CIGAR THOUGHTS, GAME 2: NEVER A DOUBT

***As most of you know, Cigar Thoughts is now a podcast. Check out this week’s conversation with Mike Golic Jr:

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Gonna get something off my chest before we get to this game. It’s been a real trendy thing among some Seahawks fans to disparage Geno Smith and I’ve never understood it. There are no fewer than 20 teams that would be thrilled to have a quarterback like Smith right now and yet there’s a disappointingly loud contingent of folks who have him playing QB for their team that continuously act like finding a better option is some no-brainer.

Some of those folks will point to his stat line last week, conveniently ignoring how low league-wide quarterback production was and how atrocious Seattle’s pass protection was as well. Even so, Smith ranked top-10 in both QBR and EPA, but there are still people who are alarmingly dismissive of those metrics. Well, I’m dying to hear what the counting-stats crowd has to say today. But we’ve got plenty of time for that later.

The Seattle Seahawks traveled across the country for a morning game against a Patriots team that shocked survivor pool contestants the country by completely erasing Joe Burrow and the Bengals last week. A Seattle offense that struggled so mightily in Week 1 responded with a crisp, on-schedule performance that included game-tying and game-winning drives in crunch time.

Geno was awesome but even more than that, the coaching staff showed remarkable flexibility, using creativity and deception to mask deficiencies up front and the Seahawks’ playmakers capitalized on the majority of their opportunities. That said, this was far from a perfect performance from a Seattle team that is admittedly far from perfect.

The ‘Hawks were unable to establish a consistent run game, had two handfuls of avoidable penalties, and had stretches of soft defense against a Patriots offense devoid of game-breaking talent. But when you balance all the plusses against all the minuses, you were left with a performance good enough to grind out a difficult win

“Yeah, but all they’ve done is beat two teams predicted to be among the worst in the league this year.” Hey man, I hear you. But ask the 49ers about beating the Vikings. Or the Cowboys about staying within 20 points of the Saints. Or the Colts about the Love-less Packers. Or the Rams about staying in the same universe as the Cardinals. Hell, ask the Bengals about their home opener against these Patriots.

NFL wins are hard and every single one of them should be appreciated. And the Seahawks, they’re (as of this writing) one of only five teams with two of them. This is a team displaying uncommon discipline and uncommon common sense in games’ highest-leverage situations. In short, the Seahawks are playing winning football and so far, their record reflects it.

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SMOKE RINGS

~ Geno Smith, take a bow. The Seahawks’ quarterback seems to possess a perspective allowing him to perfectly balance his acknowledgment of his doubters without ever internalizing their increasingly unsupported opinions. He was remarkable today, completing 33 of 44 passes for 327 yards including a 56-yard touchdown. And those numbers include five drops and a spike. Smith was thisclose to being 38 of 43 for about 380 yards but I understand that drops are all a part of the equation.

Geno was everything he’s being paid to be and more today— delivering precision strikes on time and not flinching in the game’s biggest moments. He was elusive, decisive, and in control, peppering DK Metcalf and Jaxon Smith-Njigba despite tight coverage, throwing the ball with conviction despite taking snaps behind an O-line that was 3/5 balsa wood.

Most importantly, he was at his best with the game on the line. On Seattle’s final two drives (not counting the kneel to send it to overtime), Smith was 9-11 for 75 yards and likely would’ve added to that if Seattle didn’t decide to kick the game-winner on 2nd & 1 from the 13. He was excellent when excellence was demanded and I’m going to plant my flag in that kind of quarterback every time.

~ Zach Charbonnet is a good running back, but he’s no Ken Walker either. That said, he made his presence felt in the way that he’s wired to. If there’s a deficiency in Walker’s game, it’s his sometimes-stubborn refusal to just accept a short gain instead of trying to bounce everything for a home run. No worries about that with Charbonnet though, as he’s happy to to accept the two yards that are blocked for him and add two more with pure strength of will.

