Takeaways from Seattle Seahawks 37-9 win over Falcons

A dominant second half performance kick-started by a 100-yard kickoff return touchdown by Rashid Shaheed carried the Seattle Seahawks to a 37-9 blowout win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.

Seattle's defense held an opponent without a touchdown for a second straight week, and forced three turnovers from Atlanta's offense in another stellar outing. Meanwhile, the offense rebounded from a first-half dud, roaring to life with 24 second-half points to pull away convincingly.

It's the first time since 2014 that the Seahawks have held opponents to under 10 points combined in consecutive weeks. Seattle had back-to-back 19-3 victories over the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers that season as they made it back to the Super Bowl for a second consecutive year.

"We wanted to start the day fast. It was tough getting going with a 10 a.m. start, but you could feel the guys were trying," head coach Mike Macdonald said. "Hard to get the momentum there. Atlanta was playing really good on defense initially. But man, I'm really happy and proud of our second half. The guys stacked plays and played complimentary football. Played the situations really well."

The victory gives the Seahawks 10 wins on the season as they remain tied with the Los Angeles Rams atop the NFC West, though the Rams currently hold the tiebreaker.

And with the Indianapolis Colts losing quarterback Daniel Jones to a torn Achilles before heading to Seattle next week, the Seahawks could be facing another rookie quarterback in Riley Leonard for his first career start. 

Here are the takeaways from Sunday's win in Atlanta:

Special day for special teams.

You could make an argument that the Seahawks would have had a much more difficult day in Atlanta without the effort of their special teams units.

Rashid Shaheed's first career kickoff return touchdown to open the third quarter was the highlight of the day, but it was far from the other significant contribution Jay Harbaugh's unit put together.

Nick Emmanwori blocked a 50-yard field goal try from Zane Gonzalez to keep Atlanta from taking the lead in the second quarter, and Jason Myers – the reigning NFC Special Teams Player of the Month for November – then converted a 48-yard field goal to tie the game at 6-6 entering halftime.

After the break, Shaheed raced untouched for a 100-yard kickoff return touchdown to give Seattle a 13-6 lead.

"The momentum-turning play was the kickoff return at the half. I felt great about what was happening up until that point," Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said.

It was Seattle's first kickoff return touchdown since Laviska Shenault Jr. had a 97-yard return last season against the San Francisco 49ers.

Emmanwori revealed that Macdonald predicted Shaheed's kickoff return touchdown during halftime.

"Coach Mike, he called it right before he went out for halftime," Emmanwori said. "He literally called it out. He was like, Sheed gonna take one back to the house."

Macdonald got a wry smile when asked about it after the game.

"I don't know, it’s something about it. I called Coby (Bryant)'s pick last year too here. I'm going to get a fine for that, for bragging," Macdonald said.

Special teams provided a 13-point swing for the Seahawks that allowed Seattle's sputtering offense to collect itself in the second half.

Emmanwori crashed off the right edge with a stellar diving effort to block Gonzelez's field goal try on a notably weak blocking effort from Atlanta's field goal unit.

"I'll tell you what, you watch our field goal block unit, really proud of the effort in there," Macdonald said. That's a great indicator of your effort on your football team. Nick brings it every time. It's not just him. D'Anthony Bell is great in the wedge. Our D-linemen are awesome; they get a great push. But I'm really happy for Nick because he's really been ripping it on field goal block. He's come so close for a while now."

A two-minute drive late in the half allowed Myers the chance to convert his tying field goal, and Shaheed put the Seahawks out front for good with his kickoff return to open the third quarter.

The strength of Seattle's special teams units was contrasted by a truly dismal day for Atlanta's. Missed protection on the blocked field goal, poor coverage on Shaheed's kickoff return touchdown, and a kickoff out of bounds from Gonzalez for good measure.

And though he wasn't needed most of the day, Michael Dickson pinned a punt at the Atlanta 4-yard line with 30 seconds left to play for gosod measure.

