The Detroit Lions raced out to a 17-0 first-quarter lead Sunday in Seattle.
Then they remembered they were the Detroit Lions.
For three quarters, the Seahawks dominated. In the first quarter, they were the ones getting dominated. Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford threw two touchdown passes in the first 10 minutes, one for seven yards to rookie tight end Brandon Pettigrew and one for 29 yards to veteran receiver Bryant Johnson.
Lions kicker Jason Hanson made a 41-yard field goal, the Lions’ defense stuffed the Seahawks on a fourth-and-one, and the Lions were rolling.
“It stinks that we had to put ourselves in that situation,” Hasselbeck said after the game, per the Seattle Times. “That wasn’t the plan.”
By halftime, when the Seahawks had closed the margin to 17-13, they had started to show what the plan was: Have Hasselbeck pick apart the Lions’ secondary, and force Lions rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford to make mistakes.
Those mistakes included five interceptions -- but Seahawks middle linebacker David Hawthorne, who grabbed two of those five picks, doesn’t think they should be referred to as “mistakes” at all. Hawthorne, who’s starting in place of the injured Lofa Tatupu, said that being in the right place to intercept passes is the result of a great deal of film study.
“I’m watching films and going over the game plan after dinner. Wednesday nights, Thursday nights, Friday nights, Saturdays at the hotel -- I even did some studying when I woke up this morning,” Hawthorne told the News Tribune after the game. “Just knowing the looks -- it’s pretty much the same looks that the coaches gave us all week in practice. . . . Then, when it happened in the game, it was just that much easier because we’d worked on it so much. I just had to step up and have a good finish.”
While Hawthorne deserves a lot of credit, Stafford acknowledged the obvious after the game: He deserves a lot of blame.
“It’s frustrating,” Stafford told the Detroit Free Press. “Didn’t play well. Just made some poor throws, really. I was aggressive sometimes, but if I make a good throw in those situations, maybe we’re coming out with a touchdown instead of picks. But obviously I can’t turn the ball over like that.”
Hasselbeck was agressive, too, but he was a lot more accurate than Stafford. Hasselbeck completed 39 of 51 passes for 329 yards, with one touchdown and one interception, and he spread the ball around so well that six different Seahawks caught five or more passes.
Lions coach Jim Schwartz said after the game that he was particularly disappointed that his defense allowed the Seahawks to convert on seven of 15 third downs. “Third-down defense had been something that had been going good for us, but we took a little step back today,” Schwartz said, per the Detroit News. “We tried to blitz. We had a hard time getting that done. A nd we tried coverage, but we can’t allow 50-percent conversions on third down.”
A huge problem for the Lions was their pass rush -- or lack thereof. Hasselbeck threw 51 passes and was only sacked once, and a big reason that he spread the ball around so effectively was that he so often had so much time to scan the field and find an open receiver. The Lions actually played pretty well against the run (Seahawks running back Julius Jones was limited to just 16 carries for 36 yards) but it didn’t take long for the Seahawks to figure out that Hasselbeck could have his way with the Lions’ secondary.
The Lions were actually better than the Seahawks on the ground. Running back Kevin Smith led the way with 13 carries for 67 yards, and backup running backs Aaron Brown and Maurice Morris had four carries apiece, combining for 47 yards. Schwartz said after the game that he likes Smith’s big-play ability, but he wants him to run more consistently.
“When you look at his total numbers, I think he ran the ball well -- he had an explosive run that had been lacking,’' Schwartz said, per MLive.com. “Like we talked about with the quarterback and interceptions, it’s the result of a lot of different things. There were too many lost-yardage plays. It’s running back, it’s offensive line, it’s tight end, it’s fullback, it’s wide receivers blocking. We did do some good things in the run game today, but not enough.’'
Not doing enough has been the norm for the Lions. The loss drops them to 1-7 at the season’s halfway point, and they’re now 1-23 over the last two years. Last season they were the first 0-16 team in NFL history, and despite having one win, there’s not much evidence that they’re really any better than they were a year ago.
The Seahawks improved to 3-5, and Seattle coach Jim Mora said afterward he wasn’t sure why, exactly, the Seahawks were able to mount such an impressive comeback.
“Guys just stepped up and made some plays,” Mora told the News Tribune. “I wish I could tell you exactly why, because then I would try to bottle them up and feed it to them every Sunday.”
Unfortunately for the Seahawks, they don’t get to play the Lions every Sunday.