Seahawks Game Center: Seattle falls to Broncos in 2015 preseason opener

OK, so that was a little sloppy. Even the best play of the day for the Seahawks in Friday night’s 22-20 loss to the Denver Broncos, a 103-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Tyler Lockett, included a bit of comedy thanks to a sideline collision between Pete Carroll and field judge Eugene Hall.

“All in all, a pretty sloppy game for us in a number of ways, and not as good as we’d have liked coming out of these first two weeks,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “But there were so many good things to see, some exciting things. I thought it was really fun to see these guys play ball and run and hit and do some good things that we can really clean up and fix.”

Of course before anyone panics about the result, it’s worth remembering a few things. For starters, it was a preseason game, and the first one at that; Russell Wilson had one pass attempt, after all. Also, the Seahawks played without a lot of their best players, with Pro Bowlers like Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman,Kam Chancellor and Marshawn Lynch all unavailable.

But between the combined seven fumbles, 19 penalties, nine sacks, the dropped passes and the missed assignments, there was a bit of useful information to glean from Friday’s game.

1. Seattle’s top two picks from the 2015 draft look like they’re ready to contribute in a big way.

Tyler Lockett showed in his first game why the Seahawks were willing to give up four picks to move up in the third round to draft him with the 69th overall pick. Obviously the 103-yarder was the big highlight, but Lockett also had a 46-yard return in the first half, and his one punt return went for 18 yards.

And Lockett wasn’t the only rookie to show up on the stat sheet. Second-round pick Frank Clark had a game-high nine tackles, playing both defensive end and tackle. Clark recorded a tackle for loss and a forced fumble on his first play of the game, then continued to make big plays throughout four quarters, seeing as much play time as anyone on Seattle’s D-line. On Denver’s first drive of the third quarter, Clark factored in on all three tackles as the Seahawks forced a three-and-out.

“Lock did a great job tonight,” Carroll said. “He lit it up—kickoff return, punt return—it’s great to see that. That’s exactly what we were hoping to see. He looked very special tonight. I thought Frank looked really good tonight too. He was really active, really running around, so we’re happy about the young guys coming out and doing some good things for us.

“It’s great. That’s a beautiful first message they sent us that they’re ready to do something to help this football team. Everybody was really lit up about Tyler’s returns, and then you couldn’t miss Frank.  He had a bunch of plays that he was very active on. He has looked like that in practice, he has looked like he can be a factor and help us, and it was great that he carried us to the game.