After nearly getting first place doing nothing, here’s where Seahawks stand coming off bye
For a little while Sunday, it appeared the Seahawks would take first place. Without doing anything.
Seattle’s idle players and coaches were scattered across the country and perhaps beyond for their bye weekend. Right guard D.J. Fluker, for instance, was lovin’ bye life in Hawaii.
Russell Wilson was “putting in work” with his “teammate.”
Meanwhile, in Santa Clara, California, the NFC West-leading San Francisco 49ers were falling behind 16-0 at home to last-place Arizona. It looked like a full hangover from San Francisco’s loss to the Seahawks six days earlier, which was the Niners’ first loss this season.
Turned out, it was only a temporary San Francisco lull.
The Niners scored 17 consecutive points to take the lead. Then after a back-and-forth second half that included two red-zone interceptions by Jimmy Garoppolo when the Cardinals took away the Niners’ running game, San Francisco used Garoppolo’s career day passing to rally to a 36-26 victory.
So instead of being the West leader and third seed in the NFC playoff standings with six games remaining, the Seahawks (8-2) returned to practice Monday for Sunday’s game at Philadelphia still one game behind San Francisco (9-1) for the division lead.
“Everybody gets their rest and gets healthier and come back raring to go and go charging down the final line of this season,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said.
“The finishing mode is kicking in right now. We’ve got to do a good job of everybody rallying and rising to the occasion.”
The 49ers host the 8-2 Green Bay Packers Sunday night in a game NBC and the NFL swapped into prime time to replace Seahawks-Eagles. That original Sunday night game in Philadelphia is now a 10 a.m. kickoff Sunday.
Seattle currently is the fifth of six playoff seeds, the top of two wild cards.
The sixth playoff seed is Minnesota (8-3). The Seahawks and Vikings play in two weeks, Dec. 2 in a Monday night game in Seattle.
The Seahawks are two games plus a head-to-head win ahead of the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams are the NFC’s seventh-place team, one spot out of the playoffs at the moment.
The Eagles are 5-5, three games back in the wild-card race but just one game out of first place in the NFC East. They blew an early 10-0 lead at home against New England on Sunday and lost 17-10.
The Athletic’s Sheil Kapadia pointed out the Eagles’ last 10 drives Sunday were seven punts, a fumble, a turnover on downs and a failed Hail Mary pass on the game’s final play. Philadelphia’s offense averaged 3.86 yards per play against New England. That’s the lowest average in any game that Carson Wentz has started at quarterback for the Eagles.
Philadelphia was missing its top two wide receivers and starting running back Jordan Howard to injuries.
The Seahawks are expecting something of a remarkable return from injury Sunday against the Eagles.
Top wide receiver Tyler Lockett maximized his week off, and is likely to continue to rest his badly bruised shin from the 49ers game well into this week of practices. Lockett spent two nights in a Bay Area hospital last week while doctors eliminated the possibility of dangerous compartment issues in his lower leg. He returned home Wednesday, on the private plane of Seahawks chair Jody Allen.
The Seahawks believe Lockett will play against Philadelphia.
“Our people think he’s going to be fine to play,” Carroll said Tuesday. “He’ll need the rest of this week to make sure everything goes away.”
This story was originally published November 18, 2019 at 7:20 AM.
