We may be way better than all of us think.

Nice win, very unexpected and surprising. The Seahawks played solid but quite vanilla unremarkable football, enough to just win it by the barest of margins. I think if Denver didn't commit the number of penalties they did and/or if this was even the second game of Denver's season, this would not have been a win.

They looked much better than I thought they would be. Tackles played fine until late when Cross got beat twice but Chubb is a tough task. Woolen made a couple mistakes but he flashed as well. The second half the offense worried me and I'm still not sure which half of football is going to be the norm but they deserve credit. Russ and the Denver offense moved the ball fairly easily but that should turn out to be a loaded offense and you have a young defense so again, some promise was shown.

I hope they prove me and others wrong and shock the hell out of us.

Bullmeister said:

Nice win, very unexpected and surprising. The Seahawks played solid but quite vanilla unremarkable football, enough to just win it by the barest of margins. I think if Denver didn't commit the number of penalties they did and/or if this was even the second game of Denver's season, this would not have been a win.

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You could say that, but it's not like we were on our A game either. Our mistakes didn't result in as many penalties, but they were mistakes nonetheless. Both teams play better in week 2. And I'd wager the improvement for a young team, week over week will outpace that of a veteran squad that is rusty.

We also started our backup qb from last year. He too will get better as the season progresses. So I don't know that we just took advantage of a mistake laden performance by the Broncos. I mean, we had 3 INts that could have resulted in us padding our lead...

Bullmeister said:

Nice win, very unexpected and surprising. The Seahawks played solid but quite vanilla unremarkable football, enough to just win it by the barest of margins. I think if Denver didn't commit the number of penalties they did and/or if this was even the second game of Denver's season, this would not have been a win.

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Yeah I think we got some breaks also with them fumbling twice inside the 5 which probably doesn't happen and we were lucky to come away with a win but that's football too.

PNW25 said:

Yeah I think we got some breaks also with them fumbling twice inside the 5 which probably doesn't happen and we were lucky to come away with a win but that's football too.

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Those fumbles were big-time plays by Diggs and Nwosu, not "some breaks."

Yes they will be competitive albeit they are far off from a playoff team but who knows in the NFC.....Gritty win in Pete fashion but the big concern out there is the pass rush (is it good enough?) and an offense that once again was a light switch. Great in the 1st half but they did hardly anything in the 2nd half. Without the defense playing great in the red zone with stands and fumbles forced, they lose that game.

keasley45 said:

More then SOME of us think. The floor for this team is 7. Ceiling? Playoffs

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I was always an "over" guy on that Vegas 5.5 line.

FattyKnuckle said:

This game was the focus for all of training camp and the entire team and fans were all revved up to 11 for it. You can’t overreact to a week 1 game, good or bad. It was very promising, much better than I expected especially with all the rookies getting significant time, but it was only one emotional home game. Need to see another game or two, see how well they handle the emotional hangover and play better teams. I went With 4-6 wins and would love to increase that number but I’m not ready to also judge the rest of the division after one game either. It was very, very promising though.

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"handle the emotional hangover"
Good line! I got up this morning suffering from the effects of football hangover, and I don't drink!
I definitely do not think this game is the ceiling for our team's potential ability. Our newbies are still just getting their feet wet and our vets are still just beginning to learn how to play together. Our level of play should improve all year.
Adams can not seem to find a way to get through an entire game without suffering injury. That is a big problem for both he and the rest of the team.

We could have a 2010-esque start for the team. I don't think a 4-2 start is out of the realm of possibility, especially if we can eek out a win in SF.

I think eventually, our momentum may crash back to Earth - and the talent gap of this team with the Chargers and Buccaneers of the world will be apparent. But if you told me we start and end the Season strong, I'd totally believe that.

FattyKnuckle said:

This game was the focus for all of training camp and the entire team and fans were all revved up to 11 for it. You can’t overreact to a week 1 game, good or bad. It was very promising, much better than I expected especially with all the rookies getting significant time, but it was only one emotional home game. Need to see another game or two, see how well they handle the emotional hangover and play better teams. I went With 4-6 wins and would love to increase that number but I’m not ready to also judge the rest of the division after one game either. It was very, very promising though.

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The defense was 2 yards away from giving up 30 points, the 2 goal line fumbles Saved them. Also Denver’s idiotic decision to try a 64 yard FG. I think they get a first if they go for it on 4th and 5, and then he makes that FG 5 yards closer.

Injuries, inexperience, and poor defense will be the story of the 2022 Hawks. I hope I’m wrong.

Sports Hernia said:

The defense was 2 yards away from giving up 30 points, the 2 goal line fumbles Saved them. Also Denver’s idiotic decision to try a 64 yard FG. I think they get a first if they go for it on 4th and 5, and then he makes that FG 5 yards closer.

Injuries, inexperience, and poor defense will be the story of the 2022 Hawks. I hope I’m wrong.

