The Washington Football Team defense was mostly good Monday against Seattle with only a few hiccups.
Washington limited the Seattle offense to 10 total first downs, only one rushing first down and 34 total rushing yards. Alex Collins was held to 14 yards on seven carries, and Russell Wilson had two carries for 16 yards.
For 58 minutes, Russell Wilson was repeatedly hounded by the Washington pass rush, hurrying throws to avoid sacks and QB hits.
Defensive Coordinator Jack Del Rio for the most part chose to rush only four after Wilson, choosing to drop seven into coverage.
Matt Ioannidis, Daron Payne and Casey Toohill all recorded two QB hits on Wilson, while Jonathan Allen, Shaka Toney, Kamren Curl and Daniel Wise each added one QB hit as well.
On five consecutive Seattle offensive possessions, the Washington defense forced Seattle into three plays and a punt. For the game, Seattle only earned ten first downs and was only 4 of 12 on third downs.
The Seahawks only ran 45 total plays (while Washington had 79 offensive snaps).
Even with Wilson’s final 96-yard drive Seattle only had the ball 18 minutes and 20 seconds.
James Smith-Williams and Casey Toohill repeatedly remained disciplined setting the edge on run plays, while in their pass rush, they remained on the outside shoulder of Wilson not permitting him to roll outside of them for big runs.
However, there was a blown coverage in the first quarter when Wilson found Tyler Lockett for 55 yards, leading to a Seattle touchdown.
The final two-minute drive of 96 yards, including the inexplicable wide-open Freddie Swain’s 32-yard touchdown catch from Wilson in the final 20 seconds was disappointing.
The defense had yielded 31.0 points average in the first six games to just 20.3 in the next three games.
Tonight, they only surrendered 15 points.
When they had given up the final touchdown drive, Kendall Fuller read the eyes of Wilson, left his receiver to intercept the two-point attempt that would have tied the game with 15 seconds remaining.
It was a 17-15 win, an ugly win, but the defense, for the most part, played quite well.