CINCINNATI — A whole world of accomplishment was laid out in front of the Seahawks on Sunday, time and time again.
Grab this eminently winnable game, on the road against a quality opponent, and all sorts of vistas opened up for Seattle. While the media waited in the interview room to dissect the eventual loss, a loud cheer erupted in the visiting locker room as a missed field goal sealed a 49ers' loss to Cleveland. An unexpected gift, yes, but it was also just another dagger for the Seahawks, who could have pulled within a half game of the division lead. And from that vantage point, it would have been possible to dream the biggest of dreams.
Oh, they still have those dreams, but not nearly as finite and tangible as it could have been. Instead, the Seahawks left Paycor Stadium overflowing with regrets. It was, quite simply, a game that was there for the taking. A game that the Seahawks, to be the sort of team to which they aspire, must seize.
And yet it slipped away, in the most agonizing of fashions, a 17-13 defeat to the Cincinnati Bengals that will haunt their dreams.
Coach Pete Carroll, the frustration etched on his face, said he loved the way the Seahawks played, particularly on defense, and that if they sustain the same competitive spirit, it will yield huge dividends down the road. But it was hard to think any further down the road than what happened that afternoon at the intersection of Central Avenue and Pete Rose Way.
"It makes it more frustrating, of course," Carroll said. "That was a game to win, right there. We came out here on the road, their crowd going crazy, and we're right there. We're inside the 10 a bunch of times to win the game. Unfortunately, we couldn't get in."
Many fingers will be pointed at quarterback Geno Smith — including one on each hand from the man himself, who in typical fashion stood up and absorbed all the blame for the Seahawks' red-zone (and other) failures. And those failures were stunning. Four times in the second half Seattle got inside the 10 — and managed just three points out of it.
It was one of the worst games Smith has played since replacing Russell Wilson as the starting quarterback, an inopportune occurrence on a day when the Seahawks defense was exemplary. The "D" held a Cincinnati team with playmakers like Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Joe Mixon to just 3 points in the second half — and that field goal was set up by a Smith interception. The Seahawks allowed a mere 52 yards of offense on 25 plays in the second half, including a key interception by Tre Brown, and handed Smith and the offense chance after chance to put the game away.
And each time, Seattle sputtered when it mattered most. After Brown's interception, the team drove to the 3 before a costly personal foul on Kenneth Walker III and a Smith interception when he ill-advisedly threw into double coverage in the end zone. Its next drive halted at the 4 and they settled for a field goal. After a stout fourth-down stop by Dre'Mont Jones gave them a turnover on downs, Smith was intercepted again when he and DK Metcalf clearly weren't on the same page on a route.
The resulting Cincinnati field goal early in the fourth quarter provided the eventual final score — and myriad opportunities still to come for Seattle to surpass it. The Seahawks drove right back to the 6, only to have that drive self-destruct with two sacks, one on fourth down from the 6, as Carroll took a page out of Dan Lanning's aggressive playbook.
"We were going for the win," he said. "We weren't kicking a field goal there. We were going for the win with all four downs."
That lapse happened with 2:03 left, and amazingly the Seahawks had one more chance to win when the defense gave Smith the ball back one final time with 1:39 remaining. To use the parlance from a day earlier at Husky Stadium regarding Michael Penix, it was Smith's Heisman moment. But after a 36-yard strike to Tyler Lockett to the 11 made it seem as if he might pull it off, Smith threw an incompletion on fourth-and-8 from the 9. All Cincinnati had to do was run out the final seconds to escape with a win that could have been yanked from them numerous times.
Not that Smith was solely to blame — the offensive line allowed heavy pressure down the stretch, and both Walker and Metcalf had costly personal fouls — but he knows the quarterback is going to bear the brunt of the criticism. Especially when people are still deciding if Smith is one you can win a championship with.
"Overall, I just should have been better," he said. "I felt like the guys deserved to win today. Obviously, I didn't do my best job today to get that done. So those are things that I put on myself, I lay right at my feet, right on my shoulders, and I look forward to the next opportunity."
Time after time, asked about a variety of plays — interceptions, sacks — Smith responded with some variation of, "That's on me."
That's admirable leadership, but it also must be coupled with an ability to minimize those mistakes in future games. Smith and the Seahawks need to convert golden opportunities like this into results, and victories.
At one point, Smith said of his miscues, "Those are things that are not characteristic of the way I've been playing."
He added, "I know that I can be a lot better. And so I need to look myself in the mirror and figure those things out. And I will."
He, and they, must. The Seahawks can't let any more supremely winnable games slip out of their grasp.
