It’s been a couple of days. The dust has settled. Yet there’s still no logical explanation as to how in the living hell the Seattle Seahawks were able to win a playoff game (against an elite quarterback and a Super Bowl winning coach) in which they were systematically dismantled for 55 solid minutes of the game. How? Who? What? Why? Huh?

Well, there were a few reasons actually, and not all of them down to themselves. As the saying goes: For every great sporting comeback there is an equal and opposite choke job. Here’s how the Seahawks made it to the Super Bowl despite putting themselves in a predicament that Harry Houdini himself would have had trouble escaping from.

Getting It Done When It Mattered

Despite the fantastic finish, this was not a good game by the Seahawks. Here are a few things they were forced to overcome, first of all:

They only led for 71 total seconds.
Russell Wilson’s 4 interceptions are the most he’s thrown in his professional career.
Teams with 4+ interceptions in a playoff game (since the Super Bowl era began) are 2-42. Yep, only one man has ever won despite throwing 4 INTs – Buffalo’s Joe Ferguson in 1981.
5 total turnovers, something they haven’t done since 2010, and more than a third of the total they gave up during the ENTIRE REGULAR SEASON! (14 of them).
A 16 point deficit at half time, which asked for a record second half comeback in a Conference Championship game.
Trailing by 9 points entering the fourth quarter – another deficit never before overcome at this stage of the playoffs.

Yet with all of that, they were able to stick in there and take the crucial few opportunities that came their way when it mattered. It was a case of get in the endzone or lose for both of their final possessions (with a necessary onside kick recovery between them), something they’d only managed once in the game and it was a trick play on fourth down. Call it clutch, call it what you want. Here are Russell Wilson’s QBRs per quarter:

Green Bay Settling For Field Goals

That first red-zone opportunity for Green Bay, after Wilson’s first interception. Eddie Lacy runs to the 1 yard line on first down. Then John Kuhn thinks he’s scored on second but he’s narrowly short and the TD overturned. Eddie Lacy gets plugged on third down and that leaves them with fourth and inches at the goal-line. So they take the points. Only getting three points from a second and one at the goal is the best case scenario for the Seahawks short of a turnover. That’s a massive win for them! Do what the opposition least want you to do; they’d have been begging for GB to take the points. And even if they don’t get the TD on fourth down, so what? Seattle get the ball inside their own one yard line having only managed three yards on their first drive.

From the ensuing kickoff, Seattle fumbles and Green Bay gets it at the 23. Eddie Lacy gets 16 yards on the ground the next two plays. But from second and goal at the six, Rodgers misses Jordy Nelson in the endzone over his back shoulder. Just a little too much heat on it for Nelson to adjust and on third down Randall Cobb only gets five of the six yards. Another short field goal ensues.

On the next possession Randall Cobb gets open and Rodgers does a great job of stepping up and extending the play long enough to hit him for a 13 yard TD. It would be their only one of the game.

To be fair to Green Bay, Mason Crosby is a brilliant kicker and Seattle have a brilliant defensive unit. Perhaps they thought it wasn’t worth the gamble, but you don’t win playoff games in the NFL by settling for the safe option. Teams that play aggressively tend to get the rewards.

Not Capitalising on Turnovers

The Seahawks turned the ball over five times in this game. They’d had 14 turnovers TOTAL during the entire regular season! So when you get that kind of a leg-up in such a massive game, you absolutely have to take full advantage. Don’t go leaving the door as open as they did. The Packers only managed six points from five turnovers. That’s inexcusable against the defending champions.

1Q 10:28 - Wilson intercepted by Clinton-Dix, ball placed at SEA 19 … GB Field Goal (successful), 5 plays for 18 yards

1Q 8:01 – Baldwin fumbles at SEA 23 … GB Field Goal (successful), 6 plays for 22 yards

2Q 9:18 – Wilson intercepted by Clinton-Dix, ball placed at SEA 41 … Rodgers intercepted by Maxwell at SEA 26, 3 plays for 23 yards

2Q 1:55 – Wilson intercepted by Shields in GB endzone, touchback … GB Punt, 4 plays for 12 yards

4Q 5:04 – Wilson intercepted by Burnett at GB 39 … GB Punt, 3 plays for -4 yards

Part of making the most of turnovers is exploiting the immediate gain. Like, for example, not sliding down with open field in front of you. The game felt over at this point, so you can understand not risking a fumble, but a pick-six at that stage and it wouldn’t have just felt over, it would have been over. If he gets a couple of blocks here, then Morgan Burnett is taking this to the house... and to Arizona.

Picking Off Rodgers to Limit Damage

Meanwhile Aaron Rodgers was picked off twice, once in the endzone on the first possession of the game thanks to a superb play by Richard Sherman, the other at the Seattle 23 as Rodgers was driving (on the back of Russell Wilson’s second interception) with a 16-0 lead in the second quarter. Given that this game went to overtime, each and every point left on the field was worth the victory.

Staying Confident & Positive

Or maybe that should say ‘not going down without a fight’. Down 16-0 at the break, and it should have been more, it was hard to see a way back for Seattle. It was gonna take something miraculous to arrest the momentum and actually make a few plays on offence. Russell Wilson had 12 total passing yards at half-time. But on third and 19 just inside the GB half, Wilson’s able to complete to Doug Baldwin for a massive booster.

A few plays later they line up for a field goal and this happens.

