Russell Wilson knocked out of game, Seahawks blow chances early, lose late to Rams 26-17
Russell Wilson’s finger looked as wayward and disjointed as the Seahawks’ season is becoming.
The unthinkable has happened.
The indestructible man destructed Thursday night. So much so, Wilson didn’t even fight or ask his way back into the game.
“No, he knew. He knew that this wouldn’t help us tonight,” coach Pete Carroll said.
“It just wasn’t right to go back out.”
Geno Smith, not Wilson, threw the game-ending interception when receiver Tyler Lockett banged the back of his feet together and tripped them while cutting outside on his route. There were nothing but Rams on their feet to intercept Smith’s pass with 2:02 remaining.
That’s how the Seahawks ended their 23-17 loss to their constant conquerors, the Los Angeles Rams, Thursday night at stunned-all-over Lumen Field — the stadium that is no longer the home-field advantage it used to be.
And Wilson is no longer incapable of being injured.
Yes, for the first time in his career, Wilson left a game hurt and did not return. For the first time in five years, the man who’s never missed a start in his 10-year career missed more than a play or two, or a series during garbage time at the end of a game.
Wilson injured the middle finger on his throwing hand late in the third quarter throwing a pass with his hand following through into the arm of Rams All-World defensive tackle Aaron Donald. The Seahawks trailed 9-7 at the time.
“He has a badly sprained finger,” Carroll said. “He wasn’t able to hold onto the football.”
Asked if Wilson might need surgery, the coach said: “I don’t know. I don’t have any idea about that.
“This is a significant night, because Russell wasn’t able to finish the second half. He’s got a badly sprained finger that we’ve got to figure out. A lot of work to be done in assessing all of that.”
Smith, cold for the last 3 1/2 years, entering and immediately led the Seahawks on a 98-yard drive capped with a touchdown pass to DK Metcalf. That cut the Rams’ lead to 16-14.
“He was amazing,” receiver Tyler Lockett said.
But it was too many missing Seahawks stars and chances on offense, and too many missed coverages yet again on defense, for Seattle to overcome. The Seahawks (2-3) lost to the same Rams (4-1) that bounced them from last season’s playoffs, on the same home field. Seattle has lost 10 of its last 15 games against L.A.
No team has beaten Wilson more, sacked him more, intercepted him more.
And, now, no other team has sent him out injured from a game.
“It’s very shaking,” Lockett said of finally playing without Wilson after his 165th consecutive start to begin his career.
“It’s foreign territory.”
Wilson left after completing 11 of 16 passes for 152 yards, one touchdown and his first interception this season. The interception was in the first half before the injury.
He has 10 days to heal before the Seahawks play next, at Pittsburgh (1-3).
“Russ is an all-time healer,” Carroll said of his quarterback, whom doctors told when he sprained the medial collateral ligament in his knee in a game during the 2016 should sit out four weeks.
Wilson played the next game. And the one after that. And after that.
He did that after having his personal physical trainer fly in from southern California and move into his Seattle-area family home. The PT worked around the clock on Wilson’s knee, waking him every year each night to flex it and keep it from accumulating swelling during sleep.
“Oh, unbelievable... he’s been just remarkably durable,” Carroll said.
“The marvelous part of it is his attitude about how he approaches it. He is going to heal. He is going to heal himself.
“He is the epitome of the mentality of taking control of how your body functions, man.”
But it felt late Thursday night as if it Wilson’s going to summon unprecedented recovery to play the next game, though having three extra days before it because of this Thursday night game will help.
It felt as if it will be Smith in Pittsburgh next week, making his first start since Dec. 3, 2017, for the New York Giants at Oakland.
“We’ll see. We’ll see,” said Smith, who turns 31 Sunday.
“I’ll be ready.”
Wilson slammed his middle finger of his right, throwing hand on Donald’s arms and perhaps got his finger into the bottom of the defensive tackle big jersey sleeve on the follow-through of a pass with 7:17 remaining in the third quarter.
It was a doubly damaging play.
Wilson overthrew the wide-open Lockett, who likely would have scored a touchdown with an accurate throw to give Seattle a 14-9 lead. But Donald bearing in on Wilson forced the quarterback into a high release to avoid his head with the ball as he threw, and the score stayed 9-7 Rams.
Wilson went to the sideline to get his middle finger taped. He played the next series, completing a hardly challenging, 1-yard pass to tight end Colby Parkinson, then got sacked and went three and out.
Out of the game.
