Photo Credit: Otto Greule Jr./Getty Images
Football is back! After months and months of waiting, we finally had football back! The Seattle Seahawks defended their Super Bowl title last night when they hosted the Green Bay Packers.
The Packers not only lost the game, but lost three key players in the process. Eddie Lacy was taken out of the game after suffering a concussion. Lacy took a massive hit by Kam Chancellor that forced him to go back to the locker room. However, the biggest loss came in the second quarter when the Packers’ starting right tackle Bryan Bulaga was sidelined after suffering a knee injury. Bulaga’s replacement, Derek Sherrod, did not fair well trying to block Cliff Avril for the remainder of the game.
The Seattle defense was quite impressive finishing the night with three sacks and five tackles for losses. Even more impressive is the respect Rodgers had for outspoken cornerback Richard Sherman who did not see a pass thrown his way once. After the game, Sherman addressed Rodgers asking him, “You avoided me, didn’t you?”
Despite holding the Packers elite offense to just sixteen points and 255 total yards, Sherman said the team’s performance was not “dominant”. Talking about his team’s performance, he said, “We missed some opportunities on some turnovers. We missed some tackles on key drives we could have stopped; we had some key penalties. These are all things we need to clean up because we have a really high standard.”
On offense, the Seahawks showed flash and speed. Running an amazing fake hand off play for their first touchdown, Russell Wilson and Seattle’s offense had Green Bay’s defense on their heels all night. Running back Marshawn Lynch went into true “beast mode” breaking multiple tackles and requiring multiple defenders to bring him down. Lynch finished the night with 110 yards and scored two of Seattle’s touchdowns.
For the first time since Seattle signed, Percy Harvin in the regular season and showed the flash he adds to their offense. Harvin was Seattle’s leading receiver with 59 yards as well as their second rushing leader.
