The Seattle Seahawk (9-7) string of consecutive playoff appearances will end at five after the teams disappointing 26 to 24 loss to the Arizona Cardinals (8-8) Sunday afternoon at CenturyLink Field. The chance of the Seahawks making the playoffs six years in a row was always a long shot. The Seahawks needed to beat the Cardinals and the Atlanta Falcons needed to lose their home against the Carolina Panthers.
Neither of those things happened on Sunday, the Atlanta Falcons beat the Carolina Panthers 22 to 10 and the Seahawks lost to the Cardinals when Blair Walsh’s 48-yard field goal attempt with 37 seconds left was wide right. The loss to the Cardinals was typical of the way the Seahawks game played out this season.
A slow offensive first half that was coupled with a bend but don’t break effort by the defense followed by a second half in which the defense continues its herculean effort and the offense scores just enough points for a nail-biting victory. The Seahawks had one victory this year where they won by more than 21 points. That was a week four 46 to 18 victory over the Indianapolis Colts.
In the last eight games of the season, the Seahawks won four games by outscoring their opponents with a combined score of 40 points, and in that same period, the Seahawks lost four games by 46 points.
On Sunday the Cardinals scored on three of their four drives to start the game and when into the halftime break with a 20-7 lead. The Seahawks lone touchdown in the first half was courtesy of a 99-yard kickoff return by Tyler Lockett in the first quarter.
The Seahawks offense followed the season-long script and joined the game in the second half when Russell Wilson hit Doug Baldwin with an 18 yard TD pass to cut the Cardinals lead to 20 to 14. The teams traded field goals and the Seahawks took their first lead of the game with 10:31 left in the game when Wilson and Baldwin connected on another touch day play this time from 29 yards out to give the Seahawks the 24 to 23 lead.
Arizona retook the lead on a 42 yard Dawson field that proved to be the game-winner putting an end to Seattle’s challenging season according to Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll.
” I think the first thing I want to say is that this has been a really challenging seson for us. W saw a lot of things happened during this year that we needed to overcome and endure and get through. I think this game today was almost a microcosm of this season. The slow starts, the getting in our own way, making it hard on us at time when it wasnt’ about the opponent”
GAME STATS COURTESY OF NFL.COM
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