Winners and a lot of Losers from Bears 27 Seahawks 11

The best thing about tonight’s game was that it ended.

A sparse crowd watched truly abominable football even for preseason, as the Seattle Seahawks fell behind 24-0 and eventually lost 27-11 to the Chicago Bears. If last Saturday’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers was reasonably fun even in defeat, this game looked sub-AAF quality. Yes, many starters didn’t play, but they sure did along the offensive and defensive lines, and on special teams, and the results were horrific.

Winners and Losers will be very light on winners.

Winners

Darwin Thompson

The leap was cool and he scored a touchdown on a night when he had 6 carries for 34 yards. At the very least he’d be a practice squad candidate. I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes the team just with the uncertainty surrounding Kenneth Walker’s health.

Josh Jones

Especially with Ryan Neal injured, Jones looks like a keeper as an extra safety. He had a tackle for loss and actually bothered two tackle players.

Coby Bryant and Tariq Woolen

Bryant almost had an interception and did break up a touchdown. Woolen played tight coverage all game. I’m satisfied.

Alton Robinson

Probably the only Seahawks pass rusher who actually got into the backfield with any consistency. I just slimmed down Alton. His pressure led to Myles Adams’ sack.

Damien Lewis

A late entrant to the list because he avoided a serious ankle break. When you see the cart and the aircast normally that equates to “season over” but thankfully it’s just a lateral sprain.

Losers

Marquise Blair

I think the wrong nickel corner/extra safety got traded away. The injury problems aside, Blair’s ceiling looks a lot like a special teams contributor because anything else is just an accident waiting to happen. I lost count of how many missed tackles and overpursuits he had, and once again he got penalized for a head shot. There’s no two ways about it: The defensive side of the Seahawks’ 2019 class has been a big net negative. Cody Barton can help turn that into at least neutral but other than that, you’re getting anywhere from no contributions to bad performances on defense.

Blair was just one of many Seahawks whiffing and grabbing at air, but he was the worst performer in my view.

Geno Smith

This is not to say Smith played terribly — he was unlucky on a few drops — but he has done very little over two preseason games to convincingly take the starting quarterback job. We’re looking at 10 points over four quarters, with that one touchdown coming in the two-minute drill. You can argue he doesn’t have his top two running backs or more than three snaps of DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, but the other team gets to play their first-teamers eventually too. By preseason standards the Seahawks offense has a lot more starters playing than most other squads, and the passing game has been predictably painful to watch, even with good pass protection. The ceiling for this offense, which isn’t high to begin with given the QBs on the roster, is just so low with Geno and that’s the nicest way I can put it. The floor? Well…

Charles Cross

Five penalties is five penalties no matter how well he looked blocking Robert Quinn. Cross was not only false starting but doing so whenever Seattle went uptempo. I am optimistic that’s correctable but in terms of his discipline, that’s gotta be fixed.

The receivers vying for the 4th and 5th spots at WR

Let’s assume that Metcalf, Lockett, and entirely because of injury Eskridge are the locks to make the 53. Freddie Swain had a brutal drop. Dareke Young had one. Penny Hart is probably the only one who did anything noteworthy with his 41-yard catch but even he committed a special teams penalty. JJ Arcega-Whiteside and Bo Melton both dropped touchdowns. Cade Johnson had the brutal special teams muffed punt for a touchdown. The bottom end of the receiver depth chart did not fare well. If nothing else this is why some of us have been screaming for greater investment (draft capital and free agency) at wide receiver for years.

Joel Dublanko

I cannot imagine giving him the last preseason game. Seattle’s inside linebacker depth is an absolute shambles.

Jason Myers

After hitting the upright and getting a lucky bounce on a field goal last week, Myers missed one from 47 wide right. His job shouldn’t have been unchallenged this offseason and the Seahawks need to seriously consider his future given the stink of 2021 hasn’t gone away in preseason. Seattle saves $4 million by releasing him.

Stone Forsythe

To my untrained eye he was the worst performing offensive lineman out of anyone who played the whole game. Chances are he’s just too slow to compete at an NFL level. He was getting the business from third-stringers.

Justin Coleman

What the hell happened to this guy? He was rough last week but worse this week. Coleman couldn’t down a punt at the 1 when he had plenty of room to do so, and he was a liability in the secondary. Coby Bryant may be the favorite for the nickel corner spot by default, because everyone else has failed to convince.

Special Teams unit as a whole

What a wild night. This group forced a fumble, recovered a botched punt return, but also missed a field goal, couldn’t down a punt at the 1 under no pressure, and allowed huge runbacks on kicks and punts. That was such a wretched showing by one of the strengths of this Seahawks team over the past couple of years.

Any degenerates who bet on over 40 points scored

Don’t bet on preseason football, would be my advice. But that was a hard one to take watching the Seahawks have numerous near-touchdowns only to end up with no touchdowns.

Final Notes

• Travis Homer looks so much more comfortable as an every-down back. He had one of the rare highlights on a 33-yard scamper that featured an Abe Lucas pancake block.
• Good for Jacob Eason to get some run in the state where he played his last year of college ball. He’s not accurate and his pocket awareness is a mess, but he at least got a touchdown drive off and should’ve had two. Maybe Seattle keeps him around after all but he’s not getting any higher than QB3 any time soon.
• All the best to Drew Lock, whose COVID case seems particularly rough. Forget about football for a moment and hope this virus doesn’t have long-term effects on his well-being.
• I believe that Pete Carroll’s job is safe because he traded Russell Wilson away and didn’t get another quarterback apart from Lock. If the team is bad the hook is that they’ll just draft a (hopeful) stud rookie next year. My one caveat to that is if the regular season comes and the Seahawks have a lot of efforts that look like this shitshow against Chicago, we might just see a switch made. There better be an improved showing against Dallas next week or else I suspect that confidence poll we do in SB Nation Reacts is gonna look different than the high-flying optimism from last week.