The Rams scored a touchdown after that to go up by two scores, on Matthew Stafford’s 13-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Higbee beating Seahawks safety Jamal Adams late in the third quarter.
Adams was also in coverage deep when Los Angeles’ DeSean Jackson stopped in front of him to catch Stafford’s underthrow ball on a post route on third and 10 with Seattle leading 7-3 in the third quarter. Jackson ran for about half of the 68-yard gain, to the Seahawks 12-yard line.
Two plays later Darrell Henderson scored on a 5-yard touchdown run, and the Rams led for the first time 9-7.
Safety Quandre Diggs said of the 68-yard gain on third and 10: “That is unacceptable.
“We got sh** we need to fix, and everybody knows that.”
Meanwhile, Wilson was gripping a ball and throwing it on the sideline to test his injury during that defensive series. But Smith — not Wilson — trotted on the field for Seattle’s ensuing possession.
Wilson missed a full series because of injury for the first time in his 10-year career. Then he missed the entire fourth quarter.
He didn’t talk after the game to the media, his first game without a postgame press conference of his career.
Smith entered and inexplicably, immediately completed five of five passes — as many completions as he had in his previous 3 1/2 years. Four of those completions came in one game, a mop-up of Seattle’s rout of Smith’s former New York Jets late last season.
“My thinking was to score,” Smith said.
He did, on his 23-yard pass from Smith that ended a 10-play, 98-yard drive. Seattle trailed only 16-14.
Metcalf had two huge plays on All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey in the first 21 minutes of this game. Those were more big grabs than he had in three games with Ramsey shadowing him last season. Metcalf had 11 targets, four catches and 44 yards with Ramsey covering him last season.
Thursday, he had five catches for 98 yards and two touchdowns overall.
Before Wilson’s injury, this game turned when the Seahawks offense only scored seven points during a first half that saw their defense force the Rams to punt three times and made two red-zone stops.
Offense’s missed opps
The Seahawks led 7-3 at halftime — but should have been up by more.
Diggs raced across the back line of the end zone and intercepted a pass from Stafford in the second quarter to deny the Rams. He flapped his arms in the direction of nearby team bird mascot Blitz to celebrate his second interception in four days, the first two interceptions by Seattle this season.
The Seahawks squandered that turnover when Wilson forced a pass behind well-covered Lockett. Ramsey batted the ball in the air. Rams linebacker Troy Reeder grabbed it for Wilson’s first interception of the season.
Seattle’s defense got a three and out at midfield after Wilson’s turnover.
The Seahawks got their second red-zone stop of the half late in the quarter. End Kerry Hyder stopped Rams runner Sony Michel 1 yard short of the line to gain on second and 4. On third and 1 from the Seahawks 12-yard line, tackle Al Woods stormed through the line and dropped Michel for a 1-yard loss. That forced Los Angeles to settle for a field goal with 1:08 left in the half, saving the Seahawks four points and keeping them ahead 7-3.
A 14-play drive by the Rams that doesn’t end with a touchdown? That’s a huge win for Seattle’s defense, one that hasn’t happened often in recent years of this rivalry.
A perfectly lofted 28-yard pass from Wilson to running back DeeJay Dallas down the left side plus a dubious roughing-the-passer penalty on Donald put Seattle in scoring position to end the half. The Seahawks thought they had a touchdown and a two-score lead when Wilson connected off a scramble to Lockett in the back of the end zone, but left tackle Duane Brown was called for holding, an arm bar into the neck of Rams edge rusher Terrell Lewis.
That set up Jason Myers for a 35-yard field goal. He pushed it wide left. That left Seattle ahead only 7-3, despite forcing L.A. to punt three times and stopping them twice in the red zone in that first half.
Dickson amazes
Dickson, an All-Pro as a rookie in 2018, has made multiple ridiculous plays in his Seahawks career.
Remember his unauthorized dash from his own goal line when he was supposed to be punting late in a game at Detroit a few years ago?
That earned him the nickname “Big Balls” Dickson in the Seahawks’ locker room.
Then he did this Thursday: The Rams stormed in an blocked his punt late in the third quarter. The ball was spinning like a top, upright, a few yards away. Dickson raced up, picked up the spinning ball with one hand while running by — then punted the blocked punt 68 yards in the open field.
Officials were so dumbfounded they flew penalty flags. But because the second punt did not occur beyond the line of scrimmage it was legal.
“That was one of the great kicking plays in the history of the league,” Carroll, 70, said.
This story was originally published October 7, 2021 at 8:32 PM.
