What a game.
The Seahawks outlasted the high-flying Kansas City Chiefs 38-31 in a highly entertaining affair on Sunday Night Football.
The result? Seattle earned its passage back to the playoffs — a feat few thought possible at the start of the season, when the Seahawks debuted their new-look team with few of the big names who were part of their Super Bowl teams.
But, if nothing else, Sunday night’s big win over a very good Kansas City team showed that the Seahawks are back.
SEAHAWKS 38, CHIEFS 31
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Here’s what the national media had to say about Seattle’s latest victory.
The Washington Post’s Cindy Boren and Des Bieler observe that Russell Wilson matched the NFL’s hottest quarterback, blow-for-blow.
The Seattle Seahawks punched their ticket to the postseason with a 38-31 win over the Chiefs — go figure, a shootout with Patrick Mahomes involved. While the Kansas City quarterback tossed three touchdown passes, upping his season total to 48, Seattle counterpart Russell Wilson matched that feat and completed some eye-opening late-game passes to hold off the Chiefs. With a Week 17 win over the lowly Cardinals, the Seahawks can lock up the NFC’s No. 5 seed and a date with the Cowboys, who they beat in Week 3, 24-13.
NFL.com’s Jeremy Bergman says Kansas City squandered an opportunity to clinch the AFC West and seize home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
Seattle bounced back from its setback in Santa Clara with a resounding victory over the AFC leaders on Sunday night and punched its ticket back to the postseason for the sixth time in seven seasons. The Seahawks (9-6) clinched a playoff spot on the legs of Chris Carson, who ran for a near-season-high 116 yards and two scores; the arm of Russell Wilson, who launched three touchdown passes and escaped the pocket for 59 yards on the ground; and the tough hands of Doug Baldwin, who stepped up with a season-high 126 receiving yards. From the get-go, the Seahawks played keep-away from Kansas City, rushing for 211 yards on the evening, and never relinquished the lead it took into halftime. Even when Seattle took its slim lead into the fourth quarter, the Seahawks didn’t shy away from attacking with a killer instinct Kansas City’s depleted secondary, which was missing Kendall Fuller, Ron Parker and, at times, Eric Berry. Seattle can secure the fifth seed next week with a win over the D.O.A. Cardinals at the Clink. A matchup with the Cowboys in Arlington on Wild Card Weekend likely awaits.
SI.com’s Ben Baskin says the Seahawks’ win once again exposed the Chiefs’ porous defense.
No teams have ever hoisted the Lombardi with a defense as bad as the Chiefs have had so far this year. Of the 52 Super Bowl winners, 45 of them have had a top-10 defense. For all the talk about the last half-decade or so being The Era of Offense, it is as difficult as ever for a poor defensive team to make a run in the playoffs. The last five Super Bowl winners have had average defensive rank of 3.6. (2017 Eagles ranked fourth, ’16 Patriots first, ’15 Broncos fourth, ’14 Patriots eighth, ’13 Seahawks first.) … Kansas City’s defense was bad Sunday night, and they have been bad all year, in just about every way. Entering the week, they ranked last in passing yards and average yards per rush allowed. They also ranked last in penalties. And last in yards allowed per possession. And last in first downs surrendered. They didn’t rank last in yards allowed, but they did rank second-to-last.
CBSSports.com Ryan Wilson says these Seahawks are scary.
It’s a cliche but it’s true: Nobody wants to face this Seahawks team in January. Last week’s loss in San Francisco was a one-off, and they came into that game riding a four-game winning streak against the Packers, Panthers, 49ers and Vikings. And the gameplan remained virtually unchanged: lean heavily on the run, and let Russell Wilson do the rest. … A year ago, Wilson was the team’s leading rusher with 586 yards. This season he has help; the team used a first-round pick on Rashaad Penny, but it’s been Chris Carson who has done the heavy lifting. He surpassed 1,000 yards on Sunday night, and Wilson is now fourth in rushing behind Carson, Davis and Penny. Sharing that burden, along with a much-improved offensive line, has made Wilson a much better quarterback; he came into Sunday’s game ranked ninth in total value among all quarterbacks, just behind Ben Roethlisberger and Jared Goff. … And the Seahawks’ offense is the league’s most balanced too. They ranked ninth overall, sixth in passing and seventh in rushing. And at CenturyLink Field, we saw more balance; the rushing attack controlled the game early and Wilson took over late.
CBSSports.com’s John Breech says the Seahawks get an A+ for that masterful effort to beat K.C.
The Seahawks had to play a nearly perfect game to beat the Chiefs and that’s exactly what they did. Russell Wilson might have even thrust himself into the MVP conversation with a wildly impressive game where he threw for 271 yards and three touchdowns. Wilson also rushed for 57 yards. The Seahawks were also able to keep the Chiefs offense off the field thanks in large part to a ground attack that totaled 210 yards. Thanks to Chris Carson (116 yards, two touchdowns), Seattle had the ball for 35:02, compared to just 24:58 for the Chiefs. Although the Seahawks defense didn’t stop Patrick Mahomes, they did come up with several big plays and they also forced the only two turnovers in the game. One of those turnovers was a forced fumble by Justin Coleman that kept the Chiefs from putting points on the board just before halftime. With the win, the Seahawks have now clinched a playoff berth and proven that they can play with any team in the NFL.
ESPN.com’s Brady Henderson marvels at the resilience this Seahawks team has shown to fight back from an 0-2 start.
If Pete Carroll wasn’t firmly in the conversation for coach of the year already, he should be after the Seahawks’ 38-31 win over Kansas City. It clinched a wild-card berth for the 9-6 Seahawks, an outcome not many predicted after their drastic offseason roster-reshuffling. Carroll has the Seahawks back in the postseason — with a chance for a 10th win next week against Arizona — despite the departure of some of the greatest players in franchise history. And with the way they played Sunday night against the favored Chiefs, they again looked like a team that could do some damage in January. … It will be the Seahawks’ seventh playoff appearance in Pete Carroll’s nine seasons in Seattle. The franchise had made the playoffs only 10 times in the 34 seasons before Carroll and general manager John Schneider arrived in 2010. … And it capped another comeback from an 0-2 start. Since the NFL expanded its playoff format to 12 participants in 1990, only 28 teams through 2017 reached the postseason after starting 0-2. One of those teams was the 2015 Seahawks. … The victory that put the 2017 Seahawks back in the playoffs was arguably their most impressive of the season.
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