SEATTLE -- The only real trouble the Seahawks might have faced on Sunday at Lumen Field would be determining which aspect of their blowout win over the New Orleans Saints was most encouraging.
Was it their special teams, which blocked a Saints punt and returned another one 95 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter to kick off an all-three-phases beatdown?
Was it the offense, which found the end zone on its first four possessions and scored seven straight times on their way to 37 points?
Or was it the defense, which allowed only a pair of field goals through three quarters and 284 total yards despite being short-handed again in their secondary?
You could even say it was the fact that the Seahawks had their 44-13 win wrapped up early enough to pull most of their starters at the start of the fourth quarter, giving them some valuable rest with a quick turnaround to a pivotal division game against the Arizona Cardinals (2-1) Thursday night (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video).
"Just a great, great team effort," coach Mike Macdonald said after the Seahawks improved to 2-1. "Guys played extremely, hard, played together, complementary football. Our offense was efficient ... and defensively we played hard. We did a great job, and really the story of the day, honestly, is our special teams unit."
Macdonald gave special teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh a game ball after his group helped get Seattle's rout going. It started with rookie Tory Horton scoring on a 95-yard punt return -- the longest in franchise history -- to give the Seahawks a 14-0 lead. D'Anthony Bell blocked a punt on the Saints' next possession, setting the offense up for the first of two short touchdown runs by Kenneth Walker III.
Horton (three catches, 32 yards) fell to the fifth round of the draft after a serious leg injury cut his final college season short. He was mostly a spectator over the spring while working his way back from surgery, but since then he's been validating rookie safety Nick Emmanwori's summer proclamation that he'd be the "steal of the draft."
After beating out the since-cut Marquez Valdes-Scantling for the WR3 job, Horton scored on his first NFL catch last Sunday in the Seahawks' win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Then he made it three touchdowns in two weeks when he hauled in a perfectly-placed fade ball from Sam Darnold in the second quarter, putting Seattle up 28-3.
"Even having a good game in Pittsburgh, catching that first touchdown, he was still eager and hungry this whole last week, wanting more and asking a ton of great questions like I've talked about a ton with Tory," Darnold said. "He's just continuing to grow and I know that he's going to continue to get better -- and want to get better."
Darnold (14 of 18, 218 yards, two touchdowns) played efficiently and mistake-free over three quarters before giving way to Drew Lock at the start of the fourth. According to ESPN Research, he went 7 of 8 (88%) for 158 yards and the two scores on passes at least 10 yards downfield, which was the highest completion rate of his career on such throws.
Darnold's other touchdown was to Jaxon Smith-Njigba on the opening possession, marking the second straight game in which the Seahawks have finished their first drive in the end zone. Smith-Njigba (five catches, 96 yards) now has 323 receiving yards on the season, the best three-game start in team history.
"Came back from the dead," Macdonald said of Smith-Njigba, who was added to the team's injury report as questionable on Saturday after experiencing flu-like symptoms. "It was pretty cool. Not quite the Jordan flu game, but it was pretty solid."
Macdonald and general manager John Schneider have started referring to theirs as a 70-man roster as opposed to the standard 53. That counts the practice squad, which they instead call the "ready squad." The point has been to underscore the importance of role players stepping up, which has been the case in the Seahawks' two wins.
They beat Pittsburgh last week despite missing Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon (knee) and Emmanwori (ankle), a key sub-package player they drafted in the second round. Those two remained out Sunday while Pro Bowl safety Julian Love (hamstring) joined them on the sideline.
Ty Okada (nine tackles, half sack) started for Love, while Kendrick (interception, three passes defensed) and Bell (one tackle for loss) again stepped in for Witherspoon and Emmanwori as Seattle's slot corner and big nickel, respectively.
Kendrick, claimed by Seattle after the Los Angeles Rams waived him on cut-down day, now has two interceptions in as many weeks. He's dropped two more would-be picks, with another going through his hands Sunday.
"He's got to go to the Leslie Frazier school of ball drills," Macdonald joked. "There's a lot of cool game plan things, little nuances to the game plan that he picks up and executes that doesn't necessarily show on the scoreboard, and to me, that's what fires me up the most because those are little edges that we chase throughout the week ..."
Few running backs have given the Seahawks as much trouble over the years as Alvin Kamara, but those were past Seattle defenses, and this one excels at stopping the run. Kamara finished with 56 yards on 19 touches, managing just 2.3 yards per carry.
"We kinda heard the noise earlier in the week," linebacker Ernest Jones IV said, referring to comments by an unnamed Saints coach who apparently expressed confidence that they could beat Seattle on the ground. "So we took that personal. Listen, it's going to be tough to run the ball against us just because of the mindset and the physicality that we play [with] ... We're going to make it hard on you to run the ball on us, and if you do, good luck to you."
The Seahawks' defense was on the field for 46 plays in the first half, largely because of how quickly and how often Seattle was scoring. That gave Macdonald another reason to pull most of his starters -- which he did on both sides of the ball -- after three quarters.
"That was critical," he said of the extra rest heading into their Thursday night road game against the Cardinals, who reportedly lost starting running back James Conner to a season-ending ankle injury Sunday.
Macdonald keeping his foot on the gas as long as he did meant less garbage time in front of a home crowd that hasn't seen enough good football of late. Entering Sunday, the Seahawks had lost seven of their last 10 games at Lumen Field, an odd reality to square with the fact that they've won a franchise-record seven straight on the road.
"It's important for us to play this way at home, and it was great to do that for them," Macdonald said. "We've got to do it more often."
In the meantime, they'll have to do it in Arizona.