Before Sunday’s game between the New Orleans Saints and the Seattle Seahawks, there had been 11 instances in pro football history in which a player had at least three rushing touchdowns and at least one passing touchdown in the same game. After Sunday’s game between the New Orleans Saints and the Seattle Seahawks, 12 players had achieved that impressive feat.
In New Orleans’ 39-32 win over Seattle, backup quarterback/Wildcat star/tight end Taysom Hill ran nine times for 111 yards, three touchdowns, 86 yards after contact, two forced missed tackles, and a supreme housing of the Seahawks’ problematic defense. Hill also attempted one pass, completing it for a 22-yard touchdown to tight end Adam Troutman.
As Hill had rushed 12 times for 116 yards and two touchdowns in the first four weeks of the 2022 season, that rushing ability should not have come as a surprise to a Seahawks defense that has been bailing water out of the boat all season long.
Still, the Seahawks seemed uniquely unprepared to deal with any of it.
“Taysom Hill had a great football game against us; we did not stop him,” Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said after the fact. “Our plan for the Wildcat did not work, obviously. He ran for over 100 yards, and that was really the difference for them in a lot of crucial situations. He came through in a big way for them. It wasn’t new, they had done it, but the things we tried to do didn’t get us off the field.”
So, was this about Hill’s greatness as a package runner and passer, or did the Seahawks just blow it? As is generally true, it was a mixture of the things. Let’s get into how it turned out the way it did.