by JASmius
It seems to just be what the Seattle Seahawks do that they are incapable of not making NFC Championship Games heart-stoppers. And today's miracle 28-22 overtime victory sending them to Super Bowl XLIX and a chance at the first repeat in over a decade makes last year's back-and-forth, epic 23-17 win over then-archrival San Francisco look like the subsequent blowout of the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII.
For fifty-seven minutes, the Green Bay Packers dominated this game. Or at least, it seemed like they did. The stat line tells a very different story. The NFC North champs ran up 135 yards rushing, almost double what Seattle game up per game in the regular season. It was an accurate pre-game consensus that for Green Bay to have a chance, they had to run the ball effectively, and Eddie Lacy put in a better performance than he did in Week 1 (21 carries for 73 yards, versus the 12 for 34 the last time). But Aaron Rodgers' numbers today were almost identically pedestrian to what they were on September 4th: 19 of 34, 178 yards, a touchdown and two picks.
On the other side of the ball, Marshawn Lynch ran up 157 yards, and the 'hawks amassed 194 yards overall. Overall Seattle out-gained Green Bay 422 yards to 313.
Then you look at Russell Wilson's line: 14 of 29, 209 yards, a touchdown - and four interceptions.
There's a reason why Pete Carroll's mantra is "It's all about the ball". You can be firing on all cylinders in every other facet of the game, but when you turn the ball over five times (the other was a Doug Baldwin fumble on a kickoff return), you're going to lose. Or, at least, you're supposed to. There's a reason why only one time in 108 previous conference title games had a winning quarterback thrown four picks (George Blanda in 1961). At playoff-level, you just can't give your opponent that many extra opportunities.
But that's where the Legion of Boom (the whole defense) came in, giving up only one touchdown and holding the Packers to four fields goals until the fifth that put the game into overtime. Even late in the fourth quarter, the game was still within two scores. Which meant the Champs still had a chance.
But they wouldn't have been in that position without the honeydews Pete Carroll whipped out on the fake field goal that gave Seattle its first score.
This is this year's version of the 35-yard touchdown pass to Jermaine Kearse on fourth and seven early in the fourth quarter of last year's NFC title game. Had Carroll played it safe and kicked the field goal - and that one would have been an iffy 53-yard attempt - the 49ers wouldn't have needed a touchdown on their final drive and could have kicked the game-winning field goal instead. "The Tip" (or "The Immaculate Deflection") never would have happened. Had Carroll not gone with the fake field goal here - the first such attempt of his entire coaching career - his team wouldn't have been in a position to take the lead at the end. In the immortal words of Dominic DeNucci, "He's a got a ball a this a big".
While we're on the topic of special teams, a spotty area for the Champs at times this year, how about the picture-perfect onside kick from Steven Hauschka that doinked off the helmet of tight end Brandon Bostick and into the arms of Seahawk rookie receiver Chris Matthews, a later round draft pick last spring who hadn't played the entire season. And that is this team all over again: some are obviously and inevitably more "sung" than others, but every last player on this team is a hero waiting to step up. And they always do.
And let's give a ton of credit where credit is due: the Green Bay Packers played a helluva game, especially on defense. Russell Wilson was running for his life all game, as usual, but the Packer secondary - a respectable #10 against the pass this year - clamped down on Baldwin and Kearse and tight end Luke Willson and, as alluded to promiscuously already, picked off Russell Wilson four times, which is extraordinarily difficult to do. The guy I thought RW3 would exploit all game long, the whimsically named rookie DB Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix, had two of them and almost had a third for a pick-six early in the fourth quarter that would have been the dagger. Fox analyst Troy Aikman said it well when he quipped, "The Packers are still trying to figure out how this game wound up in overtime". You could see it in Aaron Rodgers' expression after the game-winner to Kearse, and in Packers coach Mike McCarthy's post-game interview; they both looked like they were gonna throw up. And not a 12 (still) in CenturyLink Field blamed them, because that's the feeling we had endured for 57 minutes. My son is still walking around in a daze asking, "Is this real life? Is this real life?"
The Packers owned this game. The Packers should have won this game. Instead, it's the Seahawks that are going back to the Super Bowl.
A tearful Russell Wilson said after the game, "It's an honor to be blessed with this team. God prepared me for this situation. God prepared this team." I don't know what, or how big, a place football has in the LORD's plan. With the PR black eyes the league has taken over the past year, few would ever mix the phrases "National Football League" and "better angels of our nature". To them I would simply point to this game, and this team, and this young man:
Quite a contrast with, "I'M THE BEST CORNER IN THE GAME!!!", huh?
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