Seattle overcame costly penalties, then Hall pushed New England back

Seattle’s 13-10 win had to accommodate mistakes that changed what was available on the next down. The clearest came with the Seahawks trailing 10-0 in the third quarter.

Drew Lock threw a seven-yard touchdown to Cooper Kupp, but an illegal shift erased the play. Instead of six points, Seattle had third-and-9 at the New England 12. An incompletion followed, and Jason Myers made a 30-yard field goal.

That sequence left Seattle with three points, not a touchdown. It does not establish what the final score would have been without the flag. The Seahawks still had to find their way back: Lock’s 45-yard touchdown pass to Jaxon Smith-Njigba on fourth-and-1 tied the game, and Myers later made a 26-yard field goal for the lead.

Seattle’s penalty total was 10 for 98 yards. The total measures the yardage assessed; it does not tell us what each flag did to an opportunity. One second-quarter sequence supplies that context.

Gabe Jacas sacked Lock for a seven-yard loss on first down. Two Seattle false starts followed around a five-yard completion, leaving third-and-22. Lock then found Smith-Njigba for 21 yards—a substantial gain, but one yard short of a first down.

The resulting fourth-and-1 became fourth-and-5 when offensive offside erased the next play. Seattle punted. The record does not tell us why the penalties happened or why Seattle chose to punt, but the arithmetic is clear: the sack and flags made a 21-yard completion insufficient, then moved the Seahawks back again before the punt.

Seattle’s penalties also changed an opportunity on the other side of the ball. Early in the third quarter, New England faced fourth-and-4 and punted. A roughing-the-kicker penalty on Chazz Surratt nullified the punt and gave the Patriots a new first down.

New England subsequently faced fourth-and-5, and Andy Borregales made a 50-yard field goal for a 10-0 lead. The penalty did not make those points inevitable, and the record does not explain why it occurred. Its narrower consequence is still important: an exchange of possession was wiped out, and the Patriots had another set of downs before adding three points.

That was the deficit Seattle confronted when Kupp’s touchdown was erased later in the quarter.

With Seattle ahead 13-10 and 38 seconds left, New England had first-and-10 at the Seahawks’ 21. Derick Hall sacked Drake Maye for a seven-yard loss, turning that manageable starting point into second-and-17 at the 28.

The sack did not end the threat. Maye completed a 12-yard pass to Mack Hollins, moving the Patriots to Seattle’s 16 and leaving third-and-5. On the next play, Josh Jobe intercepted Maye with 26 seconds left.

Hall’s contribution is visible in the distance New England had to recover; Hollins recovered much of it. The sequence does not establish why Maye was intercepted, and the sack alone cannot be credited with causing the turnover. It did, however, change the terms of the final series before Jobe ended it.