Seahawks on the road as NFL playoffs set
RENTON, Washington — As he went back through the final plays and how it all transpired, it still seemed shocking to Pete Carroll that the Seattle Seahawks didn’t find the end zone.
So many chances. So many missed opportunities to ensure the Seahawks would be celebrating an NFC West championship and home playoff game rather than the reality of being a wild-card team headed on the road to open the post-season.
“It’s amazing it didn’t happen,” Carroll said on Monday after Seattle’s 26-21 loss to San Francisco. “We’ve all been around, you’ve watched us long enough, you’ve watched [Russell Wilson] pull it out and our receivers and all of that. It’s just an unusual occurrence that it didn’t almost to me.”
While Carroll was trying to spin Seattle forward into a playoff matchup with Philadelphia on Sunday, there should be some level of regret for the Seahawks for what they missed out on against the 49ers. They were outplayed for much of the night by San Francisco, only to have the ball in Wilson’s hands in the dying moments of the fourth quarter with a chance to win the division with a touchdown.
Seattle ran eight plays from the San Francisco 12-yard line or closer in the final minute. For as masterful as he was in the fourth quarter, Wilson was just two of eight passing on those eight snaps, with one being a spike to stop the clock. Both completions saw the receivers — John Ursua on the first and Jacob Hollister on the second — stopped inches from the goal line.
And that doesn’t include the costly delay-of-game penalty that ruined what could have been a storybook finish in Marshawn Lynch’s return.
Lynch’s return provided Seattle a needed spark after its Week 16 loss to Arizona. He was serviceable with 12 carries for 34 yards and sent the crowd into a frenzy when he scored on a one-yard run in the fourth quarter.
But it ultimately ended up coming in a loss and muted the momentum that accompanied his return.
“It felt good, but at the end of the day, you know, I play to win,” Lynch said.
Seattle trailed 26-14 with 5:55 left and was left kicking itself for losing. Wilson is a big reason for that. Taking away the chaos of the final eight snaps, Wilson was seven of 11 for 88 yards on the final two drives.
Seattle’s pass rush continues to have zero impact. Jimmy Garoppolo was sacked twice on San Francisco’s opening drive, once on a cornerback blitz by Tre Flowers. It was the only two times all night Garoppolo was hit. Jadeveon Clowney has clearly been slowed by the core muscle injury he’s playing through, and none of Seattle’s other pass rushers has been able to make up for his absence.