If there was a play that defined the first half of the season for the Seattle Seahawks, it came with 32 seconds remaining in Seattle’s Week 6 game against the Carolina Panthers. Seattle enters Bank of America Stadium on Sunday trying to become the first team to reach three consecutive Super Bowls in the NFL’s salary-cap era, which began in 1994. While Newton is certainly a threat to run with the ball, Carolina’s primary rushing weapon is that of Jonathan Stewart, who has 989 yards rushing and six TD’s on the season. The top-seeded Panthers and sixth-seeded Seahawks arguably are the best teams in the NFC, perhaps the NFL. Both times, they came up woefully empty.
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Granted, the temperature was less than zero, and therefore less than ideal, and the Vikings have s stout defense. Last season, Carolina faced Seattle twice, and lost both – 13-9 in the regular season in Charlotte and 31-17 in the divisional round in Seattle. Since then, the Seahawks have won nine of their 11 games.
– Speaking of Walsh, this is a great story about him after the game.
If the Seahawks do manage to make it back it’ll be with the word, rematch, underlined everywhere. The Panthers ended up winning the game, 27-23. The Seahawks may have had lady luck on their side last week against the Vikings but there will be no need for luck this week. Several players said after that win they expected to see the Seahawks again in the postseason.
The Seahawks have been victimized by tight ends all season long, and the entire second and third levels of the defense have been culpable – linebackers, cornerbacks and safeties have all missed assignments in critical situations.
Sunday’s game isn’t about payback, at least not to Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton. If Russell Wilson had to pick one of those guys to take home the award, he’d go with Newton. Kelvin Benjamin led the way for Carolina offensively, catching seven balls for 75 yards and two touchdowns. The Seahawks, who have played in the past two Super Bowls (winning after the 2013 season, losing last season), are accustomed to going through the playoffs as a high seed, seldom playing away from home.
Sunday, who will win the individual matchup, Olsen or Chancellor? The team that settles for field goals when the other team is scoring touchdowns is the team that will be starting its winter vacation early. Other teams in the National Football League have noticed this and exposed the weaknesses. If anything, there was probably a whole lot of praying going on. “At this point in time, everybody you play against will be a very good football team”.
While much of the National Football League has been busy over the last day or so consumed with where some teams (Rams, Chargers, Raiders) may end up ultimately going, the focus in the Pacific Northwest is on where the Seahawks might be going, as in the NFC playoffs.
Seattle is 3-2 SU in games where it wins the turnover battle this season, and an even 4-4 SU in games where it loses the turnover battle.
Anyone watching his performance in the wildcard round win, however, knows that Bennett was much more disruptive than these numbers indicate.
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With Seattle getting less than a field goal in their visit to Carolina, the betting line indicates that the Seahawks would be favored against the Panthers on a neutral field.
