Seattle’s 437 Yards Could Not Save a 12-Game Streak

Seattle outgained Washington 437 yards to 258 on Sunday and still lost 33-31, the first defeat of a 12-game winning streak that ran through Super Bowl LX. Sam Darnold threw for four scores in his return. The Seahawks never led.

Marcus Mariota threw three touchdown passes in place of Jayden Daniels, and Kain Medrano’s 50-yard pick-six with 3:57 left made it a two-score game that Washington then almost gave back. Three Seattle turnovers became three Commanders touchdowns. That was the whole math.

437 Yards, Three Giveaways, One Loss

Northwest Stadium saw a defending champion move the ball and a 1-2 home team steal the result. Darnold went 31 of 45 for a career-high 379 passing yards, four touchdowns, and two interceptions. Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught 10 passes for 128 yards and two scores and even completed a 14-yard throw on a trick play. Seattle had 28 first downs. Washington had 17. The visitors averaged 6.8 yards per play; the hosts averaged 4.0.

Washington held the ball for 31:28 and still gained 179 fewer yards. Mariota was 19 of 31 for 183 yards, three scores, and no picks, and the Commanders ran 32 times for 82 yards. Seattle ran 18 times for 44. The difference sat in the other column: turnovers 3-0, and every one of them turned into six for the burgundy and gold.

HOW THE YARDS DID NOT TRAVEL

Coach Dan Quinn had a takeaway wall outside his office that had stayed empty through two losses. Sunday it finally got names, and the defense’s three takeaways after two empty weeks more than covered an offense that spent most of the day stuck on third down.

THREE GIVEAWAYS, THREE TOUCHDOWNS

• Price fumble: Rookie Jadarian Price lost the ball on Seattle’s second series, Washington started at the Seattle 21, and Mariota hit Rachaad White for a 6-yard score.
• Styles interception: A Darnold throw deflected off a lineman to rookie Sonny Styles, and three plays later Mariota lofted 30 yards to Terry McLaurin for a 24-10 lead.
• Medrano pick-six: With Washington up 27-24, Medrano undercut a checkdown for AJ Barner and ran 50 yards, the play that put the game out of a one-score hold until the extra point missed.

Darnold did not hide from the tape. He had been clean through last winter’s title run. On Sunday the ball came out twice in the second half, and both times Washington scored.

I can’t turn the ball over the way that I did. We can’t turn the ball over as an offense and be inefficient and expect to win games.

Sam Darnold, Seahawks quarterback, at Northwest Stadium

Mike Macdonald called the giveaways bad business, which is coach-speak for a 12-game streak dying on possessions Seattle donated. His defense still held Washington to 3 of 13 on third down and two sacks from Leonard Williams and Derick Hall. It never got the ball back.

Kain Medrano Took the Checkdown to the House

The biggest play belonged to a linebacker who had spent his NFL life on special teams. Medrano, a former UCLA captain in his second season, entered after Leo Chenal was carted off with a neck injury in the second quarter. Chenal went down with 6:38 left in the half tackling Emanuel Wilson. Teammates circled him, the stands chanted his name, and he fist-pumped toward the tunnel. Quinn said later Chenal was in a hospital with feeling in his extremities and more tests still to come.

Washington was already thin there. Frankie Luvu was inactive, and Jordan Magee was on injured reserve. Medrano had five tackles, a pass breakup, and then the throw he had been waiting on. Seattle had been dumping the ball to the tight end. He had missed a couple of those tackles. He sat on the next one.

They kept hitting those checkdowns a couple times. I had one or two missed tackles on some checkdowns, so I know they were gonna come back to it. Just didn’t know when, and they happened to come back to it, and I was in the right place at the right time.

Kain Medrano, Commanders linebacker, after the game

He said he had to show off his wide receiver skills on the return, and he beat Darnold’s last tackle to get there. Quinn handed him a game ball. McLaurin called the play unbelievable. A flag on the celebration pushed Drew Stevens’s extra point back 15 yards, and Stevens missed, so the lead was 33-24 instead of 34-24. That miss invited Seattle back in.

Chenal had been the starter in Luvu’s place. Two quarters after the cart, the next man in ended the streak. Medrano put it simply: one takeaway turns into two, two into three, and the ball starts to fall that way.

What Marcus Mariota Did With Daniels Out

Daniels dislocated his left elbow, the non-throwing arm, on the last play of the first half at Dallas and will not be placed on injured reserve. Quinn has him week to week. General manager Adam Peters said surgery is not on the table. Mariota, the 2014 Heisman winner and 2015 No. 2 pick, started the home opener and did not throw a pick.

MARIOTA’S LINE IN THE HOME OPENER

• Passing: 19 of 31, 183 yards, three touchdowns, zero interceptions, 110.0 rating.
• Sacks: Two, which is why Washington’s team passing total sat at 176.
• Rushing: Five carries for 11 yards, including the 9-yard keeper that iced third-and-7.
• Scores: 6 yards to White, 11 to Treylon Burks, 30 to McLaurin.

McLaurin finished with six catches for 77 yards and said the locker room trusts Mariota the way it trusts Daniels. The supporting cast was short. Inactive besides Daniels: guard Sam Cosmi, safety Nick Cross, tight end Chig Okonkwo, Luvu, and outside linebacker Javontae Jean-Baptiste. Jacory Croskey-Merritt ran 19 times for 36 yards, and a long touchdown run of his came back for illegal formation, which kept Washington from a 14-0 hole it never quite dug for Seattle.

