Leaping Bobby Wagner, swatting Bradley McDougald lead Seahawks to brink of playoffs
Remember the defense that was giving up all kinds of yards and points?
Bobby Wagner and Bradley McDougald just pushed it and the Seahawks to the brink of the playoffs.
McDougald continued his fantastic season replacing retired strong safety Kam Chancellor by knocking down a fourth-down pass in the end zone in the fourth quarter. Wagner continued his brilliant, All-Pro season by leaping over Minnesota’s line to block a field goal with 5:46 left.
Chris Carson’s subsequent, 2-yard touchdown run, two Sebastian Janikowski field goals and a 29-yard fumble return for another TD by Justin Coleman had the Seahawks rolling to their fourth consecutive victory, 21-7 over the Vikings Monday night at shaking CenturyLink Field.
“At the end of the day,” swarming defensive end Frank Clark said, “we dominated.”
Again.
“Our defense was lights-out tonight,” quarterback Russell Wilson said after one of the worst games of his career ultimately didn’t matter.
“If you want to be a championship team, you have to find ways to win when it doesn’t look pretty.
“What we really care about, what we love, is winning.”
The Seahawks (8-5) are now one NFC win from clinching their sixth playoff appearance in seven seasons. Seattle can earn a wild-card berth on Sunday at Richard Sherman’s San Francisco 49ers (3-10).
The only way the Seahawks will not make the playoffs is if they lose at the Niners and on Dec. 30 at home against the Arizona Cardinals, who are also a conference-worst 3-10. And even then Seattle has a strong likelihood of making the postseason.
“I’m happy that we’re playing good ball. We know how we want to do it,” coach Pete Carroll said. “We’re in the mentality that we’ve been in other years, when we’ve really finished well and we’ve done some damage. It’s available to us. It’s there now. I’m really excited about that.
“But talk to me after we’ve accomplished something. We haven’t done nothing yet. It’s almost happening.”
Seattle’s defense that allowed backup, 2017 practice-squad quarterback Nick Mullens 414 yards passing last week while beating the Niners, allowed $84-million-guaranteed man Kirk Cousins next to zilch.
Cousins was 20 for 33 for 208 yards. But he had only 138 yards until the final drive to a touchdown in garbage time, after Seattle led 21-0 because he lost a fumble when rookie Jacob Martin sacked him from behind after Carson’s touchdown run.
Coleman picked up the ball and returned it 29 yards for the touchdown.
And the stadium was shaking again.
How’d Seattle do it?
Defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. sometimes used seven defensive backs for the first time this season: Coleman, plus second-year strong safety Delano Hill and reserve cornerback Akeem King. Often he dropped eight defenders into coverage and rushed only three. Sometimes he blitzed King. He left his lone linebacker on the field in those situations, Wagner, to man the underneath and outside-short zones almost by himself.
It worked. Magnificently.
Cousins looked confused, often holding the ball longer than he had all season. And the Seahawks’ defense was so good knocking down passes—Tre Flowers, Shaquill Griffin also got in on the action—and so fine making immediate tackles after catches in front of them to fix a recent issue—Flowers, Griffin.
That’s how Seattle won while Wilson had his fewest yards passing and worst passer rating of his career.
Wilson completed 10 of 20 passes for 72 yards, no touchdowns and a horrid interception at the end of the first half. That added up to a rating of 37.9. His previous worst: 38.7, in his rookie year at San Francisco.
Yet because of his defense he passed Baltimore’s Joe Flacco for most regular-season wins by an NFL quarterback in his first seven seasons. Monday’s was Wilson’s 74th.
Coach Pete Carroll got his 87th win in the regular season leading the Seahawks. That’s a new team record.
Carroll deflected credit for that.
“I’m proud to say that John Schneider is the all-time winningest general manager,” He said, with a wry grin, of his leadership partner who arrived just after he did to run the franchise in January 2010.
It took nearly the entire night before Minnesota got its first big play: wide receiver Stefon Diggs out-jumping Seattle rookie cornerback Flowers for a brilliant catch of Cousins’ rainbow pass and a 48-yard gain. That had the Vikings at the Seahawks 17 down 6-0 with 11:54 left.
Then Clark stopped Dalvin Cook at the 1 on a third-down run.
“We’re playing with the mindset that no one’s going to stop us,” Clark said.
On fourth down, McDougald stepped in front of Minnesota tight end Kyle Rudolph in the back of the end zone and batted down Cousins’ throw.
About every Seahawks player back to Jim Zorn and Matt Hasselbeck, who were in the stadium, mobbed McDougald on the Seattle bench after his gem.
