For a few weeks the issue of the Seahawks not being able to win at home can be put to bed.
They improved to 2-2 at Lumen Field with a 27-19 win over the Houston Texans Monday night and won’t play there again until Nov. 9 against Arizona.
“It’s great to win at home,” said coach Mike Macdonald. “Definitely a point of emphasis. I’ll tell you what, the 12s were on fire. Great atmosphere.”
It was a unique atmosphere as many fans spent the first hour of the Seahawks game monitoring the Mariners game before the sad final score from Toronto became official.
It was also a unique game with the Seahawks winning despite turning the ball over four times.
How rare is that?
Let’s answer that question and look at Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s continuing ascension in the record books and playoff positioning in this week’s Four Downs with Seahawks beat reporter Bob Condotta.
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How hard is it to win committing four turnovers?
Hard enough that the Seahawks have only done it 13 times in their history, according to Pro Football Reference, and have done it only four times since 1992, including Monday night.
Their record when committing four turnovers is 13-45, according to PFR.
In those 13 wins, opponents committed two or more turnovers 12 times, including the most recent time the Seahawks won despite losing four turnovers — a memorable 27-24 overtime win on a Monday night against the 49ers in Santa Clara in 2019. The 49ers countered the Seahawks’ turnover issues with three of their own, including a fumble Jadeveon Clowney returned for a touchdown.
Only one time have the Seahawks won when committing four turnovers and having a turnover margin of minus-three — a 28-10 victory over Arizona in 2003 when the Cardinals lost the ball once.
For the record, the Seahawks are 3-24 when committing five turnovers and 0-13 when losing six or more (the team record for turnovers in a game is eight, which they have done twice, though not since 1983.)
Twice when the Seahawks won despite losing five turnovers their opponent also lost five turnovers.
The other was the memorable win in Los Angeles against the Raiders in the final game of the 1988 season to win their first division title when the Seahawks won despite a minus-three turnover margin, losing five to L.A.’s two.
Showing how well the Seahawks have typically lived up to the motto that “it’s all about the ball,” they have had four or more turnovers in a game just six times since 2010, when Pete Carroll arrived as coach.
They are 2-4 in those games — the 2019 win against the 49ers and Monday night.
“I think we just got to hold onto the football,” said quarterback Sam Darnold, who threw an interception and had a lost fumble (the other turnovers were an interception thrown by receiver Cooper Kupp and a lost fumble by tight end Elijah Arroyo). We can’t turn the ball over like that. I can’t turn the ball over like that.”
The historical percentages make that clear.
What is this week’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba amazing stat?
It feels like it may become necessary to include a weekly item updating where JSN stands in the record book.
Monday, he had eight receptions for 123 yards and a touchdown, his third consecutive 100-yard game.
That made him only the second player in franchise history to have three straight 100-yard receiving games, joining DK Metcalf, who did it in Weeks 2-4 last season.
Smith-Njigba had 132 yards on eight receptions against Tampa Bay on Oct. 5 to start the streak and 162 on eight at Jacksonville last week.
Smith-Njigba has 417 yards receiving on 24 receptions in his last three games, an average of 139 per game.
Smith-Njigba had had more than 139 receiving yards in a game just once before this season.
Smith-Njigba is averaging 117 yards per game, on pace for 1,989 for the season.
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That would break the NFL’s all-time single season receiving mark of Detroit’s Calvin Johnson, who had 1,964 in 2023. Johnson did it in a 16-game season.
A better way to look at it may be that Smith-Njigba’s per-game average would rank seventh all time. Wes Chandler holds the NFL record with an average of 129.0 receiving yards in the strike-shortened nine-game regular season of 1982.
Johnson averaged 122.8 in his record-setting season, which ranks fourth.
But consider this — Smith-Njigba is averaging more receiving yards per game than the man generally considered the best receiver in NFL history, Jerry Rice, ever did.
In Rice’s best season he averaged 115.5 receiving yards per game in 1995.
Showing how hard it can be to average 100 or more receiving yards in a season, Rice only did it once in 20 years.
And to reiterate, Smith-Nigba, who has 819 receiving yards on the season, is on pace to smash the Seahawks’ single-season receiving yardage record of 1,303 set by Metcalf in 2020. Metcalf averaged 81.4 yards per game that season and had five games of 100 yards or more.
Smith-Njigba already has five 100-yard games this season and another of 96. His low of 79, in the Thursday night win at Arizona, would rank ninth in the NFL for the season as an average.
Where would the Seahawks stand if the season ended today?
While the Seahawks are tied for the lead in the NFC West with the 49ers and Rams at 5-2, San Francisco is officially in first place since it beat the Seahawks and Rams — getting both wins on the road.
The Seahawks hold the tiebreaker on the Rams because of better division and conference records.
If the season ended today, they would be the sixth seed and play the Eagles on the road in the wild card round.
And hey! That worked out well the last time the Seahawks were given that task in 2019 when they emerged with a 17-9 win.
That remains the Seahawks’ last postseason victory.
Green Bay, which is 4-1-1, would be the top seed and have the bye while the rest of the NFC playoff ladder would be filled with teams that are all 5-2 — Seahawks-Eagles, Rams at 49ers and Lions at Buccaneers.
What’s becoming one of the bigger obstacles to making the playoffs?
Residing in the NFC.
The first seven weeks of the NFL season have made clear that the NFC is the superior conference this season.
The NFC is 25-13 against the AFC, a winning percentage of 65.78%.
According to StatMuse.com, that is on pace to be the best winning percentage by the NFC in at least 20 years, though it is continuing a trend from last season when the NFC went 47-33 against the AFC.
Put another way, the AFC has eight teams with losing records and three or fewer wins. The NFC has just four, one of which is the 3-4 Washington Commanders, the Seahawks’ next opponent and a team that advanced to the NFC title game last season.
The Seahawks have contributed to the NFC’s dominance by going 3-0 against the AFC, with wins at Pittsburgh and Jacksonville and Monday against Houston.
The bad news is just two more AFC games remain on the Seahawks’ schedule — at 1-6 Tennessee on Nov. 23 and at home against 6-1 Indianapolis on Dec. 14.
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.