“It was a little sloppy in terms of operations, which we’ll have to address going forward. (But) I’ll tell you, our guys played unbelievably hard,” Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said after the game. “You got complementary football toward the end of the game in the red zone and really played some great red zone defense, and the offense coming into that backup situation was redemptive to say the least. And then it went down with a 98-yard touchdown drive that pretty much sealed it, was pretty awesome.”

Seattle outrebounded Miami 370-205, but that was against Miami’s second- and third-string quarterbacks. The Dolphins’ elite offensive trio of Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle and De’Von Achane combined for 94 yards on 10 touches. Miami was 1 for 15 on third- and fourth-down conversions. Seattle had six sacks. The Seahawks’ defensive presence was evident.

Wide receiver DK Metcalf caught another long touchdown and went over 100 yards for the second straight game as Seattle found answers to fuel its rushing attack. Geno Smith, despite a day that included two interceptions on tipped passes, had a mostly positive performance.

“At any given moment, (Metcalf) can put points on the board, no matter where you are,” Macdonald said. “We love him. He works his butt off. I’m just glad 14 is on our side. He’s a problem. He’s a huge problem for the defense.”

After allowing 185 yards rushing to the New England Patriots in Week 2, Seattle gave up 65 yards on the ground on 18 carries (3.6 yards per carry), despite playing most of the game without defensive linemen Byron Murphy II and Leonard Williams.

Smith completed 26 of 34 passes for 289 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. Charbonnet rushed for 91 yards and two touchdowns on 18 carries, and Metcalf had four catches for 104 yards and a score.

For the second straight game, strong safety Rayshawn Jenkins led the Seahawks with 10 total tackles. Five different players had sacks.

Miami scored zero points from two red zone trips. The Dolphins quarterbacks were unimpressive, but head coach Mike Macdonald has this defense that rallies around the ball and plays as a unit.

Edge rusher Derick Hall had a career day with five total tackles, two sacks and four quarterback hits. The Seahawks piled up six total sacks and 12 quarterback hits as a group — finally taking advantage of their pass rush that lived in the backfield but rarely turned pressure into negative plays.

Hall, a 2023 second-round pick, has three sacks in three games, up from none as a rookie.

“I think the biggest part of it is knowing what I need to attack for the offseason,” Hall said of his jump. “Really focusing on that, being able to develop my pass rush and take it to the next level. Having a year under my belt, knowing what to expect, knowing how things are going to play out, having guys that have confidence in me like Uchenna (Nwosu) and Boye (Mafe).”

The run defense was improved, even in the absence of top interior linemen, and the backend coverage limited downfield throws. Tua Tagovailoa quarterbacking Miami would have been a much more challenging matchup, but the defense held up regardless.

On his 71-yard touchdown, the focus was on Metcalf. If the coverage was good, he would take the route deep.

“That was a play we’d been repeating all offseason, give DK (Metcalf) the ability to read that there,” Smith said after the game. “If we get the coverage we want, he’s going to take the top off. So they played low quarters (coverage) on that side; they played half to the other side; we got the safety in the position we wanted him, and he really bit on the dig route and DK was able to get behind him.”

Now he’s had 50+ yards receiving in two straight games and 100+ yards receiving in both. Seattle’s diverse roster of pass-catchers makes it tough to cover the Seahawks, as there’s always going to be one open when a defense tries to take one away.

Metcalf’s 264 receiving yards through the first three games of the season are the most since 2020. That was the same season he set a career-high 1,303 receiving yards on 83 catches.

Despite the lopsided victory, Seattle’s offensive line lost. Smith’s first interception of the day came while he was under heavy pressure in his own end zone — forcing him to get the ball out and dump it to Charbonnet. The ball sailed, bounced off Charbonnet’s fingertips and landed in the hands of Dolphins cornerback Kader Kohou on Seattle’s 6-yard line.

The pocket broke around Smith more often than not, forcing him to step outside and make tougher throws. It came from all over, too, as right guard Anthony Bradford continued to struggle, but the rest of the unit couldn’t make up for it.

During the week, Macdonald said they would continue to rotate Bradford and rookie Christian Haynes at right guard. Bradford played the entire game.

“Yeah, it just felt like (Anthony Bradford) really deserved all those chances throughout the week,” Macdonald said. “It’s kind of a week-to-week thing at this point. We’ll see. We’ll look at the tape. There was a holding penalty that (Bradford) had. I don’t want to talk about how well he played because I’m not sure at this point.”

Smith was sacked three times and hit seven. Where the unit did improve was in the run game, allowing Charbonnet to rack up 56 rushing yards in the second half on just eight carries. Charbonnet also simply ran with more conviction.

Speaking of Bradford, he has seven penalties in two games, two of which came against the Dolphins. Seattle has found itself in 3rd-and-long situations on a regular basis due to self-inflicted fouls.

It was the Seahawks’ most punished game since Week 11 of last season. If they can be cleaned up, especially on offense, Seattle won’t be as far behind the sticks. That’s what limited the unit for most of the final three quarters.

In total there were 177 yards of penalty yardage. It slowed the game down and slowed the pace of both teams’ offense.

If Seattle were fully healthy, this team might not be posting such ugly wins. Williams (ribs) and Murphy (hamstring) were the latest injuries on the Seahawks’ defense, joining outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu and middle linebacker Jerome Baker who were already sidelined.

“I mean, that’s the expectation. You just go down the sideline,” Macdonald said of the backups who come in. “The guys are in suits, you know, that’s how we expect our defense to play. It’s like, ‘OK, they’re down, next guy rolls.’ Let’s get back to work.”

Offensively, Seattle has continued to struggle with third-string right tackle Stone Forsythe and Charbonnet at running back with Kenneth Walker III out with an oblique injury. Charbonnet was noticeably improved from last week, and the Seahawks have had effective fill-ins on defense. However, they still don’t have enough starters. This isn’t the best version of this team.

Seattle will play the Detroit Lions (2-1) on Monday, September 30 — the team’s first primetime game of the season. Detroit defeated the Seahawks’ NFC West rival, the Arizona Cardinals, 20-13 on Sunday.