After the break, even with Fant sidelined with a knee injury that forced him to leave early in the first quarter, the Seahawks began to find their rhythm up front. The veteran quarterback did a better job of keeping defenders off Smith, completing nine of 12 passes for 103 yards and, though he was still hit several times by an aggressive Broncos defense, he wasn’t sacked once in the final two quarters. Buying himself some extra time by getting into the pocket with good protection around him, he was able to trick Singleton into looking into the backfield, allowing Charbonnet to get wide open on a wheel route to extend Seattle’s lead to 13 midway through the third quarter.

As part of their first-half offensive disaster, the Seahawks not only failed to protect Smith, but also failed to get any semblance of a run game going. With the exception of the quarterback’s second-quarter sprint, in which he pushed out safety P.J. Locke on his way to the end zone, the team rushed nine times for 22 yards, averaging just two yards per carry, including Walker, who was held to 19 yards on seven carries in the first two quarters. At that point, the Broncos seemed to stifle any run play out of the backfield.

Making excellent schematic adjustments during the break, offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb flipped the script early in the third quarter, opening his varied playbook with an emphasis on gap-oriented schemes. The explosive back leaned heavily on Walker on the first drive of the half, following up five- and six-yard carries with a 15-yard tote on a power run behind a well-executed block from the pulling guard. Three plays later, Walker slipped a pair of tackles and followed a quality block from tight end Noah Fant, sprinted to the sideline and eventually dove into the end zone for a 23-yard score to give Seattle a 16-13 lead. Before leaving with an abdominal issue, Walker ran 13 times for 84 yards in the half, driving the offense’s second-half resurgence with power and flash.

Last season, the Seahawks’ defense fell apart after Nwosu suffered a pectoral injury, specifically defending the run, raising questions about how the unit would perform without him on Sunday as he battles a sprained knee. Mafe and Hall did everything they could for at least a week to silence those questions, though, causing chaos on the perimeter as both rushers and run defenders in strong debut games that flourished in Macdonald’s scheme.

Mafe picked up where he left off last season, delivering one of Seattle’s most important defensive plays in the first half. He used his speed to chase down Bo Nix as the quarterback tried to fight for a first down on a third-down pass play and tackled him out of bounds for a sack to force a punt. He later added a four-yard tackle for loss to open the second half and finished the game with two quarterback hits and two tackles for loss added to his sack. As for Hall, he outdid his teammate in the quarterback hit department, hitting Nix three times, including taking him down at the line of scrimmage for his first career NFL sack in the final moments of the first half. If those two players can be that disruptive with Nwosu returning soon, Macdonald should have a nice edge rushing group to unleash this season.

As Macdonald and several players pointed out after the game, the Seahawks were far from perfect on defense, with many echoing frustrations over allowing Nix to score a touchdown in the final minutes to cut the lead to six points. However, beyond the fact that that drive fell short of expectations, the unit kept the team in the shade early in the game by stepping into the shadow of its own goal post on turnovers, preventing the Broncos from extending their lead beyond five points at any point in the first two quarters of the game.

Following Smith’s interception by Singleton, nose tackle Johnathan Hankins stopped Javonte Williams for a one-yard loss on 2nd-and-1 and Nix threw an incomplete pass down the sideline on third down, forcing the Broncos to settle for a Will Lutz field goal. Later in the half, undrafted rookie cornerback Dee Williams botched a punt at Seattle’s 10-yard line and Denver recovered, only to have the team go back down on three plays and again be held to a short Lutz field goal. On their third red zone trip of the half, Love ended up intercepting Nix at the goal line, sending the Broncos to the sideline with no points to show for a promising drive. Overall, the Seahawks limited Sean Payton’s crew to 13 total points on four red zone trips and a dismal 28 percent third down rate, dominating in key situations.

Harbaugh is making his first jump to the NFL and will have plenty of things to clean up on film on special teams, starting with Williams’ issues on punt returns. There were a couple of times he chose to unfairly catch punts around the 10-yard line and one of them was downed at the 1, leading to Charbonnet being stopped in the end zone by Zach Allen for a second safety in a single quarter. Along with his botched punt, his miscues contributed to five first-half points for the Broncos, but the organization remains confident in his ability to impact games as a returner. As for kick returns, Laviska Shenault didn’t break up any of his returns but did have a decent 31-yarder in the new dynamic kickoff rule setup to open the game.

On the plus side, Jason Myers made both field goals, including a 50-yard bomb in the first quarter. Punter Michael Dickson averaged nearly 50 yards per punt and launched booming kicks off his foot all afternoon, as expected of the All-Pro. The Broncos also didn’t have much success returning kicks and punts, as the Seahawks played well in coverage, limiting opponents to 23 yards per kick return and less than 10 yards per punt return. Receiver Dareke Young and safety Marquise Blair led the charge, each finishing with a pair of special teams tackles.