Russell Wilson threw two touchdown passes, Marshawn Lynch rushed for two and the Seattle Seahawks’ defense won the battle against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers’ offense to take home a 36-16 victory on opening night in the NFL.
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Wilson completed 19-of-28 passes for 191 yards while Lynch rushed 20 times for 110 yards. Percy Harvin caught seven passes for 59 yards and rushed for another 41 yards on four carries, showing just how dangerous a healthy Seahawks’ offense can be. Rodgers was 23-of-33 for just 189 yards and the Seahawks held the Packers to just 255 total yards while piling in 401 themselves.
After forcing a Packers’ punt, the Seahawks opened the scoring with a 35-yard field goal by Steven Hauschka. After stopping the Packers again, new punt returner Earl Thomas muffed a punt, setting the Packers up at the Seahawks’ 34-yard line. On the sixth play of their drive, John Kuhn rushed two yards for a Packers’ touchdown, giving them a 7-3 lead.
On the ensuing drive, Wilson found the explosive Percy Harvin for a 33-yard touchdown and then followed that up with another 33-yard pass, this time a touchdown toss to Ricardo Lockette. On the play, Wilson ran a zone-read but after faking the hand-off, he put the ball in the air, finding Lockette for the score. After the Packers tied the game on a Mason Crosby field goal, the Seahawks drove 70 yards and Lynch’s first touchdown of the season made it 17-10 Seahawks, which was the score at the half.
The Packers opened the second half by making a key stop but disaster soon struck. Rodgers led Jordy Nelson just a little too much and his pass went off Nelson’s finger tips and was intercepted by Byron Maxwell, who returned it to the eight-yard line. The Packers’ defense got a bit of a win, holding the Seahawks to a field goal. However, the Seahawks’ defense continued to dominate, sacking Rodgers on a fourth down and recording a safety. On the next drive, Lynch scored for the second time to give the Seahawks a 29-10 lead.
Randall Cobb’s touchdown cut the lead to 29-16 (the Packers missed the two-point conversion) but the Seahawks answered with a fantastic drive. They marched 80 yards on 13 plays in seven minutes, capped by a 15-yard touchdown toss from Wilson to fullback Derrick Coleman, making it 36-16. It was an exclamation point on what was an extremely impressive performance for the Seahawks – on both sides of the ball.
The Seahawks will return to action a week from Sunday when they travel to San Diego to take on the Chargers while the Packers will return home to play host to the New York Jets.
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