The Seahawks hoped Sunday would begin a season of celebration — of their 50th year as a franchise and of a team showing new signs of life in the second year under coach Mike Macdonald.
While the sight of Jim Zorn and Steve Largent raising the 12 flag brought back fond memories, the game itself raised only questions — notably, should the Seahawks have gone for it on fourth down late in the fourth quarter and are they already at a critical point in the season?
Let’s address those issues and more in our weekly Four Downs with Seahawks beat reporter Bob Condotta.
read more 49ers 17, seahawks 13
San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall (1) catches a pass behind the defense of Seattle Seahawks cornerback Riq Woolen (27) during an NFL game on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025, in Seattle.
Should the Seahawks have gone for it on fourth down instead of kicking a field goal to take a 13-10 lead?
To reset the situation, the game was tied at 10 when the Seahawks drove from their own 47 (where it got the ball on a Josh Jobe interception of Brock Purdy) to the San Francisco 19 with 3:28 remaining. A 6-yard pass to Cooper Kupp on third-and-seven on the previous play got the Seahawks within a yard of a first down.
Coach Mike Macdonald said on his radio show on Seattle Sports 710 Monday morning that if he’d strictly followed the team’s analytics, the Seahawks would have gone for it.
“It was favored to go for us on our model,” Macdonald said.
But as Macdonald noted, the decision has to be made “in real time.”
He noted a few factors that influenced his decision to kick a field goal:
— That it looked like it was at least a full yard the team had to get, if not a little bit more.
— That converting there doesn’t guarantee a touchdown but could change the time dynamic for the 49ers when they got the ball next. Macdonald felt the 49ers would have likely punted had they been stopped three and out on the following drive and would not have been in four-down mode (they still had all their time outs). Essentially, that means he liked the idea that they could get the lead, then stop the 49ers and run the clock out.
— At that stage of the game, Macdonald felt the 49ers would be in three-down mode if they had gotten close enough to kick a field goal, allowing the Seahawks time to go back down and get a winning kick of their own.
— Macdonald indicated he preferred those scenarios to taking more time off the clock and putting the 49ers in four-down mode when they got the ball back “which is a difficult situation, too, on defense. … I think the numbers are about a 40-50 percent, 60% score rate in that situation.”
— While he didn’t say it, probably playing into it was the Seahawks’ lack of ability to run the ball Sunday and possibly the memory of the failed fourth down in overtime against the Rams at home last season. Maybe a factor was San Francisco’s field-goal kicking woes and the advantage that simply taking the lead would give the Seahawks. They had a 67.5% change of winning the game at that point, via ESPN’s analytics.
“It wasn’t easy,” he said. “There’s definitely an argument to go in it the other way.”
But Macdonald indicated no regrets other than the outcome.
“I felt pretty strongly about the decision in real time,” he said.
Had Purdy’s third-down TD pass on the following drive fell incomplete, the decision might have looked like a good one.
Should Sam Darnold have done anything differently on the last-play fumble?
The Seahawks were on the doorstep of winning the game after moving to the 49ers’ 9-yard-line, facing a second-and-five and still holding one time out.
Darnold lost control of the ball as he wound up to throw when it hit the back of right tackle Abraham Lucas, who was pushed back into Darnold via a heavy rush from Nick Bosa.
Darnold appeared to be throwing to running back Kenneth Walker III as the check-down receiver in the left flat.
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As some have noted, Cooper Kupp appeared as if he was breaking open over the middle.
Macdonald didn’t seem to question the decision of where to go with the ball saying Walker “was open, it looks like.”
He also stressed that there is always more than one factor in such breakdowns.
“Plays have to work together right,” he said. “The timing of the route, the progression of the read and the footwork of the quarterback and the protection all need to be together. So when you’re timing is off and one of those things gets out of whack that’s when you’ve got a chance for a play not to go the right way and that’s what happened. Timing just got out of whack and he’s throwing the ball and unfortunately somebody’s back is right there.’’
Is it already getting to be a critical time for the Seahawks?
Well, yes and no. One game hardly a season makes.
But the Seahawks go on the road to play the Steelers and Aaron Rodgers and old friend DK Metcalf, with Pittsburgh listed as 2.5-point favorites.
History shows that an 0-2 hole can be tough from which to climb.
According to OddsShark.com, only seven of 54 teams to start 0-2 the last seven years have made the playoffs. Three of nine started 0-2 last year did it — the Rams, Ravens and Broncos.
The Seahawks have made the playoffs 20 times in its history. Only twice have they done so following an 0-2 start — in 2015 and 2018.
Both years, both losses came on the road.
In 2015, the Seahawks were coming off consecutive appearances in the Super Bowl and ended up leading the NFL in fewest points allowed, spurring a late-season comeback to get back into the playoffs.
In 2018, they won six of their last seven to scratch out a wild-card spot with Russell Wilson turning in the highest passer rating season of his career (110.9) with a 35-to-7 TD-to-interception ratio.
A 17-game season (instituted in 2021) and seven-team playoff format (instituted in 2020) allows for a little more leeway.
But it hardly needs stating that 1-1 would look a lot better than 0-2.
What makes this week even more urgent?
While the Seahawks fell to 0-1, the rest of the NFC West is 1-0.
While the Seahawks are underdogs this week, the rest of the NFC West is favored to win — the Rams by 5.5 points at Tennessee, the 49ers by seven at New Orleans and Arizona by 4.5 at home against Carolina.
So, if everything goes to form this weekend, the Seahawks could not only be 0-2 but already two games behind everyone else in the NFC.
Fortunately for the Seahawks, the NFL is where the odds often go to die.
Bob Condotta: bcondotta@seattletimes.com. Bob Condotta is a sports reporter at The Seattle Times who primarily covers the Seahawks but also dabbles in other sports. He has worked at The Times since 2002, reporting on University of Washington Husky football and basketball for his first 10 years at the paper before switching to the Seahawks in 2013.