THE BAD
The offensive line: In the first half of the game, the offensive line was looking solid. That changed in the second half, however, when they surrendered four sacks to players not named Aaron Donald. Rams linebacker Leonard Floyd, in particular, had a field day at the line of scrimmage, recording three sacks and five total QB hits in addition to his key fourth-quarter fumble recovery. Seattle’s front five have arguably exceeded expectations in 2020, but were just not up to the challenge of the Rams’ dominant front seven on Sunday.
“That” punt: Seahawks fans expressed bafflement and outrage online at the end of the first second-half drive, in which coach Pete Carroll challenged a fourth-down spot at the Seattle 42, lost the challenge (and subsequently lost a timeout), then chose to accept a delay-of-game penalty in order to give punter Michael Dickson some extra room on what would have been 4th-and-inches. “It was too early in the game,” he said when asked why the Seahawks (down 17-13 at the time) chose not to go for the first down. “I believed in our guys.” His statement rang somewhat hollow – having faith in one’s defense is admirable, but when that defense is currently performing worse than any other defense in NFL history, it seems somewhat asinine not to let Seattle’s high-powered offense try to give themselves some much-needed momentum.