RENTON -- Fourteen penalties for 148 yards.
Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll doesn't look any further than that when it comes to evaluating his team's 26-23 overtime loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
"It’s not like there’s any mystery what happened in this game. We just have to clean it up," Carroll said Monday.
The Seahawks had 10 penalties called in the second half alone and five called in the final three minutes of regulation and overtime. Seattle was called for five offensive holding penalties, two defensive pass interference penalties, an offsides, a neutral zone infraction, a defensive holding, illegal block in the back, unsportsmanlike conduct and unnecessary roughness.
"All of the penalty things were correctable. We can fix those," Carroll said. "We need to do it and we just have to get that done. So everybody understands that’s really clear. You give anybody that much, it makes it easy for them and we kind of did that."
In the final three minutes or regulation and into overtime, Ethan Pocic had two holding penalties, Germain Ifedi had one, Malik Turner was called for an illegal block in the back on a punt and Shaquill Griffin was called for pass interference. To have so many penalties in such a critical time of the game was concerning for Carroll.
"Really disappointed in that because that’s about finishing and doing right and it just didn’t happen," he said. "That’s too bad because we’ve spent a lot of time, a lot of emphasis in trying to finish games by doing the right things instead of that kind of stuff happening and that’s because that’s what can occur. It was really clear to these guys and everybody felt bad about their part in it and coaches too, so we’re going to try to get cleaned up this week."
While the Griffin pass interference call may have been somewhat questionable, the holding penalties were anything but. On all three plays, Pocic and Ifedi grabbed a hold of 49ers defensive end Solomon Thomas and impeded his chances to make a play on a pair of Mike Davis runs and a possible sack of Russell Wilson.
"(He) tried to save Russ by grabbing the guy," Carroll said of Pocic's hold in overtime that negated a 32-yard completion to J.D. McKissic. "Nice thought but we don’t want him to do that. Put it on Russ. Russ has to move and get out of the way and get the ball off and not go to that choice, don’t go grabbing a guy. That was a legit penalty on that one."
The 148 penalty yards against the Seahawks were the most in franchise history. The previous record was 145 yards in a Dec. 8, 1979 game against the Denver Broncos.
The Seahawks led the league in penalties last season with 148 penalties, which was 11 penalties more than the second play Miami Dolphins (137) and 24 penalties more than the third place Houston Texans. Seattle also led the league in penalties in 2013 and 2014 - both Super Bowl apperances - but they only committed 130 and 128 in those season.
Before Sunday's game, they had been on pace for 114 penalties on the season. The 14-penalty game against the 49ers bumps that pace up to 122 for the year. Both numbers are still substantially better than the 148 assessed last season.
However, Sunday's uptick in penalties cost them a game that would have sealed their return trip to the postseason after missing the playoffs in 2017.
"The numbers, the stats and the emphasis and the completions and the rushes and all those kinds of things that add up to success," Carroll said. "Usually the turnover thing, no turnovers on offense, all of those things usually spell a win for you and without the added issue of getting behind on the penalty situation, we would have won the game. It’s really clear."
Injury Updates:
-- Safety Bradley McDougald left Sunday's game in the second quarter after patella tendonitis in his right knee flared up. It's the same injury that has kept him on the injury report for the last two months. Though it's forced him from games a couple times, McDougald has managed to start every game this season for Seattle despite the injury.
"He’s pretty sore. It’s going to be all the way to the end of the week," Carroll said.
-- Right guard Jordan Simmons exited the game in the third quarter after injuring his right knee. Carroll called the injury a first-degree sprain.
"We’ll let you know in a couple of days what’s going on, more so when we know. But he has a knee injury. He’s got a pretty good knee injury. It’s going to be an issue," Carroll said.
- Starting right guard D.J. Fluker has a chance to return this week after missing the last two games due to a first-degree hamstring strain.
"We’re going to know in the next few days," Carroll said. "I can’t tell you right now. We’re hoping that he might have a chance."
-- Linebacker K.J. Wright is expected to practice this week after returning to limited work at the end of last week. Wright has missed 11 games this season due to a knee injury sustained in the preseason.
"The ramping up has worked out fine and he’s ready to go and we’re thinking if the week goes well he’s got a chance to play, which he’s really excited about," Carroll said. "We’ll see what happens but we really won’t know until the day we go and then the next day and the next day, as we know, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed for him."
-- Running back Rashaad Penny did not play Sunday against the 49ers due to a knee injury that surfaced coming out of last week's game against the Minnesota Vikings. Carroll said they won't know his status until later in the week.
"I don’t know that yet. We’ve got to wait a couple days here. We’ll see by Wednesday. He’s working hard to try to get back but it’s not certain yet if he’s going to be able to turn it around or not," he said.
Photo Credit: SANTA CLARA, CA - DECEMBER 16: Nick Mullens #4 of the San Francisco 49ers is sacked by Jarran Reed #90 of the Seattle Seahawks during their NFL game at Levi's Stadium on December 16, 2018 in Santa Clara, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)