Vikings defense limited the Seahawks’ playmakers. It wasn’t enough.

SEATTLE – Vikings linebacker Eric Wilson didn’t play with Sam Darnold in Minnesota last season, but he was the first to land a sack on him Sunday afternoon.

His 13-yard takedown of Darnold brought the Seahawks’ opening possession to a halt on third-and-11 after nine plays and set the pace for the Vikings’ blitz-frenzy against their former quarterback.

The Vikings sacked Darnold four times. They earned their first turnover since Week 9. They largely limited NFL-leading receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

Still, it wasn’t enough to counterbalance the Vikings’ offensive play in a 26-0 loss.

Various members of the Vikings defense maintain there’s not added pressure because of the offense’s lack of production — only six points in the past two games and no touchdowns since the second quarter against the Bears on Nov. 16.

Safety and captain Josh Metellus, positioned to speak right inside the visitors’ locker room at Lumen Field as reporters entered postgame, denied any difficulty in keeping frustrations in check amid the offense’s struggles.

“You control what you can control,” Metellus said. “You got the kind of guys that we have. You have [Brian Flores] leading the way. It’s so easy to just play for the guys right next to you. At the end of the day, we know our offense at any point can go score. We keep striving. We keep going. We know we give our offense a chance, eventually something’s gonna break.”

Trailing 3-0 around the 5-minute mark of the first half, second-year outside linebacker Dallas Turner rushed past Seahawks tight end Nick Kallerup with barely a touch as he helped a double-teamed Javon Hargrave on first-and-10.

He slapped the ball out of a distracted Darnold’s hand and brought the quarterback to the ground for a 7-yard loss, one of two sacks Turner had on his former teammate.

“Just listening to the coaches, just doing what we were supposed to do all week,” Turner said. “[Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell] emphasized there was gonna be a lot of turnover opportunities with Sam at quarterback with rushing the passer, him just having the ball. Just took advantage of it.”

Defensive lineman Jalen Redmond fell on the fumbled ball immediately for the first takeaway by the Vikings defense since safety Harrison Smith recovered a forced fumble against the Lions on Nov. 2.

It gave rookie quarterback Max Brosmer and company the ball at the Seattle 13-yard line.

“I thought our defense did a good job of holding us in the game for the majority of the game there,” Brosmer said in his opening statement postgame. “We didn’t capitalize where we should have. It’s tough to go and try and win games [when] we can’t keep the ball in our hands.”

Darnold and the Seahawks had the ball 8 minutes, 42 seconds longer than the Vikings offense, but only finished two drives in the red zone and one in the end zone.

At least one reason for that was the Vikings defense taking away Seattle’s biggest playmaker in Smith-Njigba, who finished with two catches on four targets for 23 yards.

Smith-Njigba’s previous low this season for receiving yards was 79 vs. Arizona in Week 4. He has surpassed 100 receiving yards on eight occasions, including the previous two games.

Both of Smith-Njigba’s receptions Sunday came in the third quarter: His first, a 6-yard third-down conversion around the quarter’s 5-minute mark and his second a 17-yard grab to close the quarter out.

Darnold finished 14-of-26 for 128 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions.

Metellus said shutting down Smith-Njigba was a “big emphasis” for the Vikings.

“Premium players don’t get the ball. That’s what we pride ourselves on,” Metellus said. “He’s the guy, so whatever we could do to limit his amount of impact on the game, that was the goal, and I think we did a pretty good job doing that.”

They did, but with Justin Jefferson shut down for the Vikings, Smith-Njigba’s low production just meant a few more field goals than touchdowns.

Until the Vikings offense finds a way to consistently produce, a “pretty good job” by its defense only goes so far.