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They were getting yards in chunks and taking advantage of the youth in the secondary as well as early season poor tackling (which better get fixed). I hope you're right though because the defense IS young and will get torched but by the end of the season it should be a tight group that made it through a very tough schedule (AFCW and NFCW). I don't expect much from our record this year but the more experience this young team gets, the better we'll be going forward.

I was a '7 or better' predictor prior to yesterday's game and feel as safe in that prediction now as I did then, maybe moreso.

On offense, Geno was the Geno we have seen, which is to say better than a lot (most?) of the people here gave him credit for but somewhat maddening in some of the big moments.

Cross got beat towards the end but Smith also wasn't stepping up into some of the space he had because he simply wasn't sensing that his young LT was getting beat. He wasn't making that mistake in the first half so the big thing Pete and Co. need to do for our QB is make sure the moment doesn't get too big for him.

That said, he can keep in a rhythm (13 straight completions after he did 14 last year in a game) and the obvious connection he has with guys like Metcalf is heartening. We still have playmakers on offense, so I think once we can get KWIII mixed in and hopefully get Penny to start ripping like the end of last year, our offense is going to be pretty darn good even if late game heroics won't be part of our repertoire like it had been with our previous QB.


On defense--our guys are young. We got some benefits of that (the way these guys hustled to loose balls was ridiculous) but they also got undisciplined and dropped their assignments or let guys get behind them that shouldn't have been. I think we improve in that regard as the season goes on.


Finally, special teams. For all the talk about what happened at QB, I never understood why the fact that the only K we had on our roster was still Meyer was the bigger untold story from last year and remains so. However, Jason knocked in a near 50 yarder from dead on-center (which I feel like has been an issue, but I could be wrong) in addition to making both XP kicks.

I know that, traditionally, once a kicker gets in their head they don't get out of it but I'm hoping for him to be the exception to that rule. Otherwise, our special teams was a highlight this game and hope they remain so going forward.

PNW25 said:

They looked much better than I thought they would be. Tackles played fine until late when Cross got beat twice but Chubb is a tough task. Woolen made a couple mistakes but he flashed as well. The second half the offense worried me and I'm still not sure which half of football is going to be the norm but they deserve credit. Russ and the Denver offense moved the ball fairly easily but that should turn out to be a loaded offense and you have a young defense so again, some promise was shown.

I hope they prove me and others wrong and shock the hell out of us.

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My thought as well. I wonder if they tried to be more conservative, or if it was Denver who made adjustments? I think it was both.

bbsplitter said:

I’m ecstatic simply from the fact that we are in a situation where PC is almost force to give all the young guys a shot to play that he has been conservative on in the past. I will all of the learning moments from the newbies happily.

If we manage a winning record this year I would be beyond impressed. I appreciate the week 1 win, but we got a lot more football ahead of us. Once teams have some tape on Geno, what is the story looking like then?

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What it's NOT ''Looking like'' is GENO SMITH being the 2nd WORST Quarterback in the League. LOLOL

HawkFreak said:

If only....we could enjoy the win and bask in how glorious it feels for at least 24 hours before resuming banging on the drum of a bleak reality, negativity, and no hope.

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That's just WHO THEY ARE...Their hate for Pete trumps all.

Team should improve over the year but we still aren’t very good. Geno had a great game but let’s not pretend like he is som pro bowl QB after 1 half. We go as far as he takes us and I think at MAX that is 9 wins.

All I care about is watching the core of this team improve week by week. That way next year with some good FA signings and another great draft we start to see the signs of another contender until we get our actual Franchise QB in place.

I love that the defensive earned those fumbles. They weren't just gifts from the offense, the defense ripped/punched the ball out.

I've been in the camp of 8-9 wins this year. But if you look at the schedule. I don't think it's completely Ludicrous to think Seattle could be 4-1 going into the Game against the Cardinals. We have @SF, ATL, @Lions, @Saints. I think SF is the toughest of that lot. None of these teams scare you. Can Seattle lose to those guys? sure, but I think they've got a fighting chance in ALL of those games.

keasley45 said:

You could say that, but it's not like we were on our A game either. Our mistakes didn't result in as many penalties, but they were mistakes nonetheless. Both teams play better in week 2. And I'd wager the improvement for a young team, week over week will outpace that of a veteran squad that is rusty.

We also started our backup qb from last year. He too will get better as the season progresses. So I don't know that we just took advantage of a mistake laden performance by the Broncos. I mean, we had 3 INts that could have resulted in us padding our lead...

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Ahh, the other side of the coin... ^^TRUTH^^
The Negators (doubters) can somehow aways make bummer predictions.
LOL Like the Seahawks are the only team that plays static line, while the rest of the League gets better & better as the season wears on.

Lagartixa said:

Those fumbles were big-time plays by Diggs and Nwosu, not "some breaks."

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They were both.