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NFL reporter Kevin Clark once tweeted in 2019 that “the Seahawks have literally never played in a normal game.” Nearly six full years later, this claim continues to prove itself to be true. The Seattle Seahawks hosted Pete Carroll’s Las Vegas Raiders to kick off the preseason and it resulted in a 23-23 tie. There is no overtime in the preseason, and when Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson’s game-winning field goal attempt was blocked, the contest resulted without a winner.
I suppose something bizarre like this probably should have been expected with Pete Carroll returning to Lumen Field.
After the game, current Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald opened his press conference directly addressing the tie situation.
“Told the team, look, you never want to tie a football game. Kind of stinks. But a lot of great stuff on both sides of the ball.”
Macdonald, like his predecessor before him, is a hyper-competitive man. I have no doubt in my mind he wanted his team to win on Thursday night, preseason or not. Which is why I found it a little curious why Seattle opted to essentially settle for a tie.
Tied 23-23 late, the Seahawks offense had one final opportunity to march down the field in the waning seconds to attempt a win themselves. Unfortunately, rookie quarterback Jalen Milroe was sacked on 3rd-and-10 with 0:35 left in the game and Seattle was backed up on their own 26-yard line. The Seahawks then punted the ball away on 4th-and-20 and play defense to hopefully preserve the tie.
I asked Macdonald why he decided to punt the ball instead of attempting a long-odds deep shot to convert so the offense could keep their opportunity to win the game alive. After all, this game is meaningless. To me, personally, this would seem like the perfect time to try something ridiculously gutsy since the stakes are so low. Or at the very least have give Milroe an opportunity to practice converting such a daunting 1st down. Macdonald did not see it that way.
“That wasn’t really part of the conversation. If we don’t convert there we’re pretty much handing them the game.”
Of course, he is absolutely right, and it’s hard to argue with his succinct logic. If they did not convert (high probably they do not) then the Raiders would have been well within a makable field goal range, and Daniel Carlson had connected on both of his second half field goal attempts.
I know Macdonald hates not winning, but if I had to offer an educated guess, I would suspect he hates outright losing a game even more.
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