Shaquill Griffin Admits Seahawks Took Giants 'Lightly,' Sharpens Focus Preparing for Jets
With only 16 games played during a season, each one holds the utmost importance for NFL teams. As the saying goes, on "any given Sunday," any team can win in a league featuring unrivaled parity.
Unfortunately for the Seahawks, after several coaches and players stated otherwise in recent days, Shaquill Griffin admitted he and his teammates didn't take the Giants as seriously as they should have in a 17-12 loss last Sunday.
"I feel that we kind of eased up off the gas a little bit, and now it's everybody's locking back in," Griffin told reporters on Thursday. "I just thought we let that game kind of get the best of us and then we came in taking the team lightly. That's just being totally honest. In this league, you can lose to anybody."
Griffin should be applauded for his sincerity, especially considering nobody else stepped up to the plate sharing similar sentiments. But this is a horrendous look for the Seahawks, who may look back upon this game in a few weeks with great regret and it begs the question: why would Seattle take New York "lightly" anyway?
The Giants arrived in the Pacific Northwest riding a three-game winning streak and had won four of its past six games to surge into first place in the NFC East. Forget about the fact they were without their starting quarterback or had a 4-7 overall record - this was not a team Griffin and the Seahawks had any business sleeping on.
Following the unexpected upset, coach Pete Carroll's squad dropped to 8-4, which is still a respectable record. As quarterback Russell Wilson loves to say frequently, all of their goals remain in front of them and if they right the ship quickly, they still can overcome a loss that per Griffin, never should have happened.
"We came in on Monday and we spoke about the game and the mistakes that we made, tried to correct it," Griffin remarked. "But understand, that team was not supposed to beat us. That's just being totally honest, they were not supposed to win that game and we have to live with that."
On paper, Griffin certainly is correct from a record and talent standpoint. The Seahawks shouldn't have lost to the Giants, who played with more desperation and more energy on both sides of the football and consequently took control after halftime.
But with the defeat, Seattle dropped out of first place in the NFC West due to tiebreakers while also severely crippling their chances at earning the conference's lone bye as the top seed in the playoffs. As things stand, they're two full games behind New Orleans with four games left to play, and even if the Seahawks end up tied with them atop the standings, most tiebreakers favor the Saints and Packers.
If the Seahawks somehow only manage to secure a wild card instead of a division title - or in the worst case scenario miss the postseason all together, which isn't out of the question - they will have nobody to blame but themselves.
This complacency and over-confidence doesn't just fall on the players. The Seahawks entire coaching staff deserves to be criticized as well if the team went into this game believing they already were destined to improve to 9-3 on the season and didn't approach preparation for a surging Giants team earnestly.
Interestingly, Griffin and Seattle's defense didn't play poorly with the exception of getting carved up by Wayne Gallman and Alfred Morris out of the backfield for two drives. Aside from that, New York was held to 105 passing yards and scored a grand total of three points.
But based on Griffin's comments, it's worth wondering how much better the defense would have played if everyone was fully bought in and took the Giants as seriously as they should have. It could have been the difference between a win and a loss in a critical second half contest that came down to five points on the scoreboard.
Moving forward, with a winless Jets squad coming to Lumen Field on Sunday, Griffin knows the Seahawks can't come to the stadium believing a win is already in the bag again. He indicated the group has attacked the "elephant in the room" head on earlier this week and re-focused on their latest championship opportunity to avoid another letdown against an inferior opponent they simply cannot afford.
Considering everything Griffin said, Seattle's main goal shouldn't be to simply get back in the win column. This upcoming game should be treated like a Super Bowl in terms of importance and the objective should be to dismantle an 0-12 opponent.
"We gotta fix it, we did, and now we're going on to the next week and we can't have that same taste in our mouth going into this week, so it was cool to be a part of that discussion and understand we can't let that happen again."
