RENTON — The Seahawks’ playoff hopes? They aren’t dead.
But they’re not far from that.
Seattle’s postseason chances plummeted Sunday after their 27-24 home loss to Minnesota.
“We’ve got to move on,” coach Mike Macdonald said Monday. “We’ve got to go.”
He was going. The rookie head coach and his assistants reviewed the film of the Vikings tape Monday morning — plus the game tapes of the Bears. By afternoon they had formed much of their game plan for Seattle’s game Thursday at Chicago (4-11).
The Seahawks have a 12% chance of making the playoffs, according to The New York Times’ and The Upshot’s NFL playoff picture.
As an infamous scene from the infamous film Dumb and Dumber immortalized, relating to Seattle and the playoffs: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?!”
“The destiny is out of (our) hands right now, and that stings,” Macdonald said. “But we’ve got a lot to play for, still. Like we were talking about this morning with our staff, we’re just going to keep hammering away, until this thing cracks.
“I think it’s right there. And we’re going to be ready when that happens.”
Seattle’s loss to Minnesota and the Rams’ win at the New York Jets put Los Angeles (9-6) one game plus a head-to-head tiebreaker ahead of Seattle atop the NFC West. Two games remain in the regular season. The Seahawks are basically eliminated from contention for a wild-card way into the playoffs.
The most (relatively) realistic way for the Seahawks to make the playoffs by winning the West is first for Arizona, 7-8 and eliminated from the playoffs, to beat the Rams in Inglewood, California, Saturday. A second win for the Cardinals over L.A. this season plus a Seahawks victory at Chicago Thursday would set up a Seahawks-at-Rams division title game in the season finale the first weekend of January.
In fact, if the Seahawks and Rams both lose this week, Seattle-Los Angeles in week 18 would still be for the NFC West title. That’s because if the Rams lose to the Cardinals and then to the Seahawks in week 18, L.A. would drop behind Seattle in the division-record tiebreaker (4-2 to 3-3). Division record would become the deciding tiebreaker the league would apply, after head-to-head results.
Seattle and L.A. would be tied at a win each against each other if the Seahawks were to win in week 18. The Rams won at Seattle 26-20 in overtime Nov. 3.
If the Seahawks and Rams both win in week 17, Seattle could still win the NFC West with a victory at Los Angeles in the regular-season finale — but only if a wild amount of other games all go the Seahawks’ way.
The Seahawks winning out and the Rams beating Arizona and losing to Seattle would leave both the Seahawks and Rams with 10-7 records. They would each be tied in head-to-head, division record, record in common games, plus in conference games. In this scenario, the division title would come down to the fifth NFL tiebreaker: strength of victory in all games.
University of Pennsylvania economics lecturer Deniz Selman runs analytics models of NFL playoff scenarios. Selman outlined the combination of other game results, beginning Monday night with the Packers hosting the Saints to end week 16, that the Seahawks would need to pass the Rams in the strength of victory tiebreaker.
By this assessment, the Seahawks need the teams Seattle has beaten this season to win and the teams the Rams have defeated to lose.
There are also combinations of game results around the league that could eliminate the Seahawks from playoff contention after this week’s games.
As wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba said of what it all means, of what the Seahawks have to do now:
“Win.”
Work-schedule change
As frustrating for the Seahawks as the winnable loss to Minnesota was, they are on to Chicago.
With Christmas in the middle of that.
“Short week. And, I guess it’s the best gift you can get after a tough loss like that is the opportunity to move forward in a short week and get going,” Macdonald said.
The coach changed the Seahawks’ short-week schedule this time compared to the Thursday game they played following a Sunday game in early October, against the 49ers at home (a 36-24 loss). He gave them this Monday off from preparation; it was a recovery-only day for the players.
Unlike the last short week, the players are getting the game plan from coaches Tuesday morning instead of Monday, then installing it in practice Tuesday.
“I felt like our guys needed a full recovery day,” Macdonald said of Monday.
Tuesday, Christmas Eve, was a full practice day.
Wednesday, Macdonald had planned to give his players most of the morning off to be with families and loved ones on Christmas. They will have an 11 a.m. practice Wednesday, later than usual.
“Look, at the end of the day, football doesn’t rank first on the hierarchy of needs here,” said Macdonald, who has a wife and newborn baby boy at home. “It’s really important for our players and our coaches to be home with their families.
“We’ll start later on Wednesday.”
Wednesday afternoon the Seahawks will fly to Chicago for the game Thursday against the Bears at Soldier Field (5:15 p.m., Amazon Prime).
Running back injuries
Macdonald said he had no update on the imaging tests the coach had said lead running back Kenneth Walker was getting Sunday night on his injured ankle. Walker left the Vikings game in the fourth quarter and did not return.
He had 31 yards on eight carries, plus eight catches on eight pass targets for 28 yards receiving. Offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb stopped trying to run him at Minnesota and had Geno Smith throw short passes to Walker to get the running back the ball in the open field.
Walker had missed the previous two games with a calf injury.
Number-two back Zach Charbonnet injured his elbow during the loss to the Vikings. The Seahawks listed him as non-participant in a league-required estimate for a Thursday game if they had practiced on Monday.
“He was limited during the game,” Macdonald said, “but signs are positive with Zach right now.”
Extra Points
• Macdonald on Geno Smith, 31 of 43 passing for 314 yards, three touchdowns, two interceptions and two sacks against Minnesota, including a killer, 7-yard one from the Vikings 36-yard line with 3 minutes left that pushed Seattle out range for a realistic field-goal chance for Jason Myers to tie the game late: “I thought he played good enough to win the game.” The coach also said of Smith: “Everyone wants to talk about the interceptions, and rightly so.”
• Asked how his offensive line played against a Vikings defense that entered Sunday fourth in the NFL in sacks: “The first 75% of the game I thought we handled that very well. …Then at the end we probably gave up too many pressures.”
• Macdonald did not want to detail what happened on Seattle’s final offensive play of the Vikings game, Smith’s interception deep right with 55 seconds left from his own 12-yard line. Smith threw in the direction of DK Metcalf. Metcalf ran a deep route, turned and then didn’t react to the pass. “We’ll get that fixed in house,” the coach said.
• Of Grubb’s 13 called running plays to running backs and 45 drop backs to pass against the Vikings, Macdonald said: “Some of the things Minnesota was doing got us out of runs early in the game… There’s more going on than just called runs and called passes.”
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