Takeaways from Seahawks 20-17 win over Titans
NASHVILLE, TN - DECEMBER 24: Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith (7) drops back for a pass during a game between the Tennessee Titans and Seattle Seahawks, December 24, 2023 at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Matthew Maxey/Icon
For the second time in less than a week, a Seattle Seahawks quarterback led a game-winning touchdown to get a 20-17 victory that keeps their playoff aspirations very much alive.
While Drew Lock got the job done on Monday night against the Philadelphia Eagles, it was Geno Smith's time to deliver on Sunday in Tennessee.
A 5-yard touchdown pass from Smith to Colby Parkinson capped a 14-play, 75-yard scoring drive that gave Seattle the lead with just 57 seconds remaining. Boye Mafe and Dre"Mont Jones each delivered sacks of Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill on Tennessee's final drive, and a big hit from Riq Woolen against Colton Dowell kept the receiver in bounds to run out the clock on a three-point Seahawks victory.
"Last week it was Drew taking us down field, today it was Geno taking us down the field," head coach Pete Carroll said. "… That’s such a mindset mentality for our guys and they know it really well. We executed beautifully in that situation, where you’ve got to wait and be patient to make your plays. Geno did a great job and Shane (Waldron) did a great job to communicate it. Fantastic."
The Titans entered the week as the NFL's best defense in preventing touchdowns on opponent's drivers into the red zone. The Seahawks needed to come through twice in the fourth quarter in those very circumstances and executed with touchdowns to Parkinson and DK Metcalf.
"I was well aware of that," Carroll said. "We were talking our way through it and to score two times down in the red zone against the best red zone defense in the NFL, it was a good deal, a good accomplishment for us. Give them credit, they're really good at it and we found a way."
The Seattle win combined with a Detroit Lions win over the Minnesota Vikings moves the Seahawks back into a playoff spot with two weeks to go in the regular season. If they win out in games against the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals,. the Seahawks will be in the playoffs.
Here are the takeaways from the 20-17 victory over the Titans:
– Geno Smith delivers.
Just as the Seahawks needed Lock to deliver last week against the Eagles, they needed Smith to come through against the Titans.
Lock had 92 yards to go in order to find the needed touchdown against Philadelphia, but Smith and the Seahawks offense needed only 75 yards on Sunday in Nashville. They also more time to get it done than Lock did against the Eagles.
Nevertheless, Smith faced a trio of third downs on the drive – including a third-and-14 from their own 32-yard line with less than two minutes to play – and delivered key completions to Tyler Lockett and Jaxon Smith-Njigba to keep the drive moving. A deep ball to Metcalf drew a pass interference call from Tre Avery to move Seattle to the Titans' 5-yard line. Two plays later, Smith hit Parkinson for the game-winning score.
"You’ve got to be around him to appreciate the competitive mentality that he has," Carroll said. "He's in such a good place. He believes so strongly that it's going to happen, and it’s going to get done and his guys are going to come through for him. And that belief it transfers, translates to other guys, they feel him. So they go through and do what they're supposed to do, and it comes out well. He’s having an enormous impact on these guys just because his mentality is so strong and so consistent."
Smith completed 25-of-36 passes on the day for 227 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. Of the team's 273 yards on the day, 180 came after halftime with three consecutive scoring drives to get the win.
"The biggest thing with Geno is just his poise," linebacker Bobby Wagner said. "His poise when the pocket collapses, to not panic, get the ball out and put it in the playmakers' hands and make plays. He did a really, really good job today."
The third-and-14 completion Smith-Njigba was one of Smith's best of the day. While a defensive holding call on Avery would have given Seattle a first down anyway, the completion to Smith-Njigba picked up 18 yards and moved Seattle out to midfield. The throw itself was a strike over the middle of the field against fairly tight coverage from Tennessee's defense.
"He's working extremely hard in practice," Smith said of Smith-Njigba. "He's getting better every single day in practice. He's really getting more comfortable in the offense, just learning his assignments, the routes, the depths, all the things that we talked about him being great at. Obviously, he's a natural receiver when it comes to catching the football and making plays."
The touchdown to Parkinson was a play the Seahawks had been hoping to deploy for a while. They lined up Smith-Njigba, Lockett and Metcalf all to the right side of the formation with Parkinson split out wide left by himself. Parkinson – a 6-foot-7, 265-pound tight end – was matched up in a pure one-on-one look against 5-foot-11, 181-pound cornerback Tre Avery. Parkinson posted up Avery in the end zone and used his size to box out Avery for the game-winning score.
"We've been working on it for a long time," Carroll said. "To make that play down there and he had a good matchup and Geno threw a great ball and ripped it to him. It's been looking good in practice so I love that we went to that right there because that was probably the last thing they thought was going to happen in that situation."
Smith's 11-yard touchdown pass to Metcalf on the previous drive was also perfectly executed. Metcalf run a slant-and-go against Avery and beat him to the back corner of the end zone and made a one-handed catch for what was a go-ahead score at the time.
The back-to-back heroics from each of their quarterbacks over the last seven days has Seattle back on the right side of the playoff cut line with two games left to play. It was Smith's fourth game-winning drive of the season for the Seahawks.
"I know that we understand what's at stake, but we also know that we have to go and handle our business," Smith said. "So, just one practice at a time, and one game at a time, one rep at a time. That's all we can do is control that. And just to continue to fight to the end.
– Pass rush explodes for six sacks as defense comes through when needed.
It wasn't a perfect defensive effort for the Seahawks on Sunday in Nashville, but the unit was able to deliver on the final drive when they had to get a stop.
Mafe had the first multi-sack game of his career, and Jones delivered a massive 10-yard sack of Tannehill on the penultimate play of the game to drain most of the remaining clock to help secure the win for Seattle.
"That was the focal point, and we got that done right from the beginning and all the way to the end," Carroll said. "I think Maye and Dre’Mont, on the last ride right there. But the guys worked hard all day long."
Mafe had a pair of sacks, and Jones, Wagner, Jarran Reed and Mario Edwards Jr. rounded out the sacks on the day for Seattle.
"We knew that if we could get them to third down, we could rush them, we could get after them," Reed said. "I think they gave up the most sacks in the league. We showed tonight that we have a great rush, we have great rushers as well, and we just ended the game, what we needed to do."
The Seahawks had allowed 113 rushing yards to Tennessee in the first half with Derrick Henry leading the effort with 58 yards on just eight carries. But Seattle adjusted in the second half and kept the ground game much more under control.
After Seattle took the lead on Metcalf's touchdown with 12:10 left to play, it took the Titans 15 plays to drive 75 yards along with the assistance of a pair of defensive penalties. A defensive pass interference call on Tre Brown against DeAndre Hopkins on a key third down and an unnecessary roughness call against Artie Burns helped the Titans retake the lead on a 2-yard Henry touchdown run with 3:21 remaining.
Ideally, the Seahawks would have been able to deliver a stop when the offense gave them a lead to work with, but the Titans had a say in that as well.
"The game was very ugly in my opinion, but we showed a lot of grit and a lot of determination do right longer," Reed said.
The only touchdown pass of the day for the Titans came on a halfback pass from Henry to Chigoziem Okonkwo in the second quarter. Tannehill was held to just 152 yards on 18-of-26 passing.
"We’ve had a lot of up and downs," Mafe said. "The thing I love about this team is that we don't waver. Every situation that has hit us, there's no one batting an eye, there's no one turning the cheek. Everyone just looks at it and says, ‘Alright, how do we get better from it?’ The fact that we were able to turn it around and actually take accountability for everything that we did and have that conversation with each other and taking an action to it, is what's amazing about this team."