Kenneth Walker’s, Seahawks’ rare fast start beats Jets 23-6, keeps playoff hopes alive

The bass was boomin’ again inside the home locker room in Seattle — for the first time since October.

Rookie Tariq Woolen was running around with green slime all over him, chasing teammates trying to get some on them.

Veteran Quinton Jefferson, after joining Darrell Taylor in wrecking the New York Jets, stayed way in the back of the locker room, out of the fray. At 29 with kids at home, the defensive lineman is too old to get slimed.

“Oh, hell yeah. I don’t want no slime,” Jefferson said. “I don’t want no parts of that,”

All because they had a perfect start to a Seahawks game. For a (massive) change.

It was like it was a new year, or something.

“All we could have wished for at this point in the season is a chance for the playoffs,” Seattle general manager John Schneider said on the Seahawks’ radio network before his team’s must-win game against the New York Jets at Lumen Field Sunday.

“Now we’ve got to do something with it.”

Sunday, they did.

Washington, the first of two teams that had to lose for Seattle to rally into the playoffs, lost. Then the Seahawks, with captain Tyler Lockett playing back from hand surgery, soared to start.

Kenneth Walker burst 60 yards on the offense’s first play, part of the rookie running back’s 82-yard first quarter and 133-yard game. Geno Smith had two touchdown passes two plays into the second quarter.

And the Seahawks rode a 17-3 lead after 15-plus minutes with a defense that lost centerpiece Jordyn Brooks to a bad-looking injury yet shut down inept-looking Mike White and the Jets in a workmanlike, 23-6 victory.

“It was very important, just getting the momentum early. We talked about this throughout the year,” Walker said, “on starting fast, playing hard — and also finishing.

“It was really important to start fast today.”

Doing so gave Seattle only its second win in seven games. It keeps alive the Seahawks’ hopes for a surprise playoff appearance entering the final week of the regular season.

“That was awesome. That was right what we needed, man, just the spark early on to get us started,” Smith said. “We talk about starting fast, and we are going as fast as we can with the ball in (Walker’s hands).

“It gave us a lot of momentum.

Sunday was the first time this season the Seahawks scored on each of their first three offensive possessions of a game. The early surge for a change kept Seattle (8-8) in contention for the final of seven playoff spots in the NFC entering week 18.

To qualify for the playoffs, the Seahawks must beat the Los Angeles Rams (5-11) in Seattle next weekend and watch suddenly hot Green Bay (8-8) lose at home to Detroit (8-8). The Packers would own the tiebreaker advantage of conference wins over Seattle if both finish the season 9-8.

The Lions play at Green Bay every season inside the NFC North. Detroit has won only three times in its last 30 games at Lambeau Field dating to 1992.

If the Lions and Seahawks finish 9-8, Seattle gets the final playoff berth because it won at Detroit in early October.

“If we finish next week and get into the playoffs, I think it will be a hell of a good season that people didn’t expect us to have,” said Seahawks Pro Bowl safety Quandre Diggs, who had one of two interceptions thrown by New York’s Mike White Sunday.

“We had moments that we wish we could get back, and games we wish we could have played better. But at the end of the day, the resiliency of this team, the camaraderie that we have, is definitely sweet — and can be a stepping stone for us.”

Smith completed 18 of 29 passes for 183 yards and a passer rating of 103 against the team that drafted him, started him his first two NFL seasons a decade ago then benched him after a teammate’s locker-room punch broke his jaw in 2015.

As he had in the days leading up to this game, Smith demurred at any talk of avenging the Jets. He reiterated he has fond feelings for them giving him his first chance.

Now he’s trying to extend this one with Seattle, his first starting job in eight NFL seasons, beyond next week and into the playoffs.

“That’s exactly what you want as a team, the chance to be in the playoffs, the big dance,” Smith said. “Right now for us, it’s pretty much playoff football. We’ve got one game. We’ve got to win to get in.

“It’s good that we get to feel this right now. It’s good that these guys get to experience these things right now, myself included.

“I think it’s going to be very, very vital for us going forward.”

Tyler Lockett returns. Twice.

Lockett played with 10 metal screws and a metal plate in his left hand. That was from surgery 13 days earlier to repair a spiral fracture of his first metacarpal, below his index finger.

He had two catches for 15 yards in the first half. Then he left into the locker room from the second quarter until 3:31 remained in the third with what the team said was a leg injury.

Lockett had his helmet on and was in full uniform yet remained on the sideline late in the third quarter with his team leading by two touchdowns. He returned to the game on the first play of the fourth quarter.

By then, offensive coordinator Shane Waldron was having Smith hand the ball off to Walker and DeeJay Dallas, who ran sharply in his second game back from a high-ankle sprain.

How strong was Seattle’s start Sunday?

It led 7-0 after just 95 seconds.

Behind Walker cutting past and running through New York’s 11th-ranked rushing defense, the Seahawks rolled to 193 yards with 10 points after the first quarter. That was more than twice their total yards the entire first half the previous weekend in a 24-10 loss at Kansas City.

Smith was 6 for 8 passing for 104 yards and a touchdown pass to tight end Colby Parkinson of 12 yards on Seattle’s third offensive play. At the end of the first quarter, Smith’s passer rating was above 156. A perfect rating is 158.3.

Smith has 4,069 yards passing this season. Sunday he joined the man he replaced this season, Russell Wilson, as the only Seahawks quarterback to throw for 4,000 yards in a season. Wilson did it for times, until Seattle traded him to Denver in March.

