Seahawks surprising pundits as playoff spot likely
It’s the most wonderful time of the year for Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll.
The last quarter of the NFL season, that is.
Still not enough people are buzzing about the great job Carroll has done this season with the left-fordead Seahawks. With a win Monday night against the visiting Minnesota Vikings (6:15 p.m. MT, TSN), the Seahawks would improve to 8-5 and leap closer to clinching an NFC wild-card playoff berth.
Minnesota can do the same thing: improve to 7-51 to take the lead in the conference wild-card chase.
Everyone figured Carroll and general manager John Schneider had begun a long-term rebuild after purging or not re-signing so many core veteran players in the off-season from Seattle’s powerhouse teams of 2012-15. Players such as defensive end Michael Bennett, tight ends Jimmy Graham and Luke Willson and secondary mainstays including cornerbacks Richard Sherman, Jeremy Lane and DeShawn Shead.
Instead, the Seahawks signed a wave of young, talented players with something to prove — much as Carroll and Schneider did from 2011-13 — and are one of the NFL’s surprise successes of 2018.
“We have a chance to finish and do something with this season,” Carroll said Thursday. “There’s a chance. Hope is alive. Hope is strong in the building and in the locker-room and we’re in control of it. If we play really good football this week, then we set up next week.”
Next week, the Seahawks play at the San Francisco 49ers, the division arch rival they crushed last week. Then, two days before Christmas, they play host to one of the NFL’s top teams, the Kansas City Chiefs. On Dec. 30, the final day of the NFL regular season, Seattle plays host to the struggling Arizona Cardinals.
Thus, a 10-6 final record is not only within reach, but perhaps likely.
“Each one of these weeks, they’re playoff weeks and they’re championship games,” Carroll said. “I know you hear me say that a lot, but this is what we’ve been preparing for, to play at this time and play really well and be familiar and comfortable with the challenge of that. (There’s) nothing better than finishing in sports.
“You finish well and you do right at the end of the games and the end of season and this is it. It’s fourthquarter time.”