It'd been more than 800 days since the Seattle Seahawks were held without an offensive touchdown -- 819, to be exact. The streak is now over.
The Seahawks scored only 12 points in Sunday night's 28-12 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, and the only TD came on a pick-six. The last time Seattle was held without an offensive TD was Week 1, 2017 versus the Green Bay Packers.
It was a team-wide offensive struggle for the Seahawks. Russell Wilson's normal magic was erased by Aaron Donald & Co., who badgered the quarterback into five sacks, just 245 yards on 22-of-36 passing with an INT. For the first time all season, Wilson didn't throw a touchdown pass.
"Obviously, it felt like we weren't ourselves out there. We all felt that," Seahawks tight end Jacob Hollister said, via the Seattle Times. "We've just got to flush it tomorrow and move on from it."
The Seahawks seemed off-kilter from the jump, with pass-catchers dropping balls, backs not breaking tackles and blockers picking up penalties.
Usually, the self-inflicted wounds from Seattle are offset by Wilson's wizardry. Not against this Rams squad. Sunday's five sacks mean Wilson has now been sacked 61 times by the Rams in his career -- second-most a QB has been sacked by a single opponent in his first eight seasons since the 1970 NFL merger, per NFL Research.
"They had a great game plan," Seahawks receiver Tyler Lockett said. "I just think they had a lot of pressure on us today and it kind of threw us in a hole early on."
Seattle getting in a hole early wiped out its preferred run-heavy offensive game plan.
The Seahawks' pass-attack has failed to get Lockett involved since he suffered an injury in Week 10. The past three games, Wilson's favorite target has put up just 81 total yards on five receptions, including a Week 13 goose egg.
"I just think we've been running the ball more (lately), so we haven't been as focused as much on just trying to like 'Air Raid' the ball like we kind of did earlier on (in the season)," Lockett said.
He added: "We haven't been running plays to be explosive. We've been running plays to run the ball and control the clock. We haven't really been trying to go over the top like we normally have, because teams have been game-planning that."
Perhaps after they get done flushing Sunday's outcome, Seattle will revisit its strategy and try to get Lockett going earlier in its three remaining games.
