Curhan, Forsythe Deliver in 'Consistent Fashion' as Seahawks Edge Lions

DETROIT, Mich. - Facing 3rd and 2 from the opposing six-yard line on the first possession of overtime in a hard-fought battle against the Detroit Lions, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith took the shotgun snap and immediately found himself under duress.

With star edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson beating right tackle Jake Curhan to quickly collapse the pocket, Smith initially looked to be in trouble, only to escape the pocket to his right and somehow evade the pressure. Coming free as the safety valve on an out route, receiver Tyler Lockett snagged a quick pass from the scrambling signal caller and called game, match, point, successfully extending the ball inside the pylon to cap off a thrilling 37-31 overtime win and silence a sellout crowd at Ford Field.

But while Smith and Lockett were the heroes on the box score with a pair of touchdown connections after halftime, they weren't the players coach Pete Carroll wanted to celebrate with first as he entered the victorious locker room. After being doubted all week replacing injured starters Charles Cross and Abraham Lucas, he couldn't have been more ecstatic about the performances Seattle received from Stone Forsythe and Curhan at the tackle spots.

"There’s a lot of people that wrote us off because they didn’t think that Stone [Forsythe] could get it done and Jake [Curhan] could get it done, but they did," Carroll said during the opening statement of his post-game press conference. "They did a phenomenal job today. They held up their end of it, stepped up just like we ask guys to do and came through in a huge way."

Facing a feisty Lions defensive line headlined by Hutchinson, one of the NFL's best young pass rushers, the Seahawks entered Sunday's road opener as a 4.5-point underdog in large part due to their offensive woes after Cross and Lucas exited against the Rams in Week 1. With Curhan and Forsythe in the lineup, the team produced 12 total yards in the second half of a 30-13 defeat and Smith seemed to get ambushed every time he dropped back to pass.

Given those struggles a week ago, including four pressures allowed by Curhan on just nine pass blocking snaps, few expected Seattle to be able to fly into Detroit and capture a signature road win without Cross or Lucas available.

But from the opening kickoff on Sunday, with the coaching staff implementing a quality game plan mixing in multi-tight end sets to provide blocking support when needed, Forsythe and Curhan surpassed all expectations at the bookend spots for the Seahawks. Locking down Hutchinson, Charles Harris, and the rest of the Lions talented edge rushers, they took on starring roles as the offensive line didn't allow a single quarterback hit on Smith in the first three quarters of play.

“We felt great about the pass pro. We really did," Carroll said. "Once we got going the game, we went in with the concepts that we needed. I don’t know how much it really strayed from where we were early, but we could block them and so, we did. And Geno [Smith] has a huge day because of it.”

In fact, the only hit Smith took all day long came after the quarterback inexplicably tried to extend a broken play late in regulation and took a 17-yard sack deep in Seattle territory. Even on that play, protection generally was decent with Curhan and Forsythe holding their own and the pressure coming more due to quality coverage than anything else.

For the game, Curhan and Forsythe allowed three combined pressures and no quarterback hits, turning in dominant outings and playing the best football of their young NFL careers.