Seahawks score early, often in win over Saints

Bob Condotta, The Seattle Times on Sep 21, 2025

Published in Football

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

SEATTLE — The New Orleans Saints went crawling out almost as quickly as they came marching in to Lumen Field on Sunday.

Almost before the first quarter was over, so was the drama in Sunday’s game as the Seattle Seahawks used two big special-teams plays and a flurry of New Orleans mistakes to take control early and cruise to a 44-13 win.

The Seahawks scored on their first seven possessions — four touchdowns and three field goals — sandwiched around a franchise-record punt return from Tory Horton, in notching the biggest win of the 20-game-old Mike Macdonald era.

The win improved the Seahawks’ record to 2-1 as they prepare for an early NFC West showdown Thursday night at Arizona.

The Seahawks tied a franchise record set previously against the Giants in 2006 by scoring 21 points in the first quarter.

And they finished the first half with 38, tied for the third-most in franchise history.

The second half was relatively uneventful with backups playing most of the fourth quarter.

But by then, the damage had long been done.

The Seahawks scored first on a 12-yard pass from Sam Darnold to Jaxon Smith-Njigba — playing despite falling ill enough on Saturday that the team listed him as questionable for the game — on a drive kept alive when the Saints were called for a personal foul after stopping Seattle on third down, which would have forced a field goal.

The Seahawks forced the Saints to punt and Horton returned it 95 yards for a touchdown, the longest in team history and a first for a TD since Tyler Lockett in 2015.

Horton used a crushing final block from linebacker Chaz Surratt to break into the open for good and score the second special teams touchdown for the Seahawks in two weeks. They recovered a kickoff for a score to key last Sunday’s win at Pittsburgh.

After the Seahawks forced another punt, D’Anthony Bell broke through to block the attempt of New Orleans’ Kai Kroger, with the Seahawks recovering at the 11.

They needed just two plays to convert on a Kenneth Walker III 3-yard run and take a 21-0 lead.

The Saints got a field goal make it 21-3 early in the second quarter.

The special teams fun continued as Dareke Young returned the kickoff 60 yards to the 38.

A Darnold pass of 23 yards to AJ Barner set up a 14-yard TD to Horton on a fade pass in the end zone that made it 28-3 with 12:47 remaining in the first half.

After another three-and-out, the Seahawks used a quick-strike offense to score again. On the first play of the series, Darnold hit Smith-Njigba for 45 yards, which combined with a 15-yard penalty on the Saints moved the ball to the 16. They needed just three plays from there with Walker scoring on a 1-yard plunge to make it 35-3 with 7:42 to play in the first half.

The Seahawks tacked on a 56-yard Jason Myers field goal to lead 38-6 at the half. It was as dominant of a first half as they’d played since leading Arizona 38-0 at halftime in an eventual 58-0 win late in the 2012 season.

The only time the Seahawks have scored more in a half game when they got 42 in the first half against the Bills in 1977 and 45 in the first half against the Vikings in 2002.

While the heroics of Horton and the special teams were the obvious first-half highlight, Darnold also shined, completing 10 of 11 passes for 169 yards and two touchdowns earning a perfect passer rating of 158.3.

The Saints gained 206 yards in the first half and held the ball for 22 minutes and 19 seconds.

But with the Seahawks scoring so quickly it hardly mattered.

The Seahawks were also mostly playing soft on defense often in a two-deep zone with Coby Bryant and Ty Okada to make up for the loss of starting safety Julian Love as well as starting cornerback Devon Witherspoon missing a second consecutive game with an MCL contusion.

The Seahawks are hoping to get them back for Thursday as well as running back Zach Charbonnet and safety Nick Emmanwori, who also sat out because of injuries.

____