Week 4 recap: Seahawks 30, Chargers 23
A week after Seattle outgained Washington by 179 yards and lost on three turnovers, it was outgained by the Chargers, 301 yards to 286, and won, because this time the turnovers went the other way. Seattle took the ball away four times, gave it away once, and scored touchdowns off two of the takeaways. It led 27-6 in the third quarter, stopped scoring, committed 14 penalties for 150 yards, and needed Uchenna Nwosu’s strip-sack with 1:03 left to close it out. Seattle is 3-1. The Chargers are 0-4.
How it happened
The first two snaps of the game were interceptions. Drake Thomas picked off Justin Herbert’s first throw, a short pass over the middle for Oronde Gadsden, at the Los Angeles 45; on the next play Sam Darnold threw short left for Emanuel Wilson and Tuli Tuipulotu intercepted it. The Chargers turned that into Cameron Dicker’s 40-yard field goal. Seattle’s next possession went three plays for minus-3 yards, and then the Chargers gave it back: Derius Davis muffed Michael Dickson’s punt and Connor O’Toole recovered at the Los Angeles 23. On the first play, Darnold threw a screen to Wilson, who ran 23 yards for the touchdown. Seattle led 7-3.
The rest of the first half was a field-position fight until Rashid Shaheed, lined up in the backfield, ran 28 yards around left end for a touchdown with 6:12 left in the second quarter. Jason Myers missed the extra point wide right, 13-3. Then the second takeaway: with 1:29 left in the half, Ernest Jones IV intercepted Herbert’s throw for Ladd McConkey at the Los Angeles 40 and returned it 20 yards. Two plays later Wilson ran 8 yards up the middle for his second touchdown, 43 seconds before halftime. Dicker’s 39-yard field goal at the gun, set up in part by a 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty on Nick Emmanwori, made it 20-6.
Seattle opened the third quarter with an eight-play, 68-yard drive that ended in Darnold’s 6-yard touchdown pass to Tory Horton, 27-6. That was the last Seattle touchdown. The Chargers answered with an 81-yard drive, helped by a 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty on Devon Witherspoon and a 15-yard face mask on Emmanwori, and Herbert hit Kimani Vidal for 9 yards, a touchdown confirmed by replay. Myers missed from 53 wide right, but a Chargers leverage penalty on the kick kept the drive alive, and he made a 35-yarder instead, 30-13, with 1:19 left in the third.
The Chargers then held the ball for 8:31 on a 16-play, 85-yard drive. Two roughing-the-passer penalties kept it going: one on DeMarcus Lawrence that wiped out his own sack on second-and-17, and one on Derick Hall. Omarion Hampton scored from 2 yards, 30-20, with 7:48 to play. After a Seattle punt, Herbert went 74 yards in 1:47, the big play a 44-yard throw to Quentin Johnston, and Dicker kicked a 36-yard field goal with 2:14 left, 30-23. Seattle could not run out the clock: Darnold was sacked by Tyler Dye on third down and Dickson punted to the Los Angeles 11 with 1:42 left and the Chargers out of timeouts. Three plays later, Nwosu sacked Herbert from behind, the ball came loose, and Hall fell on it at the Los Angeles 20. Darnold knelt twice.
The numbers
| Seahawks | Chargers | |
|---|---|---|
| Total yards | 286 | 301 |
| First downs | 19 | 20 |
| Rushing | 33 for 138 | 32 for 147 |
| Passing | 13 of 22, 168 yards | 19 of 32, 189 yards |
| Turnovers | 1 | 4 |
| Sacks | 4 (35 yards) | 3 (20 yards) |
| Third down | 3 of 12 | 5 of 15 |
| Red zone | 2 of 4 | 2 of 3 |
| Penalties | 14 for 150 | 16 for 130 |
| Time of possession | 29:01 | 30:59 |
Wilson, starting with Jadarian Price on injured reserve and Zach Charbonnet still on the physically unable to perform list, carried 21 times for 81 yards and a touchdown and caught three passes for 39 yards and another. Shaheed added 33 rushing yards on two carries, and George Holani 18 on seven. Darnold went 13 of 22 for 168 yards with two touchdowns and an interception, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught five of six targets for 76 yards. On defense, Jones had 12 tackles, a sack and the interception, Emmanwori nine tackles and a sack, and Witherspoon nine tackles. The four sacks came from four players: Byron Murphy II, Jones, Emmanwori and Nwosu. Herbert went 19 of 31 for 189 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions. The attendance was 68,691.
The rushing total is ESPN’s play-by-play count, 138 yards; Seahawks.com’s game story gives 132.
What decided it
The turnovers, plainly. Seattle scored 14 points off the Chargers’ four giveaways and gave up 3 off its one. Drake Thomas said the defense had made a point of it all week: “We made an emphasis on taking the ball away this week and it came to life.” Safety Rodney Thomas II, starting again for Ty Okada: “When we win the turnover margin, we win the game or there’s a higher chance of us winning the game, so we just focus a lot on the ball and taking the ball away.”
What kept it close was the penalties, eight of them on the defense, including what Mike Macdonald counted as seven personal fouls. “To have seven personal foul penalties is unacceptable on any level, however you slice it,” he said. “That’s not us, and that’s not going to be how we play football around here.” Jones: “I think we’re all collectively kind of pissed. In this league, you can’t extend drives for offenses, and we did that a hell of a lot today.” Macdonald also named the run defense, which gave up 147 yards: “The run game on defense isn’t good enough. We have to be better there as well.”
On the last stop, Nwosu, who got a game ball, gave it a name: “That’s what we call the death zone. We got to have it in situations that our backs against the wall and we rise out of it.” And on the run game the offense needed after managing 44 yards at Washington, Smith-Njigba on Wilson: “He ran his tail off.” Wilson, asked when he last scored rushing and receiving touchdowns in one game: “High school. Last time I did that was in high school, but today we got the job done and I’m proud of it.”
Our preview said Seattle 24, Los Angeles 17, and under the 42.5 total. The winner and the margin were right: Seattle won by seven. The total was wrong, 53 points, because the Chargers, who had not scored 17 in a game, scored 23, and the preview did not see 150 yards of Seattle penalties coming. The preview called ball security “the game,” and it was: one Seattle giveaway, against three at Washington. Seattle won by exactly the 7-point spread, a push, and is now 1-1-2 against the spread; the full record is on our odds page.
Injuries, and what comes next
Leonard Williams left in the fourth quarter with an ankle injury and did not return; he walked off on his own. Macdonald after the game: “He’s got an ankle. It doesn’t look serious right now, which is positive news. So we’ll see.” Ty Okada (hamstring) was inactive and has now missed four games; Macdonald: “Ty has a shot to play this week.” Zach Charbonnet, whose practice window off the PUP list opened last week, is eligible to play from Sunday. The Week 5 practice reports start Wednesday on the injury report.
Around the division, San Francisco beat Denver 24-14 to go 4-0, the Rams beat Philadelphia 24-20 to get to 2-2, and Arizona lost 36-24 to the Giants to fall to 1-3. Next is San Francisco at Lumen Field on Sunday at 1:25 p.m. on FOX, first place in the NFC West on the line for the 49ers and a chance for Seattle to tie it. As of Monday morning, October 5, DraftKings has Seattle favored by 2.5 with a total of 47.5. Tickets for the 49ers game are on our ticket page.