Late Geno Smith 2-point play sends Seahawks to win, but Packers’ win ends Seattle’s season
The cigars.
Their smell was obvious, even from outside the locker room.
The smoke from them was rising throughout the room. Seahawks defensive backs and some other players were in the middle, lighting and smoking cigars. They were celebrating, safety Julian Love said, the birth of his son just before Christmas, following their rally past the four-win Arizona Cardinals to end Seattle’s season.
Bobby Wagner wasn’t celebrating. Neither was Jordyn Brooks or other veteran players. Brooks sat on a padded, folding chair in front of his locker.
Wagner’s partner as starting inside linebackers had just played on a pained ankle he re-injured early in the game Sunday. He broke up a long pass and prevented the Seahawks from falling behind early..
“I’m just happy for our team,” Brooks said.
“(But) we didn’t make it to our ultimate goal, which is the playoffs.”
The Seahawks had to win Sunday at the same time the Packers had to lose to the Chicago Bears in Green Bay. The Packers won, 17-9. That game eliminated Seattle. It ended with about 6 minutes left in Seattle’s game, before Geno Smith and Tyler Lockett rallied the Seahawks with a 34-yard touchdown pass and then a two-point conversion for the winning points with just under 2 minutes to play.
The Seahawks are not going to the postseason for only the third time in 12 years.
That’s what Wagner was thinking about. Not cigars.
Wagner, the 33-year-old veteran of 12 NFL seasons and two Super Bowls, having won one with the Seahawks a decade ago, said that was youth going on in the visiting locker room at State Farm Stadium late Sunday afternoon.
“Yeah,” he said, “for sure.”
No victory cigars for you?
“No,” Wagner said quietly, while shaking his head. “Not at all.”
Later, while talking about the season as a whole for the team with the most rookies in the NFL in 2023, Wagner said of the younger Seahawks: “You have to learn how to win.
“You have to win the games that you should win. And you have to attack this offseason. You can watch the playoffs, watch the teams. You might watch teams that you feel like you could’ve beaten or should’ve beat or things of that nature. As soon as you start working on those things that you need to improve – everybody asked after the game what we need to improve - the quicker you get back to taking care of that is how you add longevity to your career.”
Pete Carroll on his future
Brooks played hurt and re-injured himself making a gritty play early in the game.
Wagner had 16 tackles to tie Brooks’ team record for tackles in a season (183), while making his ninth Pro Bowl team this season.
Both acknowledged this past week Sunday could be their final games as Seahawks.
Will Dissly caught a touchdown pass in the first half from Geno Smith Sunday. The tight end from the University of Washington is under Seattle contract for 2024, but at a hefty salary-cap charge of $10.1 million next season.
And there’s Carroll.
“I love this team,” he said after Sunday’s game.
Does the 72-year-old coach want to retire to his offseason home in Maui after 50 years of coaching? Or does he want to rebuild the faulty defense yet again after only his third season without playoffs in 12 years?
Does he want to run it back?
“Yeah,” Carroll said, “of course I do.”
Does he expect to coach the Seahawks in the 2024 season?
“I do,” he said, “At this point, I do.”
About six feet in front of Carroll., Bert Kolde sat quietly. The right-hand man of team chair Jody Allen always does that in Carroll’s press conferences after every road game.
Carroll is under contract with the Seahawks through the 2024 season with an option to stay through 2025.
Another Geno Smith rally
By then it didn’t matter, because Green Bay winning half a continent away had eliminated them from the playoffs.
Smith and Lockett rallied the Seahawks, anyway. They connected for a 34-yard touchdown pass with just under 2 minutes left in the season finale at Arizona.
Jason Myers and the kicking team jogged onto the field for the point after touchdown.
Coach Pete Carroll called them off. The coach put Smith and his offense back out for a winning, two-point conversion.
Smith found Lockett alone in the back of the end zone for that completion and conversion. The Seahawks’ sideline exploded in cheers. Seattle led 21-20.
Then the reason the Seahawks aren’t in the playoffs happened again: Their defense failed.
Quarterback Kyler Murray led the Cardinals (4-13) 43 yards back down the field to Matt Prater’s game-winning field goal as the time, and season, expired.
But Prater’s kick sailed wide right, no good.
Carroll smiled.
Smith (16 for 28 passing, 189 yards, two touchdowns) ran onto the field and did The Gritty.
At least they had that.
Cardinals out-fox Seahawks
Riq Woolen had his arms out wide, hands up to the stadium’s closed roof.
It was, immediately after allowing the go-ahead touchdown, a fitting end to this Seahawks season.
The Cardinals out-foxed the Seahawks by bringing their field-goal kicker out for what became the go-ahead touchdown pass from Murray on fourth down with 10 minutes left.
That was about the time the Packers finished beating the Bears in Green Bay to eliminate the Seahawks from playoff contention.
The Seahawks (9-8) went 1-1 and one in the final two games, when winning both would have clinched a 10th playoff berth in 12 years.
Yes, Seattle’s run defense was awful. Yet again.
But a most-telling play was the field-goal trickery that confused the Seahawks into a mess.
With 10 minutes left Arizona had a fourth and 3 from the Seahawks 8-yard line. The score was tied at 13. Murray appeared to be headed off the field with the offense as kicker Matt Prater ran on. Murray then U-turned near the yard-line numbers and went back into formation. Prater, the kicker, split out wide left as a receiver.
Rules require players to continuing exiting the field as a replaced player once they cross about the area of the yard-line numbers. After the game, that’s what Carroll had an issue with, that Murray was by rule substituted for and officials should not have permitted him back on the field. Carroll said he looked forward to what the NFL will say about the play.
