Carlos Dunlap, L.J. Collier huge at end, Seahawks hold on, win in D.C., clinch playoffs
These Seahawks don’t do cruises. Not well, anyway.
Coming off a rare, 40-3 demolition of the Jets, Seattle took a 20-3 lead in the third quarter Sunday at Washington. The Seahawks had Chris Carson and Carlos Hyde running, Rashaad Penny debuting and their previously ransacked defense hadn’t allowed a touchdown in eight quarters.
“We really felt in control of the game,” coach Pete Carroll said.
But then the usual, dramatic Seahawks returned.
Washington began running, taking much of the game off the shoulders of third-choice quarterback Dwayne Haskins. The NFC East leader scored two unanswered touchdowns. The offense kept the game close by producing dropped passes and punts.
A comfortable 20-3 lead became an uneasy 20-15 edge with 7 minutes left.
Then K.J. Wright got called for hitting a receiver with his helmet. Except he used his forearm. Washington was at the Seattle 23-yard line with 74 seconds left, with the chance to steal a win.
Then 2019 first-round pick L.J. Collier made his biggest play of his career, a sack of Haskins. Then Carlos Dunlap, coming off a sprained foot and a Cincinnati Bengals escapee who’s never one a playoff game, sacked Haskins. On fourth and the Pentagon for the Football Team, Haskins ran around with no one open. His desperate heave to the goal line was broken up by Shaquill Griffin.
That’s how the Seahawks clinched their eighth playoff berth in nine years with a harrowing, 20-15 survival of a win at giant, empty FedEx Field.
“This is what I’m here to do,” Dunlap said, as merrily as his blue-and-green Seahawks Christmas Santa hat he was wearing after the game.
It was the second game in a month Dunlap has won with a last-play sack. The other was when he dumped Kyler Murray on fourth down in Seattle’s home win over Arizona.
“We’ve had a bunch of interesting finishes,” Carroll said. “That was one of them.”
Russell Wilson had just 127 yards passing, part of Seattle’s plan to get the ball out quickly with short passes against one of the NFL’s best pass rushers. Even with the Seahawks starting at fill-in at right tackle, Washington did not sack Wilson.
That’s how the Seahawks (10-4) set up the NFC West title game against the Los Angeles Rams next Sunday at Lumen Field in Seattle.
“Being in the playoffs with games to go, that’s a beautiful thing,” Carroll said.
“It’s a big day. ...Just keep on winning, to give ourselves a chance to win championships. That’s what we are here to do.”
Carson ran for 53 of the Seahawks’ unusually low 302 total yards in a game they controlled deep into the third quarter.
The workmanlike quality of the Seahawks’ performance in the first two-thirds of the game became clear from late in the second quarter through the first drive after halftime.
Griffin turned away Washington’s best drive of the first half with his third interception of the season. From its own 3-yard line, Seattle’s offense marched 97 yards to a 13-0 lead.
Wilson was 3 for 3 passing to begin the turning-point drive. Then fill-in right tackle Cedric Ogbuehi, a Seahawks concern coming in playing for injured starter Brandon Shell against Washington’s dangerous pass rush, effectively blocked defensive tackle Daron Payne inside. That created a huge lane off the right edge for Wilson to run 38 yards on a scramble.
From there, Wilson fired a dart into Jacob Hollister’s stomach that the Seahawks tight end had no choice but to catch inside the goal line. It was 13-0 Seahawks.
Washington drove a field goal to end the half, taking advantage of Griffin briefly leaving the game injured.
But the Seahawks knew they had a chance to bury Washington by receiving the second-half kickoff, because Wilson had won yet another road coin toss before the opening kickoff by calling tails again.
They did bury Washington.
Play caller Brian Schottenheimer called a swing pass to Carson for 4 yards to begin the second half. Then Carson ran over a defender for a 9-yard gain. Then he ran for 13 more. He came out. Hyde entered.
On his first play for Carson of the half, Hyde galloped 50 yards behind Ogbuehi and Hollister and past a slipping Washington cornerback for a touchdown. Hyde triumphantly raised the ball above his head in his right hand the final 5 yards, and the rout was on in a 20-3 game.
“Honestly, I was following Hollister,” Hyde said. “He was my convoy to the end zone for 6.”
The party on the road was on.
Until it wasn’t.
Penny returns
On the second drive of the third quarter, Penny carried for no gain.
Yet for him and the Seahawks, it was a huge gain.
It was his first time in a game in more than 12 months, since he tore knee ligaments in a non-contact injury against the Rams in Los Angeles.
Penny’s 2020 debut came with 2 minutes left in the second quarter. He was on the field for one red-zone play, when Wilson threw incomplete to David Moore.
