For much of the game, in part because of the challenges that Minnesota’s defense was presenting, Seattle found themselves in many third-and-long and fourth down situations. There were two fourth-and-short situations where the Seahawks opted to kick for a field goal, despite being up 10-0 and 13-0, respectively. In the fourth quarter, up 19-0, Seattle was in another fourth-and-short situation and sent out the field goal unit, which was met with loud booing from the Seattle fans. Before the field goal unit could get set up, Seattle called a timeout and after the timeout sent their offense out to the field. The Seahawks converted on fourth down with a two-yard pass to tight end AJ Barner.
Macdonald said, “I was being too much of a nerd by just going saying, ‘Hey, make it a three-touchdown game rather than a three-score game.’ And to Klint’s credit, he was confident in what we were going to be in. So, we decided to call time out and go for it.”
Adding, “I did hear the fans. Yeah, it turns out they were right.”
After Seattle built enough of a lead, they were able to go all in on the run game, and Kenneth Walker III finished with 13 carries for 56 yards and Zach Charbonnet ran the ball 14 times for 54 yards, including Seattle’s only offensive touchdown of the game.
“Yeah, that’s huge,” receiver Cooper Kupp said. “Just being able to run the ball when you’re in a situation where we know that the ball is going to be on the ground and finding ways to continue to move the line of scrimmage and battle. I thought as time went on the guys did a great job of being able to, I don’t know the word exactly, but to continue to assert your will. It’s going to be hard early in the game when everyone’s fresh and everyone’s feeling good. But how can you do it in a third and fourth quarter? How can you continue to come off the rock and move the line of scrimmage and hit guys and move bodies? I thought the guys did a good job of that.”
Along with three receptions for 24 yards, Kupp was praised after the game for putting his “body on the line,” to recover a ball Darnold fumbled.
“I think that’s kind of a stat that won’t show up in a books,” Zabel said. “But at the end of the day, it’s an unbelievable play by Coop (Cooper Kupp), unbelievable effort. He’s one of the leaders to the offense. So him doing that, stepping up, throwing his body on the line to get that ball back, it’s surely remarkable and it just goes to show what type of teammate Coop is. Stuff like that doesn’t really show up, but that’s and Coop stepped up for us huge.”
On recovering the fumble, Kupp said, “Those ones are real fun. Yeah, I just saw the ball pop out there. Didn’t know if he was down or not. And there’s nothing like just diving headfirst into a pile that some massive human beings are jumping into.”