The Seahawks don’t have a QB controversy. What they do have is a good QB room. To be clear, I’m not saying that Seattle has Matt Hasselbeck and Dave Krieg penciled in as QB2 and QB3. But an awful lot of teams wish they were in the position the Hawks are in after the first week of preseason. Like the Chargers, for one example.
It can be tempting to read too much into the first preseason game, and the Seahawks’ win over the Chargers is a perfect example of that. Both teams played a lot of second and third-stringers, and a lot of players that are fighting just to make the practice squad. Neither the Hawks nor the Bolts showed much in the way of the scheme. No team is going to show off their bag of tricks in the preseason.
Now, that being said, Seattle’s defense certainly looked legitimate against Los Angeles. They lined up across from their opponents and played a physical brand of football far beyond what we’ve seen from this team in the past few years. The defense wasn’t the only part of the team that responded to coach Mike Macdonald’s emphasis on the fundamentals of football.
Seattle Seahawks new backup quarterbacks can handle the job
Some 12s are still clamoring for Sam Howell to start for the Hawks. While that’s just silly, the reason Howell isn’t the starter is not that he isn’t good enough. It’s because Geno Smith is the better quarterback. That’s not up for debate. We went through this for two seasons with the Drew Lock for starter arguments. I’ll give you this much, Howell is better than Lock, anyway.
In fact, Sam Howell is a fine quarterback. As I wrote then, the Hawks didn’t sign him to vie with Geno Smith for the starting gig. If he balled out in camp and the preseason and Smith looked terrible, then sure, Seattle would see what he could do in the regular season. But that’s not what has happened. Smith has looked solid to great in camp, while Howell hasn’t looked good until this past week of practice.
And of course against the Chargers. Yeah, he made a couple of bad throws, it’s true. He also made me a bit ill when he took of running on third and 18 with at least three defenders between him and the first down marker. Happily, that was really his only mistake, and Michael Dickson punished San Diego for thinking they made a great play by forcing Seattle to punt. Howell later picked up a first on a 14-yard scamper where he had clear sailing to the first.
Howell also threw the ball away several times when he didn’t have an open receiver. With the Commanders, too often he’d try to force the ball into tight coverage. As he said himself, he felt he had to as the team was trailing so often. With the Hawks’ defense, he didn’t have to worry about that. He made smart decisions throughout the game. And don’t forget, he didn’t have the services of either Tyler Lockett or DK Metcalf, either.
P.J. Walker was less consistent than Howell, but he made a few great plays, too. There’s certainly no controversy about who the number two quarterback in Seattle is, at least not based on this game. But ask yourself this: Who do you think Jim Harbaugh would have rather had at quarterback for the Chargers, Walker, or his guy, Easton Stick?
Sure, Walker was just 4-10, but Stick was 5-13 and only picked up 31 yards through the air. The announcers made the point at least twice during the game that the Chargers had signed Luis Perez on August 6. Why? Because Harbaugh wasn’t happy with the quarterbacks he has backing up the injured Justin Herbert.
Be happy, 12s. Sam Howell looked more than good enough to win. While I don’t think he’ll get many opportunities to do that this season, I wouldn’t bet against him in the future.