He was held to just 38 yards on 14 carries but that included a short touchdown. His real presence was felt in the passing game, deftly identifying and picking up blitzes while securing all five targets for 31 more yards. Charbonnet won’t flip your fantasy score the way Walker can, but he’s the sort of reliable that coaches love and today, he showed why he was slected on Day 2 even with Walker already in the fold. perhaps most importantly, he handled every single running back touch for the entire game.

~ Before the season, I predicted that as the season went on, Jaxon Smith-Njigba would surpass Tyler Lockett as #2 in the pecking order and today, we saw why. Make no mistake, Lockett is still an intrinsic part of this team and his impact was immeasurably felt down the stretch in Week 1; but JSN showed why he was the first quarterback taken a couple drafts ago. Smith-Njigba was targeted a game-high 16 times today, catching 12 of them for 117 yards including a bunch of crucial first downs. It is so refreshing to see him utilized as more than a bubble-screen merchant and today he won his routes at every level of the field. The only thing keeping him from a game-high yardage total was...

~ DK Metcalf, who shut the haters up in a big way today. Perhpas the only hate in the PNW that’s more misplaced than that directed at Geno is the ire that targets DK. He caught 10 of 14 targets for 129 yards and a touchdown despite being shadowed by stud CB CHristian Gonzalex and commanding the usual safety bracketing.

Does Metcalf have the world’s softest hands? Anything but. Does he accumulate more penalties than the average wide receiver? Indubitably. But the parts of Metcalf’s game that you focus on say more about you than it does about him, and he showed why he’s worth every bit of the contract he signed two years ago and why he’ll be worth every bit of the next contract he signs as well. DK Metcalf not only has field-tilting gravity that opens everything else up for his teammates— and make no mistake, he’s assignment numero uno for every defensive coordinator the Seahawks face— he has the chops to get his anyway. He exhibited his dominance throughout the game and his mere presence on the field makes everyone else on the team better.

~ It’s hard to do everything you want to do on offense when your line sucks, but we we’re getting glimpses of what Ryan Grubb and Scott Huff have been cooking up. On the long Metcalf touchdown, they employed a really unique blocking concept where Noah Fant came across the QB’s face at the snap to pick up the free rusher on the left— a run-block concept but on a pass play.

Friend of the podcast and former national champion O-lineman Matt Nichols texted me this as soon as it happened:

“It’s split flow zone blocking for a run play but a pass. unfucking real.” He continued “ I have never seen pass blocking like that.”

And that’s from someone who has studied more OL play that I ever will. Ryan Grubb and Scott Huff might really have something.

That said, the Seahawks need need competent guard play like fish need water. Laken Tomlinson is practically cheating on every snap and it’s still not enough, as he was beaten black and blue until the team finally gave in and subbed rookie Christian Haynes into the game. Anthony Bradford wasn’t much better but left tackle Charles Cross and center Conner Williams were solid for the second straight game. And, for the record, so was third-string right tackle Stone Forsythe.

As a whole, the OL was better than they were last week but by the same token, it was literally impossible not to be. The team freed up about $10M by restructuring Metcalf this week— makes you wonder if there’s not a trench-motivated move coming.

~ As excited as we all were by Seattle’s defensive performance last week, we saw today what the difference between an overwhelmed rookie QB and a decisive veteran looks like. Jacoby Brissett was quick in his reads and didn’t hesitate to rifle short passes into the soft spots beneath Seattle’s dropping linebackers.

There were times when the Patriots’ attack softened up the belly of the Seahawks D but there’s abdominal strength that exists this year that’s been absent in season past. They were stout down the stretch, getting big stops in crucial situations and they muted the opposing passing attack for the second straight week. They held New England to 125 net yards passing, keeping Brissett under siege all game with nearly all of his production coming off of scrambling throws. They sacked him three times and followed up a league-leading 11 QB hits last week with eight more today.

No one was more impactful than Leonard Williams, who had 1.5 sacks and four QB hits including two mammoth plays in the fourth quarter. There was a lot of hand-wringing about the trade for him last year because Seattle was a paper tiger when the move was made but he looks to be every ounce of a cornerstone for Mike Macdonald’s defense in 2024.

