Only watched it 1.5 times, but here's what I got.
Both QBs played better than I thought they would. Boykin's inexperience is obvious, but he has some natural QB instincts and felt less raw at QB than you would expect. The touch on his deep ball was impressive. Now if only he could learn how to spike a football. Both guys suffered significantly from a sub-replacement level group of running backs and receivers, as Seattle is super thin at both positions currently due to minor injuries.
It's preseason for Pete too. He blew an obvious opportunity to challenge when Alex Smith converted a 3rd and 9 on his first drive. The receiver caught the ball while airborne and his second foot was clearly out of bounds. No challenge from Seattle, instead they have 12 in the huddle and take a stupid penalty. Ware gets the easy TD on the next play, but if Pete were paying attention, it would have been 3 points and not 7.
It's just a preseason game but boy did the D-line look bad, both starters and depth looked pretty awful. Spencer Ware looks way faster than he did when he was a Seahawk but there is no excuse for having your starting defense getting their asses kicked the by a 2nd/3rd string RB. We all know that having Kam and Bennett out is a big deal but it shouldn't have been THIS BIG of a deal. The pass rush was essentially non-existent as well.
I've always been a big skeptic of moving Clark to DE/LB. Clark is good at blowing up a ZBS running game and he's good at controlling gaps, but these are DT skills not DE skills. This game was a chance to convince me there is some logic to the move, but if anything it only reinforced my feelings. Clark was a total non-factor despite playing a lot of snaps. He totalled just one pressure that I know of. Yeah, it's really early but we all remember what he did really early in 2015. Unfortunately, Seattle has had Clark lose so much weight that he's already penciled in for this role rest of season, it's a real bummer.
I get that Seattle has seen a ton of Alex Collins in practices, but it was a real headscratcher for me that Collins totalled just 4 touches in this game. It's a very limited sample size, but Collins played EXACTLY like I thought he would. When he gets a head of steam, he can push for that extra yard as well as anyone. He'll be a great short yardage back for us. Unfortunately, Collins tied his shoes with Robert Turbin's shoelaces, and if you get even a tiny piece of Collins in the backfield before he makes those first couple steps towards the hole, he will go down with alarming ease. That's a problem, because our current OL talent and Cable's scheme means that backfield penetration on obvious running downs will be an issue our RBs have to overcome.
Haush was money. Jon Ryan, fresh off of his Jim Gaffigan audition, had a pretty good game as well.
Tyvis Powell was gifted a pick and fell down for no reason, potentially costing himself a real shot at a pick six. He had some head turning plays on specials though. He may have already made the initial 53 man roster based on his performance today.
I hate to say it, but Kenny Lawler didn't look like an NFL player today. I also don't believe for a second that he weighs 203 pounds. If he bulks up next offseason, I could see him having a chance. But the only way he makes the 2016 roster is if the rest of our WR depth is shambles.
Richardson played and didn't get hurt which was nice. But he didn't stand out as much as I thought he would either. Mixed bag.
I've always thought that Zach Miller was an exceedingly generous comp for Nick Vannett, but today it looked like a dead on comparison.
I didn't watch the OL super close, but I did see one play where Glowinsky dominated his block to set up a 9 yard run by C-Mike.
Britt seemed to do an okay job in the run game, but failed with stunt pickups just like before, allowing pressures that led to punts. He hasn't changed.
Jarran Reed looked exactly as expected. Gap sound, but a non-factor in the pass rush and struggles to penetrate into the backfield vs. the run. I think he is an okay player but I am starting to understand why he fell as far as he did in the draft.
Christine Michael looked better than ever. He could have been even more productive if not for a few rushed decisions. His new life motto seems to be do everything like your hair is on fire. It pays off between the tackles but there were a few 10 yard runs that could have been 30 yarders with a slightly less frantic style. Even during his postgame interview he seemed to be in turbo-mode, talking so fast that every third word was "man." In essence, Michael is going too fast for his processor to handle it. Hopefully he relaxes a bit at some point and he allows himself to slow the game down a bit.
I'm not sure if I blame the secondary or give credit to the Chiefs OC, but Alex Smith picked apart the secondary at will and on a few drives Nick Foles seemed to do the same. I lean towards crediting the OC rather than blaming our starters. The Chiefs were really good at staying on schedule and having that effective running game definitely made an impact on our pass D.
Wilson looked great other than his last pass. And even that pass probably would have only been picked off by a handful of corners in this league. Had Wilson put it further outside, it probably would have been a TD. I like that Wilson is going to have that play stuck in his mind all week at practice.
All three Seattle QBs suffered drops that made their statistical performances look worse than they really were.
The ending was hilarious. It was seriously some of the worst clock management I have ever seen to end a game, and it actually worked to our favor as McEvoy drew single coverage during the chaos and confusion.
