The Seattle Seahawks (9-4-1) clinched their fourth NFC West Division title under head coach Pete Carroll with a stout defensive effort that jumped kicked a sluggish offense to a 24 to 3 win over Division rivals Los Angeles Rams.
The Seattle defense answered the call to action early and oftenThursday night. The inspired Seahawks defense stopped the Rams offense on its first possession of the game.Unfortunately, the Seahawks offense continued its sleepwalking routine from last Sunday’s lethargic showing at Green Bay and self-destructed after getting two false start penalties on its first possession of the game and promptly punted the ball back to the Rams.
The Rams offense looked liked it would be first to score when Jared Goff drove the team down to the Seattle seven yard line but was unable to go any further as the Seattle defense held the Rams Todd Gurley to no gain on a 4th down and one.
INSPIRED SEATTLE OFFENSE
The defensive stand woke up the Seattle offense from its sleepwalk routine and the unit promptly marched 93 yards down the field and broke the scoreless deadlock when Russell Wilson hit Luke Wilson on an 8-yard pass play to give the Seahawks the 7-0 lead with 12:27 left in the first quarter. The Seattle defense held the Rams to a three and out and the Seahawks increased their lead to 10-7 on a 48-yard field goal by Steven Hauschka. The Rams offense found its rhythm right before half and narrowed the Seattle lead to 10-7 on a 36-yard field goal by Greg Zuerlein.
FIRST HALF REPEAT
The Seattle offense sputtered coming out of the halftime break punted. Just like the first half the Seattle defense stood tall and forced a Rams Punt. And right on cue the offense marched 62 yards and scored on a one-yard pass play when Russell Wilson found a wide open Doug Baldwin for the Touchdown to stretch Seattle lead to 17-3. The Seattle defense continued it’s dominance of the Rams offense and the Seahawks offense clicked once again and put the game out of reach when Russell Wilson made it three touchdowns for the day when he hit Tyler Lockett on a 57-yard pass play to complete the scoring at 24-3.
While the game was a bounce back for the team as a whole, the improved one game performance was a point of satisfaction for Wilson who’s performance was a far cry from last Sunday’s career low performance.
TAKEAWAYS
This is a difficult team to figure out in that you never really know what you are going to get outside of hard and determined effort. Outside of the Carolina game, there is no other game where the team executed in all phases of the game. The 40 to 7 win over the Panthers was followed by a lackluster 38-10 loss to the Green Bay Packers. The win over the Panthers came on the heels of an unexplainable 5-14 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The question that has and continues to loom is, can this team string together a two or three-game win streak and create some momentum heading into the postseason? Seattle’s last two games are at home Dec 24th vs the 4-10 Arizona Cardinals and January 1st at the 1-12 San Francisco 49ers.
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