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How'd Your Team Do, Twitter Edition: How did the Seahawks manage to lose that game?
Abbie Parr
Trailing 26-14 with 5:51 remaining, the Seattle Seahawks had absolutely no business beating the San Francisco 49ers and earning the 3 seed. Five minutes and a bunch of seconds later, they were on the Niners' one-yard line needing a touchdown to pull off an improbable victory. In other words, it was a very typical Seahawks football game. No team in all of pro sports plays in more heart-attack-inducing games than Seattle:
Not all one-score games are created equal, so you might think this is a pretty pointless experiment. But when you take a look at all of Seattle's games, it's crazy to think about how different this season could have gone. Week 1 they squeaked past the Bengals by a point, then edged out Pittsburgh by two on the road the following week. They beat the Rams by a point, the Browns by four and the 49ers by three. These weren't one-score games where the final score didn't tell the full story of the games, these were all legitimate "could have gone either way" affairs.
Sunday night's game against division-rival San Francisco was no different, and it ended in a second straight loss for the Seahawks, who are quite literally limping into Philadelphia to take on the NFC East champion Eagles next weekend. They had a prime chance to earn a home playoff game on Sunday, when, with just 23 seconds to go, Russell Wilson found rookie wideout John Ursua at the one-yard line, setting up 1st and goal. Pete Carroll immediately sent Marshawn Lynch onto the field, because Ol' sneaky Pete wasn't going to make his most famous mistake twice. Give it to Beast Mode and Seattle would be welcoming in the Minnesota Vikings in the Wild Card round.
Instead, chaos ensued. Seattle was hit with a delay of game penalty AFTER spiking the ball to stop the clock, backing up the offense to the five-yard line. From there Wilson threw three straight passes, including one that should have resulted in pass interference:
Amazingly, in a league that reviews even the most mundane of plays in the first quarter, there was no review of this play, the biggest of the entire game. Well, the second-biggest actually:
How close was Hollister?
Delay of game, no PI call and a play that came up literally an inch short. You couldn't have scripted a much more 2019 Seattle Seahawks finish to a football game.