Please! Quandre Diggs calling Detroit, asking old Lions friends for a huge Seahawks favor
Quandre Diggs stays in touch often with his friends he used to captain in Detroit.
This week, he’s all over them.
The Seahawks’ Pro Bowl safety has been calling more, a lot more, with more urgency and intent. He’s been asking for a huge favor from his favorite Lions.
Please, beat Green Bay.
“I am like, ‘Hey, I wouldn’t mind taking y’all on vacation if you go ahead and get a W. I will pay for your vacation,’” Diggs said.
He was joking. We think.
Maybe not.
The Seahawks (8-8) must beat the Los Angeles Rams (8-8) Sunday afternoon at Lumen Field. Then Detroit (8-8) must win at Green Bay (8-8) Sunday night. If both those results occur Seattle will earn the seventh and final spot in the NFC playoffs that begin next week. If either the Seahawks or the Lions lose, Seattle is out.
The Seahawks would win a tiebreaker with Detroit at 9-8, because of their win over the Lions in October. Seattle and Green Bay did not play this season so the first, head-to-head tiebreaker doesn’t apply between those teams. The Packers would get the playoff berth at 9-8 over the 9-8 Seahawks by virtue of a better conference record (7-5 over 6-6, if both Seattle and Green Bay win Sunday).
So...
“You just try to handle your business, first of all. We are going to have a hard test just like they are going to have a hard test. For us, we need to handle our business and let it all play out,” Diggs said.
Then he added: “I would be lying if I told you guys that I didn’t hit up some of my friends over there already and told them, ‘Y’all handle business and get it done.’”
Diggs knows why the NFL and NBC chose Lions-Packers as the Sunday night prime-time showcase, moving it out of a simultaneous kickoff with Rams-Seahawks at 1:25 p.m. That would have been more pure from a competitive standpoint of contending teams playing not knowing the other game’s result.
Diggs played the first 4 1/2 years of his career against Aaron Rodgers and Green Bay inside the NFC North. Diggs knows the marketability and television ratings draw of Aaron Rodgers rallying the Packers from a 4-8 abyss to this chance at clinching a playoff spot at Lambeau Field.
“I know that A Rod is thinking, I know he is living for this moment, to go in and beat the Lions so that he can talk trash,” Diggs said.
“Hopefully my guys can pull through. They can go over there and get a W, we handle our business, and everything works out the right way.”
Diggs isn’t alone. They are all Honolulu-blue backers this week inside Seahawks headquarters.
“All we’ve got is what we can do. That’s go out and win this game on Sunday,” Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith said Thursday, “then become the biggest Detroit fans in the word after that.”
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said he’s counting on fiery, popular Lions coach Dan Campbell having his players ready to play at Green Bay, even if they find out before kickoff they’ve been eliminated from the postseason by a Seattle win over the Rams. If the Rams win, Lions-Packers becomes a winner-to-the-playoffs, loser-out game.
The best the Seahawks can hope for is that a few hours Sunday evening will be an extraordinarily odd period of not knowing whether they have a playoff game next week or are done with games until September.
“That’s not going to change anything that we’re doing. We are going for it,” Carroll said. “And then maybe there will be a pretty good party afterward, you know, to watch the next game.
“But the last thing I would ever worry about is Coach Campbell’s team not getting ready to play, regardless of what’s at stake or what’s going on. He’s going to get them fired up and jacked. That’s all he’s ever done. And that will be a great match, too.”
As Smith said after his Seahawks beat his former New York Jets 23-6 last weekend, it’s “unfortunate” for his team to have to rely on the Lions in order to get into the postseason. Also as Smith said, that’s the penalty the Seahawks are paying for not winning more games before this — specifically galling losses at home to Carolina and Las Vegas, or losing to the entire NFC South that doesn’t have a team with a winning record.
So what most Seahawks define as a successful season will be out of their hands come Sunday night, even if they beat the Rams as they did last month in California when Smith bailed out Seattle late.
“I don’t think it’s successful unless we make the playoffs,” Metcalf said.
“I think that we have already proved all of our doubters wrong, but I think it’s time to prove ourselves right.
“We weren’t supposed to make it to begin with,” Metcalf said. “So we are just going out there and play free. I’m excited for the next game, the next opportunity, and the next team we play in the playoffs, hopefully, it’s the 49ers (Seattle’s likely first-round foe should it get in), and we’ll go down there and handle business.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2023 at 2:41 PM.
