Seahawks not taking loss lightly | JOHN BOYLE

Published 11:46 am Wednesday, September 17, 2014

RENTON — Monday was a “quiet and serious” day at Seahawks headquarters, according to head coach Pete Carroll.

For the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks, losing has become a rarity since the latter part of the 2011 season, so it’s no surprise that Carroll described a team that, while focused on the upcoming challenge of hosting the Denver Broncos, wasn’t taking its recent loss lightly.

But while the defense had plenty of film to study, having been on the field for the vast majority of Sunday’s loss in San Diego, any film study by the Seahawks’ offense likely ended with a grade of incomplete.

It’s easy to look at the stats, or lack thereof, from two of Seattle’s best players, wide receiver Percy Harvin and running back Marshawn Lynch, and conclude it was a bad day for the offense. Lynch rushed just six times for 36 yards, while Harvin had only one catch for five yards, and two rushes for 45, including his 51-yard touchdown. They were hardly ideal numbers for a team’s top playmakers, but in reality the Seahawks moved the ball pretty well … when they had it.

And that was the big problem for the Seahawks. It wasn’t that they didn’t play well on offense or execute the game plan, it was they never got a chance to get into the game plan. The Seahawks ran just 16 plays in the first half, yet managed two touchdowns on four possessions.

And in the second half they were playing from behind while still having a hard time getting the Philip Rivers-led Chargers offense off the field. Overall the Seahawks scored three touchdowns on seven possessions, and averaged 7.2 yards per play, while San Diego averaged 5.0 per play.

“You can’t see the game plan; we weren’t able to execute the plan that we went in with, because we just didn’t have enough chances,” Carroll said. “With four opportunities in the first half, and before you know it we’re in the 2-minutes situation, we scored so fast on Percy’s run, so we just didn’t have enough chance to develop the plan.”

In other words, you weren’t the only one who noticed a lack of touches for Harvin and Lynch, and by no means do the Seahawks go into a game intending to hand the ball to Lynch only six times.

“That had nothing to do with the game plan,” Carroll said of Lynch’s limited touches. “That was just the way this game turned out. That’s the last thing we want to have happen. The way it worked, that’s just what occurred. We didn’t get Percy the ball like we’d like to, we didn’t spread it the way we wanted to because we just didn’t have the chance.”

And speaking of Lynch, you may have noticed on the TV broadcast that Lynch walked off the field with a minute or so left on the clock while the Chargers were taking a knee. Asked if that early exit bothered him, Carroll said, “No, he went off with the doctor. His back was tightened or something like that. I wasn’t worried about that.”

While there were no signs of problems for Lynch during the game, nor any obvious signs of medical personnel walking off the field with him on the shot captured by TV cameras, it is worth noting he has been on the injury report off and on over the past couple seasons with back issues, and missed the 2011 loss at Cleveland because of back spasms.

“It’s an ongoing issue for him, it has been for years,” Carroll said. “It’s always something we’re monitoring.”

John Boyle covers the Seattle Seahawks for the Everett Daily Herald.