Seahawks bounce back, beat 49ers 20-3: Seven things to know

The Seattle Seahawks finally managed to hang onto a fourth-quarter lead. After blowing games to the Bengals and Panthers the last two weeks, it had to feel good for Seattle to finally enter the fourth quarter with more points than their opponent and still manage to walk out of the stadium with a win.

It wasn't all that pretty of a win. It was certainly one that confirmed there is still plenty Seattle needs to work on. The Seahawks committed six penalties, for example. Russell Wilson was sacked five times and he was hit and hurried a bunch more. It was not a mistake-free game.

Despite the mistakes, it was a win that Seattle really needed. The Seahawks came into this game with a surprising 2-4 record, one that placed them two full games behind the division-leading Cardinals. If Baltimore can manage an upset Monday, the Seahawks will suddenly find themselves just one game back and in pretty decent position to potentially snag a home playoff game with good play the rest of the way.

They have the Tony Romo-less Cowboys next week, then a bye followed by a matchup with those very Cardinals and a home game against these 49ers. If they get themselves fully healthy and if the defense plays like it did Thursday, they can use these games as a springboard to jump right back into the mix near the top of the playoff bracket.

The defense, by the way, was uniformly excellent. We profiled that unit in our Thursday Night Football preview, noting that this game seemed tailor-made to help them get back to their dominant ways. That's pretty much exactly what happened.

The 49ers punted on their first five possessions and gained only 54 total yards in the first half. They went 1 for 10 on third downs and averaged a scant 3.2 yards per play.

Carlos Hyde was bottled up, rushing for only 40 yards on 11 carries. Colin Kaepernick continued his struggles against Seattle, finishing the game just 13 for 24 for 124 yards -- a ghastly average of 5.16 per attempt. He was also sacked six times and under constant pressure all night. The only thing missing to make this a classic throwback Seattle domination was a pick (Bobby Wagner did come achingly close to nabbing one late in the fourth quarter).

Seattle held the 49ers to 3 total yards in the fourth quarter. For a group that had wilted late in each of the last two games, it sure looked like business as usual in this one.

Here are six more things to know about this NFC West showdown ...

2. What were they thinking?

Down 17-0 late in the third quarter, the 49ers faced fourth-and-2 from the Seattle 17-yard line. Jim Tomsula promptly sent the field goal unit out there and Phil Dawson knocked the ball through the uprights. Great. They made it a two-score game. Good call, right?

Wrong. The decision to kick a field goal was purely cosmetic -- one that ensured San Francisco wouldn't be shut out. They needed a touchdown there to truly get back in the game. 

To that point, the 49ers had four first downs. Two of them were on the current drive. They had managed to convert exactly one third down in the first 43-plus minutes of the game. They could not move the ball at all. They finally got something going on that drive, getting 23 yards closer to the end zone than they had at any other point in the game.

What on earth made them think that cutting the deficit to two touchdowns was all they needed to get back in it? What were the odds they'd be within striking distance of the end zone again, considering they'd done it exactly once in the first three quarters? Slim to none.

The flaws of the "cut it to two scores" line of reasoning were almost immediately revealed when the Seahawks came down and kicked a field goal of their own on the very next drive. All of a sudden, San Francisco was down 17 again.

The field goal they'd kicked was essentially meaningless. If they'd gone for it on fourth down and missed, that still would have been true. They'd just be down 20 instead of 17, but still needing unlikely three scores to come back. But if they'd gone for in on fourth down and made it, and then gone on to score a touchdown, that wouldn't have been the case. They could have been down 13, two scores away.

"You have to take the points" sounds nice in theory, but in practice, it announced that the 49ers had no intention of actually winning the game. They just didn't want to get shut out.

3. Give them the damn ball

Tyler Lockett has the kind of explosion no other receiver on the Seahawks has. His speed is electric and whenever he gets the ball in his hands, he's scary. He can catch a short pass and rack up some YAC or he can beat you deep. He's a threat.

Doug Baldwin, Jermaine Kearse and Ricardo Lockette are fine players, but none of them is the kind of playmaker Lockett is. A typical NFL offense would be trying to scheme the ball into his hands as often as possible. Seattle is for some reason content to let him be an ancillary part. He's not even been on the field for 60 percent of their offensive snaps. It was good to finally see him a bit more heavily involved in this one -- he caught all five of his targets for 59 yards and that deep score.

Similarly, Jimmy Graham still needs to be more involved in what the Seahawks are doing offensively. He's now at 41 targets through seven games, an average of 5.8 per week. That's down from 7.6 last season. Seattle doesn't throw as often as the Saints, but they also don't have any other pass catchers as impactful as Graham. Maybe he and Wilson aren't quite in sync on down-field routes (though as Sheil Kapadia noted, he's been more involved in that area over the last two weeks), but if that's the case, the Seahawks should be scheming to get the ball in his hands to let him make plays. And when they get to the red zone, if the ball isn't going to Lynch, it should be going to him.

Marshawn Lynch got going in this one, which was nice, but the Seahawks still haven't had a truly good offensive performance this season. Peppering those two with the ball would be a good place to start.

4. Wilson's up-and-down night

Russell Wilson was on the run for much of the evening, as has become the norm for him this season. He was sacked thrice and forced to spin away from pressure a bunch more.

In the end, he finished 18 for 24 for 235 yards, the touchdown to Lockett and two ugly interceptions on throws that never should have been made. It was a game that could best be described as "fine."

The official video tweeted out by the 49ers doesn't have the best angle, but the broadcast showed that Tramaine Brock was jumping that route on the scramble drill pretty much before Wilson ever let it go. Trying to squeeze a laser through two defenders wasn't the best idea to begin with, but it's even worse when one of those defenders is already closing in on the lane.

The second pick was just a prayer. The Seahawks were up 17-0 and mostly moving the ball just fine throughout the game. There was no real reason to take a deep shot to Kearse in double coverage, particularly when he didn't have a jump on either defender.

5. A man of many words

Jim Tomsula's halftime interview was the stuff of legend.

The official transcript:

TRACY WOLFSON: On offense, how do you find a rhythm in the second half?

JIM TOMSULA: We gotta find a rhythm. That's just what we have to do.

TRACY WOLFSON: Alright. Thanks a lot.

EVERYONE AT HOME: Did he answer the question?

6. The lone bright spot

Outside linebacker Aaron Lynch has been one of the few players on the 49ers to consistently show up this season. That shines through both on tape and in his numbers. He's long, he's quick and he uses his hands very well.

He had another solid night this evening. He notched two of the 49ers' three sacks, giving him five on the season. Their grades aren't infallible, of course, but he did come into this one as Pro Football Focus' ninth-best 3-4 outside linebacker. I'd imagine that grade will stay pretty high for another week.

7. Seeing shadows

One of the "knocks" against Richard Sherman in the "best cornerback in the league" discussion has always been that he doesn't follow No. 1 receivers around the field, like some of the other top guys do.

This has always been a bit overblown (and not only because players can only really do what they're asked), but he's done a bit more shadowing this year because of the struggles of No. 2 corner Cary Williams. He stayed with A.J. Green on a bunch of snaps two weeks ago, for example.

Tonight, he went basically wherever Torrey Smith went the entire evening. (This is interesting not just because Sherman shadowed someone, but also because it wasn't Anquan Boldin. Sherman famously asked to shadow him all over the field a couple years ago. Boldin was dealing with an injury coming into this game, but it was still striking to see Seattle send its best corner after a guy who is basically a pure deep threat and that's it.)

This is something to watch for as the Seahawks move through the rest of the season. It would mark a big change from how they've done things in the past.