The silence, the mood in Seahawks’ locker room after latest loss fit this team’s state

Riq Woolen peeled off his socks. He kept his head down at his locker.

His neighbor Devon Witherspoon softy said a few things to his teammate. Woolen kept his head down.

When he got up after a couple minutes, Woolen said, politely, to the reporter waiting to speak to him in a silent Seahawks locker room that he wasn’t going to be speaking publicly. Not after this one Sunday.

Across the quickly emptying room, Laken Tomlinson talked. At times, the big, 323-pound left guard was speaking so softly and slowly, he was nearly whispering. He was gathering his thoughts, if not emotions.

“It’s tough, man,” Tomlinson said, rubbing his head. “We’ve got to finish off that, man. We fought the whole game, overcoming adversities.”

He shook his head.

“Man,” he said, “we just didn’t do a good job in the end.”

Jaxon Smith-Njigba had the day of his NFL life.

A career day. His Rose-Bowl-for-Ohio-State-kind of day.

Yet he didn’t want to talk about his 180 yards on seven catches in 13 targets from Geno Smith, including the tying touchdown with 51 seconds left to force this pivotal NFC West game with the Los Angeles Rams to overtime.

Smith-Njigba did a Lumen Leap, jumping into the first row of the south stands behind the end zone to celebrate his tying touchdown with fans who had been booing the Seahawks earlier.

Smith-Njigba also had one of Smith’s three interceptions go off his hands on an accurate pass, in the first half.

“I hate losing. Whatever. I’d rather win. One-hundred percent,” Smith-Njigba, Seattle’s first-round draft choice last year, said. “My confidence level, it’s always been the same. I’ve known that I could break out and have an amazing game whenever.

“But it’s the wins that counts.”

The Seahawks don’t have many of those lately.

Safety Julian Love described the latest locker-room scene: “Not the best mood.”

No wonder.

They have ruined their 3-0 start and two-game lead in the division from September. Their 26-20 loss to the Rams in overtime on Matthew Stafford’s 39-yard touchdown pass over Woolen was Seattle’s fourth consecutive defeat at Lumen Field.

The Seahawks (4-5) have lost five of their last six games overall.

The first season of rookie head coach Mike Macdonald is at a crossroads.

And their direction heading into their bye this week then next game at San Francisco is the road wrong. They haven’t beaten the 49ers in three seasons, six consecutive losses to their biggest hurdle in the West.

Macdonald, the NFL’s youngest head man at age 37, says his team has the right players.

Why does he know that?

“Just felt it today, just the fight from our football team,” Macdonald said. “Just I felt like coming off the last week on how we felt going back to work, the practices we stacked, all the meetings and the conversations that we’ve had.

“Everybody is bought in and they’re committed to becoming a good football team. I really believe that.”

They are not that now.

More Seahawks errors

They out-gained the Rams 424-366. They got Kenneth Walker going with 83 yards, force-feeding him at times on 25 rushes. Offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb realized he had to slow down Los Angeles’ pass rush against Seattle’s over-matched offensive line..

Ultimately, it didn’t work.

The Rams sacked Smith seven times. They stopped Walker on third and 1 and fourth and 1 from the L.A. 16 in overtime. That led to Stafford’s winning drive and touchdown pass.

The Seahawks committed 12 more penalties, on top of the 11 they had the previous week in their 21-point home loss to the Buffalo Bills.

As Macdonald said, repeatedly, after this latest defeat: “It’s not winning football.”

“We got to lock in. The penalties have been nuts,” safety Julian Love (six tackles) said. “I don’t know what’s been going on with those. Flags were flying all today, again. Whether they are good calls or not, we have to address that and improve on it.

“I can’t speak for the offense, but starting backwards is never, never good. On defense, getting off the field on third down, and then you see flags flying, it’s just never good. Obviously, improved tackling, improve our turnover ratio.”

The Seahawks again lost the turnover battle, committing three to the Rams’ one.

For the season Seattle is minus-6 in turnover margin. The team was tied for 25th in the 32-team NFL in that decisive factor entering Sunday--and it got worse.

“We just have to collectively look who we have and try to play to the best of our abilities based on personnel,” Love said.

“I think we’re obviously going to look inward in this bye week and just attack this thing.”

Where Seahawks go from here

There are eight games left. They are, somehow, just one game out of the division lead in an NFC West no one has yet taken control of.

There’s a ton for these sinking Seahawks to fix.

“I look directly at myself. I look in the mirror and I say ‘What do I have to do?’” Smith, with 11 touchdown passes and 10 interceptions through nine games, said.

“I know what I have to do. So I’ve got to get to correcting it.

“The great thing about life is you get another day, you get another chance. We’ve got eight games. That’s all I’m focused on is the next eight games. I’m taking it one by one.

“I’m going to do my thing. I’m going to get better.”