“Again?!”
Salk: Why Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald’s career really starts now
I’m sure it’s what you were thinking when Seattle Seahawks star wideout DK Metcalf lost a fumble in the third quarter of Sunday’s loss to the Giants. The play, before it became a turnover, appeared to be a 10-yard pickup that converted second-and-short in a tie game. Instead, it was a forced fumble recovered by the Giants. Four plays later, that turned into a touchdown and a 17-10 New York lead.
It was the second lost fumble in as many weeks for Metcalf, and both times the recovering team scored a quick touchdown. It felt like one of the costliest plays of primetime loss to the Lions. In a game against the Giants, where Seattle was thoroughly outplayed, it was costly but also one of many punches to land.
Ball security isn’t the single greatest strength of Metcalf’s, but to say he has a fumble problem feels a bit reactive (Note to Metcalf: please don’t fumble against the 49ers and make me regret this statement). He has eight career lost fumbles — three of which were in his 2019 rookie season and two were in the past two weeks. The remainder? Three lost fumbles in a span of four seasons.
It’s not ideal — believe me — but it’s also a digestible number for a player who’s led your team in receiving yards (5,753) and receiving touchdowns (45) since he entered the league. He became the first Seahawks receiver ever to have three consecutive 100-yard games and is less than 300 yards away from surpassing Steve Largent (Steve Largent!) for most receiving yards in a players’ first six seasons in franchise history.
That being said, the Seahawks do have a problem when it comes to the pass game: those receiving numbers are fun and all, but they’re passing too much.
Seattle leads the league in pass attempts per game (39.8). Those numbers don’t include heavy play-action, which means an already one-dimensional offense is having Geno Smith drop back pretty regularly — already a tough ask for a great offensive line, much less one with three new faces and a third-string right tackle. For all of the O-line struggles this year, that approach doesn’t make things easier on them.
First-year offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb took full responsibility for the team’s failures to establish the run.
“I’ll own that,” Grubb told reporters Tuesday. “Got to get the ball to Ken (Walker III) more. And I think we had plenty of run game in the plan, didn’t have anything to do with not having enough calls for that, just didn’t get called. And for us, we leaned on the wrong thing. And I think if we get Ken 10 more touches, 15 more touches, things are going to look different. So that’s 100% on me and my job is to make sure I get all our guys in the best position possible to win the game. And I didn’t do that.”
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