I chastised Niner fans for this one, so I'll say the same thing here: It's not the Seahawks job to make sure that you're impressed by a great defensive game.
The defense was excellent. They held the opposition to 7 points. They forced turnovers. They held Cam Newton to his lowest offensive production of his entire career. Should we be impressed by this? Absolutely, we should. These are tremendous things to accomplish.
The special teams did great. Ryan's first punt of the game - which went for about 75 yards in the air out of the end zone was magnificent. We got turnovers. Hauschka never allowed a kickoff return.
When Wilson throws for 320 yards, a touchdown, and no interceptions, you know the passing game was excellent.
The only thing the Hawks didn't do really well was the running game. It was awful. However there are two bright spots on even that mark. First and foremost, Carolina has one of the best, if not the absolute best, defensive front sevens in the NFL. They're going to be very tough to run on. Second, the last four Lynch rushes of the game - the ones that he made when we needed to push their defense and break them by running out the clock - averaged 5 yards a carry. He never broke a 40 yarder, but late in the fourth quarter he was pounding them and they were out of gas.
The Hawks just played a carbon copy of the game against Carolina last year. It also was a low scoring affair of two great defenses. We came back from a small deficit in the second half, then stoned the Panthers after they drove deep into our territory and then ran out the clock. We won that game 16-12 and this one 12-7. That looks like Pete figured out the formula for beating the Panthers and executed it.
The Seahawks did lots of things very well. The entire defense was great. Special teams was great. Passing was great. We left 14-22 points on the table through a missed two point conversion, the fumble at the end of the first half, Sherman's missed interception, and the points we could've scored instead of kneeling down at the end. If this game finishes at 26-7, no one says we didn't do anything well. Just make it 20-7 by kicking the PAT and scoring a TD on the late fourth quarter drive and it superficially looks like a blowout instead of the methodical victory that it really was.