Smith earned a $1 million bonus in his one-year contract for his 4,000 yards passing. That’s nearly as much as his base salary of $1.26 million for this season.

Walker became the third Seahawks rookie with 1,000 yards from scrimmage. He replaced injured Rashaad Penny as Seattle’s lead running back in early October.

“We used to always talk about getting 1,000 yards, and it’s just a dream come true,” Walker said. “I’ve gotta give credit to the O-line, the guys who block for me every day and make my job easier.”

Defense rises

After a week during which New York made it sound as if the return of Mike White was the return of prime Joe Namath, White had more incomplete passes (19) than completions (18) with two interceptions until the Jets’ final drive in garbage time under 2 minutes.

Seahawks rookie Pro Bowl cornerback Tariq Woolen nearly had a third interception, off his hands with 90 seconds left.

The Seahawks held New York to 237 yards before the garbage-time drive.

It wasn’t constant pressure on White; the Seahawks often dropped top sack man Uchenna Nwosu from right outside linebacker off the edge deep into coverage. Seattle had four sacks, by Darrell Taylor and Quinton Jefferson, and didn’t consistently hit White until late in the game.

It was more that White was staring down receivers, allowing Seattle’s cover men to read his plays, while throwing all over, behind and wide of them.

White, playing with 2021 first-round pick Zach Wilson a healthy scratch and inactive, threw his second interception midway through the fourth quarter. The pass was well behind White’s receiver into the hands of Seattle cornerback Michael Jackson.

Pro Bowl kicker Jason Myers rebounded from his second missed field goal of the season with a 31-yarder off White’s turnover for a 23-6 lead with 5:41 left.

White’s first interception came right after Seattle’s quickly early touchdown. Brooks leaped over a blocker inside and blitzed up the middle. That seemed to spook the QB into a poor throw deep, too soft into double coverage. Diggs easily intercepted it, almost caught it like a punt, for his third interception of the season.

Diggs has three interceptions in each of six consecutive seasons, the longest current streak of picks in the NFL.

Taylor’s career-high 2 1/2 sacks leave him with 8 1/2 entering the final game of the regular season. That’s just behind Nwosu’s team-leading nine. After a rough start to this season in which his ineffectiveness got him benched in favor of rookie outside linebacker Boye Mafe, Taylor has 5 1/2 sacks in the last month. His season total is one more than his 6 1/2 last season.

Without Brooks, the Seahawks kept holding down the Jets — even in the few times they moved the ball.

The Jets took the second-half kickoff and moved inside Seattle’s 40-yard line. On third and 7, White’s perfectly timed and placed pass clanged off the hands of wide receiver Corey Davis beyond the line to gain. Greg Zuerlein then sent a 57-yard field goal wide left. The Seahawks stayed ahead 17-6.

Smith and Seattle’s offense took that drive start at the 47-yard line and went on a 13-play march to Myers’ second field goal. That increased the lead to 20-6 midway through the third quarter.

It was Myers’ 29th make in 30 field-goal attempts this season. That’s why he’s made the Pro Bowl team, for the second time in his career.

Then Myers missed his next one, wide from 41 yards.

Tyler Mabry’s wait pays off

Saturday, the Seahawks called up 26-year-old tight end Tyler Mabry from the practice squad. That was for depth with Will Dissly going on injured reserve days earlier because of the knee injury the starter got the previous weekend in Seattle’s loss to Kansas City.

Sunday, Mabry was dancing a move he’d waited three seasons to do.

Mabry ran a curl route outside the goal line. Smith saw him open and fired a pass Mabry caught while falling toward the goal line. No Jets defender stopped his lean — all the way into the end zone. Not only was it hist first career catch it was Mabry’s first career score.

The 247-pound tight end then did a funny, lateral move bopping around as his teammates came to celebrate Seattle taking a 17-3 lead 5 seconds into the second quarter.

He said it was something he saw from TikTok, and he practiced it on Wednesday.

“I said if I score I touchdown, I’m going to do that dance,” he said over the banging music in the locker room postgame.

“It’s a new dance these kids be doing on TikTop. I want to stay young.”

Mabry has a right to dance. Seattle waived him three different times since signing him as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2020 out of Maryland.

“Everyone loves that guy,” Smith said.

At the point of Mabry’s score, Smith was 7 for 9 passing for 111 yards, 2 touchdowns, a 157.6 passer rating, and a two-touchdown lead on his former team.

Jordyn Brooks serious-looking injury

Seattle’s inside linebacker and defensive signal caller left the game sitting glumly on the back of a motorized car late in the second quarter.

He went to a Seattle hospital after the game for an MRI exam.

“Got our fingers crossed,” Carroll said.

The announcement Brooks would not return to the game came quickly after he left it, more quickly than usual injury announcements. That typically means it is a serious issue.

Brooks got hurt zooming from the middle of the field to the Seahawks’ sideline to tackle Jets tight end C.J. Uzomah to end a 12-yard pass play. Brooks’ right leg appeared to buckle awkwardly under him as he was trying to brace himself landing on the turf. Team doctor Ed Khalfayan came to the aid of Brooks immediately as the team’s first-round pick in 2020 stayed down injured for minutes.

Usual special-teams player Tanner Muse replace Brooks at inside linebacker. The other starting inside linebacker Cody Barton replaced Brooks, who set the Seahawks record for tackles in a season last season, as the signal caller for the defense. Barton put on a new helmet that had the headset speaker to hear the play calls from defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt.