The Super Bowl defending Champion Seattle Seahawks have not followed up their title season the way they had hoped. They come into play tonight having lost as many games as they’ve won, three, and Sam Darnold has already lost as many starts for his team as he suffered in the entire past two campaigns while leading the Minnesota Vikings and Seahawks to 14 win regular seasons.
The problems endured by Seattle are not all physical … they have stumbled from bad situations to bad situations. It began when the schedule makers had them open against the team they beat in last year’s Super Bowl. One could have thought the New Patriots had the motivation to atone for their 29-13 loss last February.
They might have, but the Seahawks actually got a motivational boost when the favorite in the game had to suddenly compensate for the loss of their quarterback when Darnold was knocked out of the game during the first series of downs. The team rallied around backup Drew Brees and overcame a second half deficit to eke out a three points win, 13-10. The team played hard the next week to compensate for the loss of Darnold in a win over the Arizona Cardinals, 31-7.
That lopsided loss coupled with the return of Darnold delivered the Seahawks a triple motivational trap in Week Three. First, the easy win over the Cardinals to push their record to 2-0 and the return of Darnold sent them to Washington as a confidence nine-point favorite. The Commanders, coincidentally, were losing their starting quarterback for the game when Jayden Daniels suffered an elbow injury during Washington’s lopsided loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
See that? The Seahawks are confident because they are getting their starting quarterback back, and the Commanders are motivated to compensate for the loss of theirs. It added up to an upset home win for Washington, 33-31.
The next week, at home, the Seahawks got a shot at the winless Los Angeles Chargers and took advantage of the game without beating the point spread. They were seven-point favorites and won the game by seven points, 30-23. The following Sunday, again at home, the Seahawks were favored over the team they had blown out of the playoffs last season by a score of 41-6, which was enough of a motivator for Kyle Shanahan’s visiting San Francisco 49ers squad to edge the Seahawks at Lumen Field, 32-29.