The Seattle Seahawks are going to be much better than most analysts expected this season. Yesterday's results indicate that we're right on that take, as Seattle defeated the visiting Denver Broncos in convincing fashion, 26-20 at home. That final score does nothing to indicate how well Seattle played in the second half or how close the game was once their offense finally got going.
As expected, the Seahawks have received a significant bump in the national power rankings heading into Week 2. Vinnie Iyer at The Sporting News had Seattle only ranked 24th in the league going into Week 1, but now they're up to number 17. Here's what he wrote.
The Sporting News on Seahawks' win
"The Seahawks' offense was more uptempo, balanced, and explosive with Ryan Grubb, getting more out of Geno Smith and Kenneth Walker III. Mike MacDonald tightened the pass defense screws, too, evident vs. the Broncos."
Seattle's defense was dominant from start to finish, holding the Broncos to just 13 first-half points despite getting set up with a very short field to defend multiple times and the offense surrendering four points via safeties in their own end zone. Up front, Leonard Williams and Boye Mafe got a ton of pressures, in the middle Tyrel Dodson was shutting everything down and on the back end every single DB played some brilliant ball.
Offensively things started out very shaky, as starting quarterback Geno Smith buckled under the pressure and thew an interception to end his first drive of the game. They finally broke through when Smith scrambled for a 34-yard touchdown in the second quarter, then after the break they came out slinging. Third-year running back Ken Walker blew the Broncos defense away in the third, and Zach Charbonnet finished things off. The offensive line was atrocious in the first half, particularly in pass protection, but they recovered in the second with some nice run blocking.
So far, so good. Another convincing win over the New England Patriots next week should push this team even further up the power rankings, hopefully into top-10 territory where they actually belong.