Boye Mafe continued his ascension with a drive-killing sack on first possession. PFF’s 2nd-highest-rated edge rusher from Week 1 followed up his impressive 2024 debut with five tackles and that sack, and came damn close to two more. Next to him, rookie sensation Byron Murphy burst from the cocoon he spent the first three quarters in to wreak havoc in the 4th and OT. Four tackles and a sack for the big fella with impossibly quick feet. And don’t forget Derick Hall, who shut down New England’s final drive with a knifing tackle for loss off the edge.

The secondary was exemplary again today, led once more by Pro Bowl safety Julian Love. Love notched seven tackles, broke up a pass that he nearly intercepted, and blocked a field goal in the fourth quarter that was as impactful as any play we saw today. Devon Witherspoon had a couple of penalties this morning but he continues to play his position like an All Pro and attacks the run like a linebacker. Heart and soul of the defense. Another good game from Tre Brown, too.

~ This team is so much cleaner and so much more creative from a game operations standpoint than anything we’ve seen in a long time. This is two straight weeks where Macdonald and his staff have managed end-of-half situations perfectly. They’re mixing up looks on both sides of the ball— attacking the backfield from all angles on defense and getting out of the huddle early enough to call full-fledged audibles without rushing the snap. He utilized appropriate 4th down decision-making (even though I didn’t love the play-call in the 4th quarter) and at no point have I felt like the moment was too big for him. What a serendipitous change.

They’re successfully running screen plays and QB sneaks, they’re tackling in the open field, and no one ever seems to be out of place. I don’t recognize this team one bit— and I love it. If this continues all season... man.

~ Also, shout-out Jason Myers who has made every single kick this season including two massively high-leverage field goals to tie and win today’s game. Salute.

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The Seattle Seahawks are a flawed team, but so is just about everyone else in the NFL. The difference is Seattle is 2-0, and for at least one more week, are all alone in first place in the NFC West. I’m not quite ready to say the Seahawks are a contender but they’re definitely not not a contender and that’s about all we can ask for two games into the season. Most importantly to me, they don’t feel like a team that’s figuring themselves out. They look confident in all three phases of the game, displaying a soundness, temperance, and assignment-correctness that has been woefully missing in recent times.

Everything can change in an instant, of course, and Seattle may get exposed by the really good teams they play this week, but they’ve passed their initial tests with aplomb and there’s no reason to think they’ve even sniffed their full potential. The Seahawks get the Miami Dolphins next week, and we’ll revisit this take after that one. Until then, onward and upward my friends.

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I couldn’t help myself— I keep trying to find cigars I like better than the Cigar Thoughts Redzone Series but at the end of the day, I’m putting my name on them because they’re damn near the best cigars I’ve ever smoked. I can’t overstate just how much of a value these are at the price we offer them to you for, and smoking anything else feels like forcing the issue. Get you some.

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This is the 6th year of our incredible partnership with Seattle Cigar Concierge. They have the plug on some of the most insane stogies on the market and they’re offering them to Cigar Thoughts readers for 20% off. These are extremely special sticks, and among the most enjoyable I’ve ever smoked. To get the hook-up, just email [email protected]. They are carrying over 70 cigar brands with many rare releases, including Davidoff, Opus X, and Padron. You can also hit them up on Twitter: @SeattleCigars. Just be sure to mention that you’re a Cigar Thoughts reader. Many of you have taken advantage of this incredible opportunity and for those who have always wondered what elite cigars are like, this may the best chance you’ll get to step into that world.

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We’re also thrilled to partner with The Balvenie, one of my favorite distilleries. Today I cracked open their 16-Year French Oak, which has a bit of a vanilla touch to it that I’m a total sucker for.

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The 2024 season of Cigar Thoughts is also proud to be sponsored by Fairhaven Floors in Bellingham, WA.

2024-09-15T23:45:04Z dg43tfdfdgfd