Penny finished with two carries for the 6 most satisfying yards a running back can have.
“He’s come back with a vengeance,” Wilson said. “He’s come back with that mentality, which is great. ...All the hard work, the early days, the late nights, all the challenges...it’s a real thing.
“I’m happy for him.”
Expecting Hyde to feel threatened by Penny’s return from 12 months out?
“It was a blessing to have Penny back,” Hyde said.
“He was excited just to even be here. He was excited just to be able to travel this week. ...I’m happy for him.”
With Carson, Hyde and Penny, the Seahawks are as stocked as they’ve been in years in the backfield and have the run game they need to beat Green Bay, New Orleans and the Rams.
Those are the teams Seattle will need to beat in the NFC to reach the Super Bowl.
“We’ve got three—really, four—really good running backs that can take over,” Hyde said, adding it’s up to the coaches to figure out that
“Going into the playoffs we can really be a force to be reckoned with,” Hyde said. “Especially with all three of us getting going in a game? That’d be scary.”
Reed The Revelation
This summer 49ers general manager John Lynch told D.J. Reed that San Francisco’s medical staff believed the safety wouldn’t play this season because of a torn pectoral muscle he got in the offseason.
The Niners waived him with an injury designation, figuring no one would claim him.
The Seahawks did. That’s proven to be a heist of their division rivals.
“It’s a chip on my shoulder—forever,” Reed said after Sunday game, pointing to his right one.
Reed continued being a revelation as a fill-in safety starting for then-injured All-Pro Jamal Adams, a fill-in nickel back for Marquise Blair and Ugo Amadi, a new, decisive punt returner—and now as the replacement for injured starting cornerback Quinton Dunbar.
Sunday he got his second interception of the season he wasn’t supposed to be playing. Haskins started down his receiver across the middle in the third quarter. Reed came off his man and stepped in front of Cam Sims to pick off the pass in Seattle territory to keep his team’s lead at 20-3.
Then he and his defensive teammates ran to the other end zone to form a circle in what looked like a celebration square dance.
Reed also broke up a pass by Haskins into the end zone intended for Terry McLaurin. Peyton Barber ran 1 yard on the next play, third down, for the first touchdown allowed by Seattle since the third quarter of its home loss to the Giants three games ago. That made it 20-9.
“I came into this game pissed off,” Reed said. “I knew they were going to try me with 17 (McLaurin).
“I feel like I set the tone. When I come in, guys know what’s up.”
Injury scares
The Seahawks got two injury scares in the first half.
DK Metcalf leaped and landed awkwardly going after a Russell Wilson pass while covered in the back right of the end zone on a free play in the second quarter, after Washington had jumped offsides at the snap. Metcalf limped off the field and had a cape put over him by assistants while Jason Myers was kicking his second field goal of the half two plays later for a 6-0 Seattle lead.
That kick set a Seahawks record. It was Myers’ 31st consecutive made field goal. He is 20 for 20 this season.
“You see the numbers and what’s going on. It’s kind of cliche but my mindset is ‘one for one,’” Myers said. “I write it on my wrist every day.”
The Pacific Northwest exhaled when Metcalf was in the huddle for the first play after the next Seahawks possession. He immediately caught his first pass and official target of the game, for 6 yards. He finished five catches on seven targets for 43 yards in Seattle’s quick passing game thwarting Washington’s pass rush.
On the final possession of the half Griffin appeared to get kicked in the groin area at the end of a play. The Pro Bowl cornerback had to be helped to the sideline. He missed three plays. Washington targeted his replacement, Linden Stephens, on the first two of those plays. The second was a 17-yard pass from Haskins to number-one receiver Terry McLaurin.
Griffin returned, and Washington’s drive stopped. It settled for a field goal, so Seattle’s lead was 13-3 at halftime.
Griffin ended Washington’s best drive of the half before that one. He got his third interception of the season, off an off-target pass Sims deflected behind him. Griffin raced over and made a diving interception just before the ball hit the ground at Seattle’s 3-yard line.
Rookie leaves on cart
Seahawks rookie DeeJay Dallas was dancing to The Outfields’ 1980s hit song I Don’t Wanna Lose Your Love Tonight playing over the stadium’s public-address system during a media timeout before the kickoff following Myers’ second field goal.
A minute later, he was on his back with a serious-looking lower-leg injury.
A motorized cart came on the field to take the rookie running back from it, while a paramedic inflated an air cast. Adams leaned in and hugged the seated Dallas before the cart drove him from the field.
Carroll said the team got good news: Dallas’ X-rays were negative for an ankle fracture. He has a sprain.
This story was originally published December 20, 2020 at 1:12 PM.
