“It’s happening,” Pete Carroll said at one point in his ebullient postgame news conference on Sunday.
Indeed, it is. And what’s happening with the Seattle Seahawks — which is simply the best story in the NFL this season — is making the subtle transition from wonderment over their unfolding emergence, to questions about how long it’s going to last, to a growing realization that it’s not an illusion or a house of cards.
The Seahawks game on Sunday against the 6-1 New York Giants was billed as a referendum to see which of the NFL’s two most surprising teams are for real. And after the Seahawks’ convincing 27-13 victory at Lumen Field, they emphatically provided the answer on their end.
The Seahawks are looking more authentic by the week. This was a validating victory. This was a win, fashioned in the throwback style of past Seattle powerhouses, that allowed one to think that greater heights might lie ahead. And to no longer feel like you’re merely being fooled by an unsustainable hot streak when you harbor such thoughts.
It’s getting harder and harder, in fact, to remember the before times, when the Seahawks were written off as one of the NFL’s dregs, and quarterback Geno Smith was regarded as a journeyman with a sordid past and no future.
Cut to the end of Sunday’s game, when a thundering chant of “Ge-no! Ge-no!” reverberated at Lumen Field. This wasn’t of the mocking variety, like the one meant to send a message to Russell Wilson in the season opener against Denver. This was an admiring, unironic, heartfelt tribute to another standout game in what is becoming a breakout season of historic proportions for Smith.
“Once again, Geno was solid as a rock, on point with the whole day’s work,” Carroll said.
Smith competed 23 of 34 passes for 212 yards and two touchdowns for a 104.0 QB rating, but his numbers across the board would have been far higher if three deft would-be TD passes hadn’t been inexplicably dropped by Seattle receivers.
The most shocking was by the usually sure-handed Tyler Lockett, which prompted Carroll to console Lockett — who also had a damaging fumble at the Seattle 3-yard-line to set up an easy New York touchdown — by telling him he was the best receiver he had ever coached.
“I didn’t really know if he was telling me the truth, or if he just wanted me to forget about the catch,” grinned Lockett afterward.
Either way, Lockett redeemed himself with a 33-yard touchdown reception in the fourth quarter that broke a 13-13 tie and turned the game irrevocably in Seattle’s direction. That capped a lightning-quick, five-play, 75-yard drive that Smith executed with Tom Brady-like aplomb — a check-down here, a laser there, a picturesque arcing dime right into Lockett’s waiting arms.
Yet you can’t really say Smith proved he was for real on Sunday. That question had already been asked and answered.
“This is the real deal,” Carroll said. “There’s no mystery, like, is he going to run out of gas or something like that. He knows exactly what he’s doing. And he shows you week in and week out, throw after throw after throw. And there’s nothing for us to hold him in anything but in the highest expectations. It’s a thrilling story for the kid, who just hung in there so tough and outlasted it, and now he’s enjoying all the fun of it.”
He’s not the only one savoring the fun of it. Smith’s ongoing star turn, or Lockett’s redeeming catch, or DK Metcalf’s TD reception after being carted off the field a week earlier, or Kenneth Walker III’s latest in an ongoing series of highlight runs, weren’t even the biggest stories of this Seahawks’ win, their second in a row over a winning team to solidify their hold on first place in the NFC West.
That honor went to the Seahawks’ resurgent defense, which completely stymied one of the top rushing teams in the NFL. Carroll was beyond ecstatic over holding the estimable Saquon Barkley to 2.7 yards per carry — nearly as ecstatic as he was about the two immense turnovers forced by Seattle’s special teams on punts.
With the stadium rocking, the defense wreaking havoc and the quarterback executing with precision and poise, Carroll admitted that he started to have some visions of the good old days that many figured were permanently in Seattle’s past. And he has one nexus to those teams with the return of linebacker Bruce Irvin, who made an impact with his play on Sunday.
“He connects us with the history somewhat,” Carroll said. “I don’t want to make too much of that because these guys don’t even know, but he does, and he knows the mentality and kind of just the hardness of how we approach stuff, and he is that. He always has been.
“I was talking to Kam (Chancellor) and Ben (Obamanu) and Cliff (Avril) before the game, and they know, they can see it, too, that (Irvin) kind of gives that connection. Look how we’re playing. We look like we used to look, and the stadium is rocking like it used to rock, and we’re playing the kind of football that gives us a chance to win every time we go out.”
You can see the Seahawks’ belief in themselves and their potential growing with each game. And Sunday’s game was another indication it’s not just a pipe dream. The burning question no longer is if the Seahawks are for real. Instead, it’s how far can they go.