Seahawks Offense Face Plants, Leaves Pete Carroll Scratching Head
The Seattle Seahawks went into halftime of their Week 1 matchup against the Los Angeles Rams with a lead. But when they returned to the field in the second half, the offense may have forgotten to rejoin the team.
The Rams ended up outscoring the Seattle offense 23-0 in the second half going on to win 30-13 on Sunday at Lumen Field, and that isn't even the most jaw-dropping statistic to come out of this game. Aside from punting on every possession in the second half, the Seahawks ended up only being able to accumulate three yards of offense.
It was a performance that had head coach Pete Carroll stunned after the game.
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When asked about the offensive issues in the second half, Carroll seemed just as shocked as the fans as to what exactly went wrong, expressing that the staff was trying to figure out what led to the dramatic fall-off.
"Starkly different to me the way we played in the first and second half," he said. "We were in there talking about it right now, trying to figure out how it got so erratic. We weren't on it and didn't convert and get the ball moving. We didn't run the ball, we didn't do anything. Did nothing in the second half. We were trying and calling the stuff and we had things that we thought we could do, and we weren't able to get it done."
One of the main issues that surely caused the lack of offense was the fact both tackles went down with injuries, which allowed the Rams to sack Geno Smith twice and hit him another seven times. Offensive linemen Charles Cross and Abraham Lucas went down with lower-extremity injuries.
As for how Cross and Lucas are health-wise, Carroll seemed optimistic about the former and a tad puzzled when it came to the latter.
"Yeah, Charles has like a sprained big toe, and the x-rays from what I heard didn't look bad," Carroll said. "We'll see. But he felt something and so we had to look at him. Abe's (Lucas) knee just acted up on him again. He doesn't have a knee injury. Just the same knee we rested him on during camp just got really sore during the game and couldn't fire the way he needed to, so we had to get him out of there. I don't know what to tell you about that one."
The Seahawks would love to get both of their tackles and their offensive mojo back for their Week 2 matchup against a Detroit Lions team that has a defense headlined by pass rusher Aidan Hutchinson. ESPN's Matchup Predictor currently gives the Seahawks a 35.3 percent chance of winning, and if they are without their two anchors that number could drop dramatically.
The reserve linemen just weren't able to give Geno Smith enough time in the pocket, which led to an abundance of errant throws. The status of the tackles is something to look out for ahead of Week 2.
