Commanders key numbers: Defense falters late at the Seahawks in Week 10

What were the key numbers from the Washington Commanders' last-second loss to the Seattle Seahawks in Week 10?

When your quarterback throws for over 300 yards with three touchdowns and your running game averages just shy of five yards per carry, you'd expect a win, right?

When the opposing team receives a penalty on 4th-and-1 in the red zone - not once but twice - having to settle for field goals, you'd think fate was on your side, right?

How about when the opposing quarterback throws it into the ground instead of taking a sack late in the first half? What could have been another field goal ends up being a 10-second run-off and another missed opportunity.

Even all those mental mistakes and the Seattle Seahawks shooting themselves in the foot over and over again weren't enough for the Washington Commanders to pick up the win.

This defense is broken. No, Montez Sweat and Chase Young aren't the pieces that would have kept it together. Geno Smith had far too much time in the pocket and eventually, he was able to take advantage.

Benjamin St-Juste, who is supposed to be one of our young building blocks in the secondary, had his hands all over this loss. Especially on the final two defensive drives.

After the Seahawks decided to go for it on 4th-and-5 instead of kicking a field goal - already showing their lack of respect for this defense - St-Juste gifted them with a free first down on a pass interference call. Three plays later, he had an unnecessary roughness penalty on a tackle, before getting beaten by Tyler Lockett on a five-yard touchdown reception.

After Sam Howell led a 10-play, 71-yard drive to tie the game with under a minute to go, the defense once again faltered. And there was D.K. Metcalf, once again, mocking St-Juste with his trademark celebration.

This loss doesn't fall on just St-Juste's shoulders, but the defense's propensity to give up big play after big play every week is an issue that neither Ron Rivera nor Jack Del Rio has a solution for. And therein lies the problem.

Let's get into the key numbers from the Commanders' frustrating loss to the Seahawks.

The Good: Commanders QB Sam Howell continues to progress

4:1: Sam Howell has a 4:1 touchdown to interception ratio over the last three games. This coincides with when the Washington Commanders made a change to the offensive line rotation.

Howell seems to get more comfortable in Eric Bieniemy's offense every week. He does occasionally try to do too much, as he did on his scrambling first down where he fumbled, but the quarterback has cut down on mistakes.

He finished the game with 312 passing yards, three touchdowns, and a 109.3 passer rating, including his dime to Dyami Brown that tied the game.

6.44: After only having five rushing attempts in the entire first half, the Commanders did try to incorporate the running game a bit more later. In the second half, the team averaged a strong 6.44 yards per carry, including 15-yard gains from both Howell (fumbled) and Brian Robinson Jr.

Eric Bieniemy needs to make a stronger commitment to the running game earlier on so the team doesn't get as one-dimensional.

161: Robinson and Antonio Gibson combined for 161 receiving yards and two touchdowns against the Seattle Seahawks. The former Alabama star's 119 receiving yards are the most for any Commanders player this season and the sixth most by a Washington running back since 1970.

The combined receiving yardage for Robinson and Gibson is the most in a single game by Washington running backs since at least 2017.

5-5: Although he missed his first extra point of the season, Joey Slye has continued to build on his strong campaign, going 5-for-5 on field goals the last three weeks, including 2-2 against the Seahawks.

He also hit his career-high from 61 yards against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 8. We have to give Tress Way credit where it's due as well. He has been bailing out Camaron Cheeseman for suspect snaps.

18.18: After allowing the Seahawks to convert on two of their first three third-down attempts, the Commanders' defense held Seattle to 2-for-11 (18.18%) over the remainder of the game. Washington had the best third-down defense last year, so any progress in that direction should be noted, even though the overall trajectory of the game was a defensive letdown.

The Bad: It's D, hi, it's D, the problem is D(efense)

16: Are you getting tired of the big plays allowed counter? Same here.

The Washington Commanders' defense once again was harassed, giving up 16 big plays (runs over 10 yards and passes over 15 yards). The defense gave up runs of 13 (2), 12, 11 (2), and 10 yards, and passes of 64, 27, 20 (2), 17, 16 (3), and 15 (2) yards.

This was the second straight week that the defense allowed a 64-yard touchdown to the opposing team's running back. Simply unacceptable.

4: The Seattle Seahawks had only nine drives of 10 or more plays all season. They had four against Washington. Those four drives resulted in 16 of the home team's 29 points and amounted to 14:56 of game time - almost an entire quarter.

1: Since trading both Chase Young and Montez Sweat, the Commanders have 1 total sack across two games. Defensive tackle Jonathan Allen got to quarterback Geno Smith on Sunday.

The New England Patriots and Seahawks both average over two sacks allowed per game, so this number is abysmal. However, Washington did have a potential sack wiped out for the second week in a row due to a penalty.

2:46: That's the amount of game time that Emmanuel Forbes was on the field before getting ejected for his helmet-to-helmet hit on Tyler Lockett. The play warranted a penalty, but even the announcing crew was surprised by the ejection.

Unfortunately, Forbes did not get a chance to build off his performance against the Patriots.

77: The Commanders already led the league in passing play percentage (67.86%) coming into Week 10. They increased on that against the Seahawks.

The team passed on 77 percent of its plays against a team that is No. 21 in run defense and was coming off a game where they allowed 298 rushing yards.

With a young quarterback that is asking for trouble. Although Sam Howell did not throw any interceptions, he did have at least 2-3 close calls that were dropped by the defense.

The team was effective in running the ball over the second half and needs to put a bigger emphasis on that part of the offense moving forward.