The Seattle Seahawks came out of the playoffs with little more than a groan on Saturday night, dropping 30-20 to a Rams team battling significant odds after losing their starting quarterback to a neck injury and turning to Jared Goff, who entered and played with a repaired thumb.
These obstacles proved to be minimal against a Seahawks team without a punch that turned the ball twice and allowed Cam Akers to accumulate 131 yards and a touchdown on 28 charged.
Seattle, meanwhile, failed to respond to sporadic offensive successes in Los Angeles, going 2-14 on the third down and completing just 11 of 27 passes against the Rams’ petty defense. The once explosive offensive Seahawks that overcame opponents while its defense tried to solve its own problems at the beginning of the season seemed light years away, lost in the abyss of history while the current version repeatedly stumbled upon a forgettable post-season defeat.
In the fourth period, the reality of the situation fell on who was watching the game. The Seahawks were losing to a team that played with an injured quarterback, and were being dominated by a defense that did not have its best player after Aaron Donald left due to a rib injury. Coach Pete Carroll missed another reckless challenge in the long run for Akers, and told reporters after the defeat that “there was no place” in his “brain for this outcome”.
“It’s very frustrating to do that,” said Carroll, via Joe Fann of NBC Sports Northwest. “Suddenly, there is nothing like it. You just have to deal with it … Really disappointed with the result.”
The Seahawks were unable to adequately protect Russell Wilson, whose performance was as terrible as the hands of his receivers, who dropped several passes. Wilson was fired five times and threw a bad interception in a move in which few, if any, of the Seahawks executed their responsibilities, watching a screen pass attempt be eliminated by Darious Williams, who returned him for a touchdown. Wilson ended up with a passer rating of 72.1, far from his start at the height of the 2020 season, and Seattle won the first 11 casualties in the game. Carroll called Wilson’s day “very difficult” afterwards.
“When you’re rushed like that, you get fired five times, against that group, it’s very difficult,” said Carroll of Wilson, via Gregg Bell of the Tacoma News Tribune. “The pressure was strong, the coverage was good. He fought it all day.”