Offense finds itself in the second half.

It speaks to the ceiling this Seahawks team has that they can score 37 points in a game, and it still feels like a bit of a mediocre performance overall.

A 24-point second half certainly helped to lessen the sour taste of a six-point first half.

Sam Darnold rebounded from an interception in the first half to throw for 249 yards and three touchdowns on the day. Jaxon Smith-Njigba also had seven catches for 92 yards and two touchdowns despite being covered regularly by Falcons top cornerback A.J. Terrell. 

"They rushed us well in the first half," Macdonald said of the difference between halves. "I feel like we got our run game going a little bit in the second half. 

"Again, I feel like I say this every week, but I feel like our coaches did a good job kind of going back to the drawing board, going back to our second-half openers, getting a feel for how they were playing us, what we could do well. So, our coaches deserve a lot of credit for designing a good second-half game plan, and our players did a great job of executing it. Klint (Kubiak), he was dialed in. I thought he called a tremendous game and did a great job."

Darnold completed 11-of-15 passes for 182 yards and three touchdowns in the second half and wasn't sacked after going down twice in the first half. 

"Obviously, in the first half didn't get off to the start that we wanted to offensively," Darnold said. "I think we did most of everything that we wanted to, we just didn't finish in the red zone. For us, that's kind of been a thing. We’ve just got to continue to finish in the red zone and harp on that throughout the week. But we did a great job in the second half of coming back and finishing the game strong."

If not for the four interceptions in the loss to the Rams, there probably wouldn't be the intense microscope on Darnold and the offense that seems to loom in the background.

In addition to the kick return touchdown, Shaheed broke through with his biggest offensive day since joining the Seahawks as well. He finished the game with four catches on five targets for 67 yards.

He can run every single route, and his speed is dangerous, so teams have got to respect that, especially if you've got eyes on me or whoever," Smith-Njigba said. "He's going to spring open, and when hard work meets opportunity, I know he's going to shine. You saw a little bit of that today, so the future is bright for him in this offense."

Nick Emmanwori's coming out party continues.

The Seahawks talk about Nick Emmanwori as though he's a star in the making and he certainly looked the part in Sunday's win in Atlanta.

Emmanwori recorded his first career interception, the first full sack of his career, blocked a Zane Gonzalez field goal try, and racked up six total tackles in the victory.

"Tremendous game," Macdonald said. "We gave out some game balls, and he got one of the game balls. I'm really happy for him. He's worked his tail off. He really has. He does it every day. He's a tremendous asset for us."

Emmanwori is the first player in franchise history to record a sack, blocked field goal and interception in the same game, and the first in the NFL to do so since Adrian Wilson of the Arizona Cardinals in 2010.

Emmanwori is playing all over Seattle's defense. He's lining up as a nickel cornerback, a dime linebacker, and factoring into the pass rush as a blitzer both off the edge and occasionally directly against interior linemen. 

"He was just disruptive. He was everywhere," linebacker Drake Thomas said. "When you have a pick, a sack, a blocked field goal, it just shows his capabilities and how good of a football player he is." 

Emmanwori nearly had his first interception last week against the Minnesota Vikings while guarding Justin Jefferson downfield. Instead, he needed to be the beneficiary of a deflected pass by Devon Witherspoon to come up with his first career interception.

"It felt so good to finally get it," Emmanwori said. "Last week would have been pretty great. … Stuck to my process this week and I knew it was my time eventually."

Emmanwori is thriving as a rookie and is excited to be a part of defense as good as the Seahawks are playing right now.

"This defense is super special," Emmanwori said. "This is probably one of the best defenses I've ever played on. You know, it's my first year as a rookie, but I don't think no defense could probably top this. Honestly, we got a lot of special dudes on this team, from the first level, the D-line to the linebackers to the secondary. I think his defense is, historic almost. People don't want to, almost kind of shy away from saying that, but I really do think this is, you know, it's a special defense."

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