But the Seattle offense did nothing to help the defense. A 2-yard run by Carson and consecutive incomplete passes by Wilson, then one of the only short punts of Michael Dickson’s Pro Bowl-caliber rookie season gave the Vikings the ball back at the Seattle 42.
On third down, Seahawks cornerback Griffin brilliantly timed an arm and hand around Minnesota receiver Adam Thielen to break up a pass on third down. This time, Vikings coach Mike Zimmer chose to kick a field goal.
Wagner leaped over the guard, cleared him landing onto both feet, then blocked Dan Bailey’s field goal. Seattle stayed ahead 6-0.
“He’s got to be defensive player of the year,” Wilson said.
Carroll said Wagner and the Seahawks practiced his leaping block play all week, to take advantage of the middle linebacker’s supreme athleticism. Wagner said he did in four times in the days before Monday’s game. Each time was cleaner than it was in the game; Wagner appeared to push some or at least gain leverage off teammates before the leap, which if so would be a penalty. But he didn’t jump over the snapper, because that’s illegal. He went over the guard.
“We saw it on film...their line was pretty low,” Wagner said of his midweek study of the Vikings’ field-goal unit. “And coaches like my vert.
“We know the rule change where you can’t run (from off the line) to block a field goal. But if you start on the line you can go (leap over the lineman) and block the field goal. If they were ever on the right hash, we were going to call it.
“If you got hops, you can make it over anybody.”
After Wagner’s wonderful play, Wilson scrambled past six Vikings 40 yards. That set up Carson’s touchdown run, and the Seahawks’ near-playoff-clinching party was raging.
The Seahawks were fortunate to up their lead to 6-0 with 13:22 left in the game.
On third down, Tyler Lockett ran a long fly route down the right sideline against Minnesota cornerback Xavier Rhodes. Rhodes reached out to Lockett’s arm as Wilson’s pass arrived, and Lockett went into a baseball slide into the turf to accentuate the contact.
The covering official kept his penalty flag tucked, but the back judge about 20 yards away threw his. The 31-yard penalty for pass interference on the Vikings set up Seattle in the red zone. But for the second time in three plays, the Seahawks left Minnesota linebacker Eric Kendricks unblocked. He sacked Wilson, forcing Seattle into a third-and-17.
Wilson threw incomplete in the end zone to David Moore out of bounds, and the Seahawks settled for Janikowski’s 35-yard field goal and the 6-0 lead.
The Vikings didn’t cross midfield with the ball until 4:15 left in the third, after a defensive-holding penalty on Flowers on the opposite side of the field from where Coleman broke up a pass on third down extended Minnesota’s drive.
That was the Seahawks’ lead after a disjointed, mistake-filled first half.
It should have been at least 9-0.
On third down from the Minnesota 35 in the second quarter, Jordan Simmons, making his second NFL start at right guard because D.J. Fluker was out with a strained hamstring, was pushing with Vikings defensive linemen. While Simmons didn’t do much, he got the personal foul.
Instead of trying to 53-yard field goal by Janikowski into the closed, south end of the stadium the Seahawks’ line of scrimmage for fourth down was the 50-yard line. So they punted.
The half was ended perfectly for Seattle, driving to the Minnesota 1-yard line with running such as Mike Davis’ 13 yards off left end and 17 yards reversing his field and getting a crunching block by small wide receiver Lockett, of all people. The Seahawks used their final time out with 16 seconds left in the half, with the ball at the 1-yard line.
On first-and-goal from 1 with no time outs, Wilson dropped to throw. No one was open, so the quarterback dropped deeper. He was about to get sacked back near the 15-yard line, which would have ended the half. So Wilson chucked the ball toward the left sideline. He didn’t throw it away nearly enough. The Vikings’ Kendricks intercepted the gift at the 14, and the half ended with Seattle still ahead only 3-0.
It was the worst decision and throw by Wilson in many seasons, on a night that was his worst in many seasons.
“I messed up that bad play,” he said.
Yet the Seahawks continued their approach that’s won 8 of the last 11 games after their 0-2 start—run early, run often, run most—with 42 more rushes for 214 yards against a Vikings defense that was allowed 99 yards rushing per game coming in.
That plus a young, fast, aggressive and timely defense that doesn’t know or care it isn’t supposed to be making this many big plays yet are why Seattle is one NFC win away, either over the 49ers or equally woeful Cardinals (3-10) from their return to the playoffs.
In a supposed “rebuilding” year.
“We are excited where we are,” Wilson said. “We still have more to do.
“We really believe that we can go wherever we want to go.”
This story was originally published December 10, 2018 at 8:21 PM.
