Seahawks-Cardinals FINAL SCORE: Seattle falls in the pocket, the game, & the playoff standings

Time to rewrite history. Literally.

The Seattle Seahawks were getting a beatdown at home by the Arizona Cardinals when I started to prewrite a game recap about the loss. Down by scores of 14-3, 21-10, and then 31-18 with under five minutes left, the Seahawks mounted a comeback to tie the game at 31-31 after Paul Richardson scored on a five-yard touchdown with a minute to go. But much like the tie game in Arizona earlier this season, Steven Hauschka missed a usual gimme kick, this time on the PAT.

At that point, I had to stop writing about Seattle getting beaten in a game in which they played poorly, erase it, and instead start to write about the Seahawks still playing poorly, but possibly winning the game anyway. They didn’t.

The missed PAT ended up not mattering, as Chandler Catanzaro made a game-winning field goal as time expired. The Cards won 34-31.

The Seahawks are in the playoffs, but if they keep playing like that did on Saturday it certainly won’t be a very long trip. after they dropped to 9-5-1. With the Atlanta Falcons winning earlier in the day, and improving to 10-5, the Falcons take over the number two seed in the NFC.

If the Detroit Lions beat the Dallas Cowboys on Monday, it’ll drop Seattle to the four seed with one game left to go.

The worst moment of the day came when Tyler Lockett suffered an injury in the second quarter while making a 28-yard reception. The initial fear is that Lockett broke his leg, meaning we won’t be seeing him again this season.

But there were plenty other bad moments to focus on. The Seahawks allowed numerous explosive plays to the Cardinals, including an 80-yard touchdown pass to JJ Nelson, a 41-yarder to Nelson, a 34-yard pass to Jermaine Gresham, and a 33-yard run by David Johnson. They also allowed three rushing touchdowns by Johnson and a highlight goal-line catch by Larry Fitzgerald.

Russell Wilson went 29-of-45 for 350 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. He was the team’s leading rusher with 36 yards, but they had just 78 rushing yards overall. Wilson was also sacked six times in one of the worst performances of the season by the NFL’s worst offensive line.

Doug Baldwin set a career-high with 13 catches for 171 yards, but all highlights are going to be marred and forgotten due to the Lockett injury and the crushing loss at home. We’ve seen teams in the past go into the playoffs looking bad and then putting it all together in January, but Seattle needs to play like a completely different team than the one we saw today if they’re going to even get a single playoff win. They also need to hope they win next week and that the Falcons lose, or they might not even get into the divisional round this year.

The Seahawks travel to San Francisco to play the 49ers in the finale, Sunday, January 1 at 1:25 PM PST.