By the time Murray was back in the formation, the Seahawks had their field-goal defense on the field: special-teams captain Nick Bellore and the like. They had no pass-covering safeties in the deep middle.
That’s where Murray, who’d run up under center after getting back into the middle of the field, threw to tight end Trey McBride. McBride got behind Woolen, the cornerback who normally wouldn’t be covering a big tight end in the middle of the field.
Touchdown Cardinals.
Of all the time outs the Seahawks use in a season, especially on defense, that would have been a particularly fine time to use one, when Murray moved into formation under center against a field-goal unit.
Smith and the Seattle’s offense had no immediate answer. They punted to give up the ensuing possession.
Running back James Conner (27 carries, 150 yards) plowed from there to expire Seattle’s time outs on defense.
But Prater, returning to his regular job, missed a field goal to keep the Seahawks in the game with 2:56 left.
Smith responded with his fifth game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime.
The Seahawks will spend the coming weeks and months ruing losses, in particular to Pittsburgh at home when they had control of their playoff fate last week, plus twice to the division-rival Los Angeles Rams. There was the two failed fourth downs in the final couple minutes of a four-point loss at Cincinnati. A four-game losing streak that was the longest of coach Pete Carroll’s 14 seasons leading Seattle.
And what continued Sunday at Arizona: a 30th-ranked run defense that would not, could not, consistently defend the run.
One week after the Steelers rushed for 202 yards on Seattle — in a season when Baltimore romped for 298 against the Seahawks, San Francisco for 160-plus two times, and so on — Cardinals running back James Conner and Murray romped through arms of Seahawks and gaps all over.
Conner’s 29-yard run past five Seahawks, including injured linebacker Jordyn Brooks, while barely touched tied the game at 13 in the third quarter. By then, the Packers led 14-6 in Green Bay.
Arizona, long ago eliminated from the postseason, finished Sunday with 206 yards rushing, and 466 yards overall.
The Cardinals had 12 “explosive” plays, defined as more than 12 yards rushing and more than 16 yards passing. That continued another season-long problem that kept Seattle from the playoffs.
Brooks played hurt and re-injured himself making a gritty play early in the game.
Bobby Wagner, 33, had 16 tackles to tie Brooks’ team record for tackles in a season (183), while making his ninth Pro Bowl team this season.
Both acknowledged this past week Sunday could be their final games as Seahawks.
Dissly is under contract for 2024, but at a hefty salary-cap charge of $10.1 million next season.
And there’s Carroll.
Does the 72-year-old coach want to retire to his offseason home in Maui after 50 years of coaching? Or does he want to rebuild the faulty defense yet again after only his third season without playoffs in 12 years?
Jordyn Brooks’ play
Brooks said this past week there was no way he was missing this game, despite a painful ankle injury that kept him out the previous weekend when Seattle lost at home to Pittsburgh.
He said Sunday may be his last game with his teammates. The 2020 first-round pick’s rookie contract ends with the end of this season.
On this game’s first defensive drive, Brooks saved a likely touchdown.
Brooks raced more than 35 yards down and across the field to break up Murray’s pass to tight end Trey McBride on the sideline at about the Seattle 10-yard line. Brooks injured his ankle again on the play, and limped to the sideline.
With the ball at midfield instead of the 10, the Cardinals ended up punting instead of scoring at least a field goal. Thanks to Brooks, the Seahawks didn’t trail early.
The offense took the ball and marched 11 plays to Jason Myers’ 33-yard field goal for a 3-0 lead instead.
Will Dissly’s first score
With lead tight end Noah Fant out injured, Will Dissly celebrated the eve of his Washington Huskies’ national-championship game he’s pumped for Monday night — with his first touchdown of the season.
No Cardinal was near him as he jogged into the end zone for a 19-yard touchdown in the second quarter. That gave Seattle a 10-3 lead.
The Seahawks’ offensive line set up that score by picking up Arizona’s multiple-man blitz and giving Smith plenty of time to wait for Tyler Lockett’s deep in route. Lockett was alone in the middle of the field for a 37-yard gain on third down, two plays before the Smith-to-Dissly touchdown.
The teams traded field goals to end the half. Seattle’s came on the final play of it, after a 21-yard scramble by Smith in the 2-minute drill to the Cardinals 11-yard line. Smith nearly ran into a sack on the play before escaping to open field down the right sideline.
That’s how Seattle took a 13-6 lead into halftime — while preparing to receive the second-half kickoff for a game-swinging two-for-one thanks to winning the opening coin toss, again.
Julian Love hurt, returns
Pro Bowl safety Julian Love and Fant left the game with hand injuries in the first quarter.
Love, named this past week to the Pro Bowl for the first time in his five-year NFL career, jogged into the locker room with a team doctor while Seattle was on offense for the second time. He was back next to Quandre Diggs in the back of the defense for Arizona’s next possession. He had a tackle on the sideline to end James Connor’s run for 20 yards, to the Seattle 3-yard line, on his return drive.
It ended after Arizona’s McBride dropped a pass at the goal line on first down, and Diggs smartly anticipated Murray’s run outside left for a tackle on the sideline on third and goal. The Cardinals settled for a short field goal. Instead of Seattle trailing, the game was tied at 3.
Love was the NFC defensive player of the week last month, for his two interceptions of Jalen Hurts in the fourth quarter of Seattle’s win over Philadelphia Dec. 18.
Fant could have been playing his last game for the Seahawks. He’s finishing the option year on his contract Seattle picked up for 2023, after making him part of the Russell Wilson trade with Denver.
Fant, who earned $6.85 million this season, played in all 17 games and finished the regular season with 32 receptions, 414 yards and no touchdowns.
This story was originally published January 7, 2024 at 4:31 PM.