The Packers are getting deserved criticism for not reacting well to this little trick play, or even being aware of the possibility. A.J. Hawk in particular gives up the receiver to rush the punter/thrower and that leaves an open man in the endzone to catch what was a loopy, underthrown ball. Ok, not his forte, so you can understand it wasn’t a perfect Brady-esque spiral, but if Hawk were in the vicinity then he’d have had a play to make. And why rush the guy anyway, he has to get to the nine yard line or it’s a handover of possession and the ball had been placed at the 28 yard mark for the non-existent kick. Let the fella try run 19 yards if he can! It shouldn’t have been all on Hawk though. The fact that only he and Davon House even seemed to react is a disaster in itself.

Still, the Seahawks deserve plenty of applause for even having the guts to attempt this. No matter how bad things looked at various stages, they never lost the confidence in their own abilities to turn it around in the moment. They played positive, Green Bay played negative. And this is a sport that rewards initiative.

Brandon Bostick’s Blunder

Regardless of all else that happened, if Mr Bostick recovers this onside kick then Green Bay win. They run out the clock and it’s Game Over. But instead he misses the ball, it cannons off his helmet and into the grateful arms of every Seattle Seahawks fan on the planet. The worst part is that he wasn’t even meant to make a play at it. He was supposed to be a blocker but his eyes lit up with the chance to put icing on an NFC Championship cake and thus this happened.

You can’t help but feel for the guy. There were many other things that went wrong in this game - e.g. every other segment of this article - for them to lose. Yet his mistake was last and he’s the one people will blame. He’s the Bill Buckner of a new generation. Man, they even have the same initials. Buckner was the man that missed a simple groundball through his legs in game 6 of the 1986 World Series to cost the Boston Red Sox their first title since trading Babe Ruth like 70 years earlier. The Sox then blew a 3-0 lead through six innings in game 7 to lose the Series to the Mets. It wasn’t like a thousand things didn’t go wrong before that error, it’s just that it was the most high-profile.

The Least Bad Coaching

Yeah, Pete Carroll made a few silly calls. But he was more let down by the struggles of Russell Wilson and Jermaine Kearse in the first half than anything. Mike McCarthy though? For a Super Bowl winning coach (just like his opponent) he was friggin’ awful. The conservative play-calling on fourth and a snail’s width we’ve talked about. But it was like that all over. As if his theory for closing the game out was to close his eyes, cross his fingers and hope for the best.

The first possession of the fourth quarter was good. A big run by James Starks gets them into Seattle territory, and although a couple of Rodgers incompletions cost them a shot at something more, Mason Crosby hit a 48 yarder to extend the lead to 19-7. That mean two touchdowns or no trip to Arizona for Seattle. They also managed to take 5 minutes off the clock on that drive. Seattle’s next possession runs 4 minutes and ends in a punt.

You’ve now got the ball on your own 13 with 6:53 to play and a 12 point lead. Rush, rush incompletion, kick it back. At this point it didn’t feel like the Seahawks had many points in them. Still, they only needed two possessions to get it done, and you cannot coach on ‘feel’, you need to coach the situation and the best/worst case scanarios.

Wilson is intercepted the very next play. Burnett doesn’t run it back. At this stage, Earl Thomas was paying with his shoulder in a sling after dislocating it early and Richard Sherman was one-armed having crushed his elbow. You’ve gotta run the clock down but you also know that the fabled Seahawks’ run defence is looking for it. Eddie Lacy rushes twice for losses, with two timeouts burned by Seattle, then again for a small gain. Seattle save the third TO and get the ball back with 3:52 to play. Seattle were playing for the run, and GB still took it, so obviously they weren’t looking for a first down. The conviction to the run is not a bad thing, however they needed to be running it throughout. That’s how you ice a game – you keep the ball in your own hands. Build long drives with patience and execution. What you don’t do is keep giving the trailing team chances to get back into things. Dallas beat Seattle at this stadium earlier in the season by doing exactly what Green Bay failed to do.

On the other hand, Marshawn Lynch had 120 of his 157 rush yards in the second half. Seattle avoided panicky deep throws and opened up the zone-read rush game to great effect. The Packers were helpless.

They then give up 3 big plays and 69 yards on 7 total in less than two minutes, which saves the Seahawks that timeout and the two-minute warning as well. The onside kick happens. Seattle gets 50 yards in 4 plays and somehow they’re able to convert what is effectively a Hail Mary 2pt Conversion to go up by 3 with 85 seconds remaining. (How Ha Ha Clinton-Dix doesn’t make a play on that ball is beyond belief – it could’ve changed everything with a field goal still for the win!).

Aaron Rodgers got them in position for the game-tying kick to take it into overtime, Crosby nails it, but once Seattle won the coin toss it felt like the script was written. Remember how they beat Denver in OT in the regulars?

Sticking With It

Russell Wilson had targeted Jermaine Kearse five times during regular time, for four interceptions and an incompletion. Wilson goes deep right to Doug Baldwin on 3rd and 7 for 35 yards and the very next play Kearse gets way too much space to run into over the middle as he gets the jump on his marker. Wilson sees him. Kearse makes the catch. Redemption.

Wilson to Kearse, 35 yard touchdown. The Seahawks win the game, win the NFC and will be playing for the Super Bowl. Green Bay head back to Wisconsin to lick their self-inflicted wounds.

It still doesn’t make sense. What an amazing game.