After a pretty impressive thrashing, Seattle looks good to start the season, but how much of their showing holds water? The former Super Bowl champions look primed for another run at being world champs, and it showed. More or less everything they did to start the game showed what should be expected of them this season. Russell Wilson scored two touchdowns and was very impressive, creating time, and hitting open receivers, while also running at the correct times.
The starters showed their skill by dominating on both sides of the ball, and it’s not like the Chargers are an awful team, they nearly made the playoffs last season. Although their defensive line is a project, and that may be putting it lightly.
The Chargers could boast one the NFL’s best secondary’s this year, but their run defense could seriously struggle, and the defense as a whole could struggle with how young they are. The Seahawks nearly ran for nearly 250 yards on 37 carries, some being designed runs, some being scrambles. When your offense can average over six yards a carry, you’re going to win ball games, and that’s what the Seahawks did against a poor defensive line. They ran for all those yards without starting running back Marshawn Lynch as well, which makes it even more impressive.
The only thing to ignore in this game would be the Seahawks offensive line. Of course it’s near impossible to run for that kind of yardage without good blocking, but the level of competition wasn’t at an all-time high. The Chargers failed to field a sack, and clearly didn’t create much pressure in the run game either, this week against Chicago should be a better test, but not much more of one. Sadly the Seahawks offensive line may not get a real test until week one versus the Packers, after that, not until week seven versus the Rams. Great for the Seahawks record wise, but it’d be nice to see if this offensive line got any better.
Certainly it’s easy to say it’s still preseason, and week three will be the best indication of how a team is going to play in the regular season, but what the Seahawks did to the Chargers was telling, and shows the depth that this team has on both sides of the ball. The Seahawks are the team to beat moving forward regardless of the preseason, and they showed it. After such an impressive showing, scouts from around the NFL will be watching their games, looking for the players they won’t be able to keep come roster cut time.