Gregg Bell
The News Tribune
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It’s become as obvious as Russell Wilson is good at rallying with excellence late in games.
The Seahawks’ wobbly, bend-and-may-break defense absolutely, positively must have turnovers right now.
It got one when it really needed to on Sunday: in the third quarter, with Cam Newton, Christian McCaffrey and Carolina gaining yards in chunks as big as North Carolina is wide. The Panthers were rolling with exactly 300 yards in 34 minutes of play, and were about to take a 20-10 lead at Bank of America Stadium.
Then Bradley McDougald made a play Seattle had been waiting for over the last month.
The strong safety continued his brilliant season replacing retired Kam Chancellor by tipping Newton’s pass intended for tight end Chris Manhertz to himself then intercepting it in the end zone. It was the Seahawks’ first turnover forced in four games, ending a team-record dry streak in takeaways.
That turnover sparked a 14-point swing. Chris Carson went Matrix on the next play. And Seattle scored on the ensuing drive to take a 17-13 lead to begin its 20-point second half and comeback from three deficits after halftime for a mammoth victory on the final play, 30-27.
The Seahawks (6-5), with nine starters on defense different than what the unit fielding in the 2017 opener, forced 16 turnovers in their first seven games of 2018. Seattle was second in the NFL in turnover margin at plus-10 in late October.
Until McDougald’s interception Sunday they hadn’t forced a turnover since their 28-14 win at Detroit on Oct. 28. In that span they allowed 375, 456, 359 and now Sunday a season-high 476 yards. And in points, it’s been 25, 36, 24 and 27 points.
Five defensive backs, nickel defense. Six defensive backs, with Delano Hill joining Justin Coleman as the extra cover guys. Didn’t matter. Carolina rolled much like Green Bay, the Rams and the Chargers had the previous three weeks.
The Seahawks could have had much more than one turnover Sunday, but were anything but opportunistic. The Panthers lost an amazing five fumbles, including Christian McCaffrey’s from the 1-yard line trying to score a touchdown in the second half. Seattle recovered none of those fumbles, including one rookie cornerback Tre Flowers forced at teammate Tedric Thompson’s feet in the third quarter before another Carolina touchdown.
Flowers, by the way, was brilliant. The converted safety and fifth-round pick missed one tackle on Carolina’s final drive, along the sideline, but made two other sure tackles on third down including on the otherwise unstoppable McCaffrey, to hold Carolina to two field goals on its seven trips inside Seattle’s 20-yard line.
“Gosh, that was frustrating,” coach Pete Carroll said so many chances to change the game. “The ball was on the ground all day, just like we wanted it to be. We would up plus-one for the day, which was huge, with the offense not giving it up, which is important. But there were so many chances. I don’t know why we couldn’t come up with the ball.
“That’s the way we wanted it to look. We just wanted to get two or three of them.
“The defense had a hard time today. McCaffrey was awesome. Cam was awesome. But when they got into the red zone we were able to stop them.”
Seattle had no pass rush again — Newton was sacked and hit as many times as you were on Sunday, on 30 drop backs while scrambling for many of his 63 yards on the ground. Sunday was the first time the defense had no sacks, and the first time in memory Seattle had zero quarterback hits.
“Russ (Wilson) told us that early in the week: Gotta understand, when you are having an up-and-down season, things may not seem like they are going in your favor all the time,” defensive end Frank Clark, “and one thing you always have to do is keep your head down and keep on chopping.”
It wasn’t just the pass rush, or lack of; the defense missed tackles all over the field, and again especially at the line of scrimmage. Without Pro Bowl outside linebacker K.J. Wright for the eighth time in 11 games this season following the 29-year-old’s knee surgery in August, coordinator Ken Norton Jr.’s scheme had guys in the right spot to limit gains to a yard or 3, but the results were chunk plays by the dozen for the Panthers.
The Seahawks’ defense made Sunday a lot harder than it could have been.
Seattle is winning in spite of their defense right now, not because of it.
The one positive: Carolina had seven trips into the red zone. It scored only three touchdowns. All-Pro middle linebacker Bobby Wagner, defensive tackle Nazair Jones and Flowers made tackles on third and fourth and 1 to turn the Panthers away from touchdowns.
“I’m proud of how we just kept fighting,” Wagner said, “how we just kept bowing up.”
Schottenheimer finds his man
One of the biggest plays of Sunday’s game for the Seahawks was their first one.
Carolina starting cornerback Donte Jackson, the Panthers’ second-round pick out of LSU, left the game for good after getting hurt tackling Tyler Lockett on a fly sweep to begin the game.
Corn Elder, who spent all of his 2017 rookie season on injured reserve and has zero career starts, entered for Jackson at cornerback.
And with the game on the line, Seahawks offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer and Wilson targeted Elder.
Fourth-and-3 from the Carolina 35 with 3:33 left and Seattle down 27-20. Schottenheimer calls a play that sends Moore one-on-one down the left sideline with Elder to the end zone. Wilson looks to the right, but seems intent to throw left to Moore the entire time. He does. Elder grabs just about every body part Moore has — except his left arm. Moore uses that to pull Wilson’s perfectly placed pass into his chest for the touchdown that tied the game and set up the wild Seahawks win at the end.
Elder never did turn around to find the ball in flight.
“It was a great job by Schotty and Russ to make sure that we went after the new guy,” Carroll said.
“It’s always about matchup. And they were on it.”
Wilson said Moore “made an unbelievable play.
“We needed it. You got to go for it.”
Pained Baldwin plays on
Doug Baldwin was questionable to play because of a groin injury he got in practice on Tuesday. But the 30-year-old Pro Bowl wide receiver started and had five catches for 39 yards.
He’s played through pain in both knees, his elbow and now his groin this season.
How’d he do it Sunday?
“It’s easy. I’m a savage,” a grinning Baldwin said, using his favorite word of this season. “You guys forget that.”
Wilson’s latest mark
Wilson won his 71st regular-season game as Seattle’s starting quarterback. That breaks Dave Krieg’s franchise record while he started from 1981-91.
Wilson is now 71-35-1 in the regular season since he took over in week one of his rookie season of 2012. That’s three years sooner to the franchise record than it took Krieg to set it.
Wilson set the Seahawks’ record for career wins by a quarterback in the regular season and playoffs in the victory at Arizona on Sept 30. He passed Matt Hasselbeck that day with 75 total victories as Seattle’s QB.
