Getty Seahawks safety Jamal Adams
The Seattle Seahawks got trounced by the Baltimore Ravens in Week 9, losing in embarrassing fashion, 37-3. No Seahawks players covered themselves in glory in this demoralizing loss, and after the game veteran safety Jamal Adams talked about the simple yet worrisome reason his team lost so badly.
“I don’t have the perfect answer, honestly,” Adams told reporters after the game about why his team got beat so badly. “They came out, and they hit us in the mouth, simple as that.”
Jamal Adams: “They came out and they hit us in the mouth, simple as that.”
That sums it up pretty well. The Ravens simply out-physical-ed the Seahawks all day, and the results were dreadful.
Jamal Adams, Seahawks Got Bullied by the Ravens in Week 9
This Seahawks Week 9 loss to the Ravens is going to sting for a long time. That’s because Lamar Jackson and the Ravens didn’t come out and out-talent or out-finesse the Seattle defense. And the Ravens offense didn’t just slow down Geno Smith and the offense.
The Ravens simply beat the heck out of the Seahawks.
Baltimore outgained Seattle 515 yards to 151 yards, and the Ravens offense ran it down the Seahawks’ throats to earn those yards, racking up 298 yards on the ground. On the other side of the ball, the Ravens D absolutely dominated, limiting the Seahawks to just six first downs, the franchise’s lowest level of stick-moving since 1992.
If you want to be a glass-half-full fan, you can note that the Seahawks were on the road against the Ravens in Week 9 in a game with a West Coast team going east for a 1 p.m. ET start, which is historically bad for the team from the Pacific time zone.
That said, general manager John Schneider specifically traded to defensive tackle Leonard Williams to add strength, power, toughness, and run-stopping to the defense, and the unit not only didn’t get that, they gave up yards like they haven’t in a long time.
A Generationally Bad Day for the Seahawks
As mentioned above, the Seahawks offense hasn’t gained six first downs or fewer since Week 6 of the 1992 season, when Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and the eventual Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys beat Seahawks quarterbacks Stan Gelbaugh and Dan McGwire 27-0.
The lack of first downs in this game wasn’t the only thing that Seahawks fans haven’t seen in quite a while.
Pete Carroll’s squad hasn’t allowed 515 yards or gained as few as 151 this season. You have to go back to Week 12 of last season (40-34 OT loss to the Las Vegas Raiders) for the last time the team gave up that many yards and to Week 4 of 2022 (48-45 win over the Detroit Lions) to find the last time they did that in a regulation contest.
As for the offense, you have to go all the way back to a Week 16 Christmas Eve 21-12 win over the Cowboys in 2017 to find the last time the offense gained fewer yards (136) than it did today.
Outside of the first downs, the rushing yards were the next-worst performance. The last time the organization gave up 298 yards or more was back in Week 13 of 2000, when Mike Anderson of the Denver Broncos put up 195 yards on that Mike Holmgren-coached team, and Denver ran for 301 yards as a whole. That game was a lot closer, though, with the Seahawks losing 38-31.
All those games are now a distant memory, though, as the Seahawks Week 9 loss to the Ravens has to go down in history as the worst overall performance by the franchise in at least two decades.