- Another week, another big game for Jaxon Smith-Njigba, plus a significant milestone.
For almost an entire half, the Vikings kept Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Seattle’s leading receiver, off the stat sheet, though there were two debatable no-calls on third-down pass attempts to Smith-Njigba that featured a lot of early contact from Minnesota defensive backs.
Late in the second quarter, however, Geno Smith and Smith-Njigba found their groove, with the second-year receiver catching three passes, including an 18-yard touchdown, to close out the half.
Smith-Njigba added more big catches in the second half, and finished the game with five catches for 95 yards, marking the eighth consecutive game in which he has led the team in receiving yards.
Smith-Njigba also hit a significant milestone on Sunday, moving past 1,000 yards for the first time in his career, making him the 10th receiver in franchise history to do so.
- The Seahawks defense did a lot of things well, but couldn’t get the stop it needed late.
The numbers show that the Seahawks defense did plenty of things well against an explosive Vikings offense, holding Minnesota to a 3-for-12 conversion rate on third down, 298 total yards and a 4.8 yards-per-play average.
But despite forcing six punts and doing plenty of things well, the Seahawks couldn’t get the stop they needed late after the offense gave Seattle its first lead of the game. Trailing 24-20, the Vikings were able to go 60 yards in four plays, taking the lead for good when leading receiver Justin Jefferson found himself wide open for a 39-yard touchdown, Minnesota’s longest play of the game.
- Penalties proved very costly for the Seahawks.
For the second time in as many losses, penalties were a problem for the Seahawks, who a week ago had a season-high 108 penalty yards against them. In this game, the Seahawks had 11 penalties enforced against them for 77, several of which proved costly.
Of those 11 penalties, the biggest was a very unfortunate facemask penalty on rookie Byron Murphy II, who made a great play for a sack, one that would have forced third-and-very-long on Minnesota’s go-ahead drive. Instead, he accidentally caught Sam Darnold’s facemask while making the tackle, giving Minnesota 15 yards and a first down to set up the game-winning score.