Mariota called it one week that could be a stepping stone. He also said the more the circumstances pin this group against the wall, the more it finds a way. Quinn gave him a game ball next to Medrano’s. Contract tracker Spotrac logged a $200,000 incentive for a win in which he played 60 percent of the snaps, a clause that can pay him on up to 12 wins. The tape will show a modest yardage day. The result will not.

The Raincoat on Seattle’s Sideline

Price was supposed to be the replacement for Kenneth Walker III, Super Bowl LX’s MVP, after Seattle spent the No. 32 pick on the Notre Dame back. He gained 11 yards on his first carry, lost four on the next, then coughed it up while fighting for extra yards. Styles punched it free. Amik Robertson was in on the hit. Washington recovered at the Seattle 21, and four plays later it was 7-0.

Macdonald sat him. Price watched in a blue raincoat over his pads, helmet still on in the Maryland rain, while Wilson (nine carries, 14 yards) and George Holani (three for 10) ran in his place. Macdonald said they decided to calm it down and bring him back after the half. Price finished with five carries for 15 yards and did not touch the ball again until the second half. It was his second lost fumble in three games.

Seattle’s run game never showed up, 44 yards on 18 carries, and that is how a passing day of 393 yards still felt thin in the fourth quarter. Walker is gone. The first-rounder hired to take his job spent a half as a spectator. Macdonald said Price will figure it out. Sunday, the figuring cost seven points and the lead Seattle never got.

Two Late Conversions After a 1-for-11 Start

The fourth quarter was the game Seattle thought it always wins. Smith-Njigba’s 11-yard catch at 11:53 tied it 24-24. Washington answered with a 12-play, 42-yard slog to Stevens’s 36-yard field goal at 4:34. Then Medrano scored. Then Darnold hit Smith-Njigba three times and found Cooper Kupp from 7 yards at 2:51. Two-point game. Time for the stop that had defined a 12-game run.

THE LAST FIVE MINUTES

1. 4:34, fourth quarter: Stevens 36-yard field goal, 12 plays, 42 yards, Washington 27-24.
2. 3:57: Medrano 50-yard interception return, extra point missed, 33-24.
3. 2:51: Kupp 7-yard touchdown catch, five plays, 68 yards, 33-31.
4. Final drive: White 19 yards around right end on third-and-9, then Mariota 9 yards on third-and-7 to run it out.

Washington had been 1 for 11 on third down until that drive. It converted the two it had to convert. Macdonald said the White run was an audible against zero, a good check his defense did not play. The keeper was always staying with Mariota. Seattle had one empty red-zone trip, the second straight week that has happened, and no takeaway. For a team that had outscored its first two opponents 37-3 in the second half, the close was a new problem.

Jason Myers and Stevens had already traded 57-yard field goals at the end of the first half, 10-17 at the break. Eric Saubert’s 13-yard catch in the third, a ball he seemed to lose and then control in the end zone, had cut 24-10 to 24-17. The champs kept answering. They never passed the Commanders on the scoreboard. Macdonald said he knows what his team is made of and that they will attack the tape, including how they travel and how they game-plan, after their first loss in 10 months.

London Gets Mariota and a 1-2 Team

Quinn did not dress it up. He said the 0-3 test and the 1-2 test both look ugly on paper and feel different in the room. Nick Emmanwori left with a hamstring. Lucas Patrick hurt an ankle. Chenal’s night ended on a cart. The Commanders still go to London to play Indianapolis on Oct. 4, and Daniels is a long shot for that trip. Mariota will take the next one unless the week-to-week label moves faster than it did last season, when the same elbow cost him large chunks of the year.

Seattle is 2-1 and hosts the Los Angeles Chargers next Sunday. The 14-3 regular season and Super Bowl LX run, the franchise-best 12 in a row, the clean postseason Darnold just had, all of that is now a closed file. A 1-2 club with a backup quarterback, a special-teams linebacker, and two third-down conversions ended it in Landover, and it did so while getting pushed around on the stat sheet.

Washington still has to play better than 3 of 13 on third down. Seattle still has to put the ball away. Sunday proved those two facts can live in the same 33-31, and only one of them went in the win column.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Did the Seahawks Last Lose Before Sunday?

Seattle’s last defeat before the Commanders game was Nov. 16, 2025, a 21-19 loss to the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium, which dropped them to 7-3 that season before the 12-game run began the following week at Tennessee.

Who Won Super Bowl LX and What Was the Score?

The Seahawks beat the New England Patriots 29-13 on Feb. 8, 2026, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara for their second franchise title, and Kenneth Walker III won MVP after 27 carries for 135 yards.

How Much Did Marcus Mariota Earn for the Win?

Contract tracker Spotrac said Mariota’s deal pays him $200,000 each time he plays at least 60 percent of the snaps in a Washington win, with a cap of 12 such bonuses this season, so Sunday’s start cashed the first one.

How Many Home Openers in a Row Have the Commanders Won?

Sunday was Washington’s fifth consecutive home-opener win, a streak the club noted when it handed game balls to Mariota, Medrano, and Styles after the 33-31 result.