a lot of luster, and yeah, well.. he just didn’t have an MVP level game there on out. In my opinion, that’s the biggest reason why Seattle lost this game.

Pete Carroll decided to have Jason Meyers kick his longest field goal attempt instead of going for it on 4 and 2, and I actually thought that they should have gone for it. The field goal miss gave the Ravens great field position and they scored.

Seattle needed Bobby Wagner to have a great game and he didn’t. It’s tough to blame him for this loss because the whole defense was on skates trying to tackle a scrambling Lamar Jackson, but Wagner is the highest paid linebacker in the league, and quietly, he hasn’t really been at his best this season. This needs to change.

In the closing minutes of the game, when Seattle still had a wee chance to maybe make it a game, DK Metcalf caught a short pass by the sideline and he weirdly had the ball squirt out all by itself as he tried to tuck in and run. Ravens corner Marlon Humphrey scooped it up and ran it into a touchdown. Thus, Wilson and Metcalf are directly responsible for giving Baltimore 14 points on two defensive scores in this 30 to 16 loss. Take both of those scores away, and each offense scored 16 points. That’s how close the margins for error were in this match. Can not have that happen and expect to win.

The Ugly

My wife put a duraflame log in the fireplace and failed to open up the air vent and smoked out our house. On top of watching this rain soaked sloppy mess, we got enjoy this household fiasco, as well.

Moving Forward

This loss is not the end of the 2019 Seattle Seahawks season by any stretch, but it was frustrating nonetheless. It only illustrated how dependent Seattle is on stellar Russell Wilson play. The season ending loss of Will Dissly was felt in this one. Not having Ziggy Ansah in the game was felt in this one.

With the trade deadline approaching a week from Tuesday, it feels like Seattle needs to make a move or two, if they truly want to compete for a championship. As it stands now, they look like a team that can win ten or eleven games, and make the playoffs, but going against a really balanced team like Baltimore, they have to play near perfectly in at least one phase to win. Today, they didn’t do that in any.

If there is one silver lining in this match, it’s that it looks like Seattle’s decision to draft safety Marquise Blair with a high second round pick was a good idea, and maybe they should just ride with him as a starter moving forward, and Jamarco Jones looks line a good young guard on the offensive line. Seattle needs more of it’s younger players to step forward as the season goes on. These two guys did that. That’s a big plus in my book.

Go Hawks.