Screen_Shot_2015-09-28_at_11.24.39_AM.png

The Seahawks look fine now, yeah? I mean sure, their 26-0 win yesterday came at home against a miserable Chicago Bears team in the midst of a miserable run of injuries. And yeah, it took a half for them to start playing well on offense. And okay, they dodged a bullet when it looked like a punt bounced off of Brock Coyle which could have led to a gamechanging turnover. And fine, it’s not great that Marshawn Lynch has a litany of injuries long enough to nail to a church door and start a revolution.

But 26-0 is a damn good result against any team in the NFL. In fact, it’s the first shutout of the year in the NFL period. And after an 0-2 start, the Seahawks look like the sort of formerly 0-2 team that makes a quasi-sufferable playoff run to redemption despite sputtering out of the gates. I mean, they were pretty meh for large swaths of a game they still won 26-0. That’s a good thing. So let’s break down the good action:

• I watched the game in a bar with closed captioning on the TV, and on Jimmy Graham’s touchdown catch it read, “Jam Jam. Jam Jam. Jam Jam!” Can this please be Jimmy Graham’s new nickname? He is the offensive equivalent Bam Bam Kam Chancellor, capable of imposing his will on opponents in the passing game.

• Here’s a really quick hit: Jimmy Graham is fine. He’s going to ball out for the Seahawks, or force defenses to sell out to stop him. And with Tyler Lockett, Doug Baldwin, and to a lesser degree Jermaine Kearse looking viable, this passing offense has a chance to be good.

• I tried out the nickname Tyler the Creator Lockett, after Lockett broke off his 15th (double-check this) kick return TD in three games. It felt less good than Jam Jam. That said, Lockett is more than good returning the football. He’s not Devin Hester shifty, he’s smarter, reading his blocks as they set and timing his moves perfectly. Even when he doesn’t house kicks, he’s maximizing his teammates efforts every time. After a year of living dangerously with Bryan Walters, this is a joy.

• Also, how brutal for current Bears head coach John Fox that Lockett opened the second half of this game with a kickoff return path that all but mirrored the one that Percy Harvin took to start the second half of Super Bowl 48. You may remember Fox was coaching the Broncos then. Not great, John. Not great.

• Oh yeah, the defense pitched a shutout. It would be easy to attribute this to Kam Chancellor’s return to Seattle: they gave up 30 points a game without him, and 0 points a game with him. That would be reductive; the Seahawks gave up a bunch of special teams points without Kam arainst the Rams and played Aaron Rodgers. This week they played the ghost of Jimmy Clausen’s once promising career.

• It would also be easy to undersell Kam’s contribution. He only had one tackle, and was rarely visibly impacting the game. That’s equally reductive. Clausen got nothing going in the middle of the field, which is where Nick Foles was able to exploit the Seahawks week one. The linebackers also largely tackled better, perhaps because they knew they had a hell of a backstop in the living embodiment of the Death Star.

• Also, this was a great way for Kam to round back into form, because the Bears without Jay Cutler and Alshon Jeffrey have no passing game. There were throws to be had that even an average NFL quarterback converts that Clausen missed badly or had a receiver drop. Especially in the first half, it felt like the sort of game smokin’ Jay Cutler would have squeezed 10 or so points out of. Also he would have turned it over more, so, whatever. The point is, the Bears were bad enough throwing the ball that we really didn’t learn too much about the Seahawks defense.

• Hot damn this rookie class! Lockett is a baller. Frank Clark finally made an impact. And undrafted running back Thomas Rawls dropped a hundred spot in relief of the injured Lynch. Rawls wasn’t getting cheap yards either; he averaged a Lynch-esque 3+ yards per carry AFTER contact. The kid looked good. Good enough to alleviate the pangs of fear that came with Lynch getting ruled out for the second half of the game.

Russell Wilson is so good, guys. We don’t appreciate him enough, because he has a couple weird holes in his game. But he’s so good. Is he elite? Is he a Mount Rushmore quarterback? I don’t know. But he’s good enough to make plays seemingly at will, especially at home.

• Goddamn it was nice to play at CenturyLink. It really felt that between Lockett’s return and Graham’s touchdown, the energy in the stadium finally washed away the Super Bowl hangover. Thanks, Chicago for being our brunchtime Bloody Mary.

Seahawks are at home again next week against a Lions team that isn’t great, but is certainly more dangerous than Chicago. It also means Golden Tate is coming back to town. And this might seem weird, but to me this is the most important game of the first half of the season for the Seahawks. This is a must-win. The Lions stop the run and have dangerous receivers. Can our (finally) reformed secondary play at a high level? Can Wilson and his new cadre of weapons win a game in the air? If the answer is yes, we’re in great shape. Time to find out what type of team these Seahawks are.