The Seattle Seahawks prevailed 38 to 31 in Sunday nights shoot out with the Kansas CIty Chiefs. The quarterback duel between Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes was as good as advertised as both quarterbacks threw three touchdowns.
Mahomes was 23-of-40 for 273 yards with a quarterback rating of 103.4 while Wilson was 18-of-29 for 271 and a quarterback rating 0f 127.2. Here is what the players had to say about the Seahawks postseason-clinching win.
SEAHAWKS RUSSELL WILSON
(On what this playoff berth means with so many new players this year…)
“We’ve been to the playoffs six times out of the seven and this year was special. This year was special just because I think we really came together. I was talking to some of the guys last night and saying that one of my favorite parts about this season has been watching guys celebrate with one another. When Bobby [Wagner] scored his touchdown on the 98 yarder. Guys on offense, when you score touchdowns in the endzone, everybody is together and on special teams. In practice, the little things, really enjoying every day.
You don’t take that for granted. I think for us, it’s been a really special year. It’s been amazing just to see us come together as a collective effort. Everybody was counting us out early on and we had no fear. I think that there’s a lot more that we want to do. We’re not stopping here, we have a big game next week even. We look at it that way. And then fortunately we have the playoffs. I think it’s a testament to the coaches. Coach Carroll first of all believing in his culture and how he wants to do things and everything else. I think also too as well is our new coaches that have come in.
Coach [Ken] Norton coming back and him leading the defense with Bobby [Wagner] and those guys, it’s been amazing [with] his energy. Coach [Brian] Schottenheimer has been unbelievable for us. Obviously, I love Coach [Darrell] Bevell, we’ve done a lot of great things together. But Coach Schottenheimer has done a great job of leading and coaching and all the details, it’s been a lot of fun. He’s been amazing for us. He’s been rock solid as a leader and great to work with every day on a daily basis.
Mike Solari influence
“I think Coach Mike Solari has been amazing for us too as well in terms of what he’s done with the offensive line and really coaching those guys on the fine details of where we need to go and what we need to do. You think about the offensive line tonight and how they had to step up. D.J. [Fluker] is down, [Germain] Ifedi is down, George Fant has to step up at right tackle, [Ethan] Pocic has to play. And then guys go down during the game. D.J. Fluker shows his character and his will to win to step in the game even though he’s not supposed to play that game. He comes in and says I’m going to play. Those guys have done an amazing job. And just to think about that, it’s pretty cool to see. Tonight was a team effort.
Player Makers
Everybody across the board, guys were making plays left and right. Obviously, Doug Baldwin was special tonight as always, Tyler Lockett was special in crunch time as well. But that doesn’t just happen. It happens by belief. It happens by having great courage. It happens by love, it happens by how you approach the game, how you approach the details. I think we’ve been able to do that all this year. I told you guys at the beginning of the year that I thought this team was like [the] 2012 [team].
When I first got here, in terms of the energy and youth, we were one of the youngest teams in the NFL at that point and I think we’re probably one of the youngest again. Nothing is going to stop us. We have great leaders and guys that know what we’re doing and how to do it. And we have the best fans in the world. The game tonight, it felt like an NFC Championship game with the energy. That’s a tribute to the fans and what they’ve done.”
(On Ed Dickson’s 15 yard third down completion…)
“There were a few plays tonight. One, Ed Dickson’s play on third and long, him running over guys getting first downs. I think one of the other big, big plays in the game that maybe not many people talk about was David Moore’s first down on third down. Him catching that ball, fighting for it and getting the first down, that was a huge play and allowed us to continue the drive and continue making huge plays. And then Doug [Baldwin] and Tyler [Lockett]. Tyler’s deep ball down the field, he just held off the guy, kept running and kept running and looked up and made a great catch.
That was huge for us. And Doug fighting back, he got kind of dinged up on that one play and got back up and got back in and made some huge plays as well. And then Chris Carson has been unbelievable all year. He’s a 1,000 yard rusher now, that’s a huge tribute to the offensive line and what they’ve done. And like I said, it was a team effort. I thought our defense played amazing tonight too. Patrick [Mahomes] has been great all year, he’s spectacular to watch and to see. They have a lot of great players and I thought our defense really held strong and made a lot of key plays.”
DUANE BROWN
(On the win over the Chiefs)
“That was a very, very focused offense that they played against and they did a great job against them, in my opinion. We’re built to make a run. We have all the confidence in the world. We have all the faith in the world in each other. That’s what it’s all about. Now, we just take it one week at a time.”
(On cutting down on penalties after setting a franchise record in the loss against the 49ers)
“Absolutely. The last few weeks, we’ve had unfortunate penalties. We had 14 last week, or something like that. Ten (penalties) a couple of weeks before that. You can’t win like that. No matter how many yards you’re putting up, it’s hard to win like that. The coaches definitely made that a point of emphasis. Guys took heed to it and we had a lot of guys who were banged up. Guys had to step in and play that hadn’t played much all year and it worked out well. They took the coaching points against a very, very good defense with a lot of talented players on their front. We found a way to eliminate those penalties and it definitely showed.”
(On throwing it in the 4-minute offense late in the game)
“I mean, the coaching staff told us before we took the field that we weren’t going to be conservative. Whatever we had to do, we had to do it. I think they did a pretty good job of containing our run. Of course, you know if you get the ball back, you got a run-it-down quarterback that’s playing lights out and you don’t want to put our defense in that position. We wanted to go end it and get seven points on the board and we got big time players making big time plays in that moment. It was a great feeling and you’d love to run the ball out right there but the coaching staff had a plan and we had to go execute it.”
