Lauren Smith
The News Tribune
SEATTLE — Russell Wilson kept coming back to the same phrase in his postgame press conference Monday night at CenturyLink Field — the Seahawks found a way to win the game.
Seattle produced one of its worst offensive outings of the season, relied heavily on its sturdy defense — which shut out Minnesota until less than two minutes remained the fourth quarter — and mustered a late rushing score to push its lead to two possessions.
Moments later, Justin Coleman returned a fumble for a score to give the Seahawks a comfortable three-possession lead.
But, what eventually turned into a 21-7 win over the Vikings — that has Seattle one win away from clinching a playoff berth next week — wasn’t as tidy as the score suggests.
“If you want to be a championship team, you have to find ways to win — even when it doesn’t look pretty,” Wilson said. “We’ve had a lot of great games, and we’ve had some tough ones where we’ve found ways to get through it. And, tonight, we stayed the course and we kept battling.”
Battling, and eventually breaking through in the game’s final minutes.Entering the fourth quarter, the Seahawks were clinging to a 3-0 lead. The offense finished with just 274 total yards.
“We’ve been really explosive on offense and scoring a lot of points of late. Tonight, we weren’t able to,” Wilson said. “Our defense really picked us up in a big way. That was cool to see and fun to be a part of.”
Wilson, who entered the game with a 115.5 passer rating for the season — the best for a single season in his seven-year career — turned in one of his worst passing outings.
Wilson’s passing yards (72) and passer rating (37.9) for the game were both career lows. He finished 10 of 20 passing for the 72 yards and threw an interception in the closing seconds of the first half, when the Seahawks had a first-and-goal at the Minnesota 1.
The only other instances in his career where his passer rating in a game dropped into the 30’s were against Tampa Bay in 2016 (38.8) and San Francisco in 2012 (38.7). And, both of those games resulted in losses.
“We had some chances down the field and unfortunately we weren’t able to make them,” Wilson said. “But, we also got a big pass interference (call), we got some big plays. David (Moore) made a sweet catch on that one (play). He almost got his second foot down. That would have been a sweet touchdown. Just barely, by inches.
“That’s kind of how the game was throughout. But, like I said, we continued to battle. We continued to make plays.”
Seattle eventually pieced together just enough, and scored its only offensive touchdown with 2:57 remaining in the fourth quarter. The Seahawks ran the ball on seven consecutive plays, capping the drive with Chris Carson’s 2-yard touchdown plunge up the middle.
And, on the second play of the drive, Wilson scrambled for 40 yards — the longest run of the game, and longest Minnesota has given up this season — to set the Seahawks up just outside of the red zone.
“Yeah, that was frustrating,” Vikings safety Harrison Smith said. “He’s an athletic guy, so he can make that play. It was a good play by him.”
“You’re going to look at the numbers and see that Russ was 10 for 20, or something like that, but when you add it all up — 42 runs and 10 completions — that’s the 50 we’re looking for, so it worked out just fine tonight,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said.
Despite the clunky offensive outing, Wilson did collect his 73rd regular season win, passing Baltimore’s Joe Flacco (72 wins) atop the NFL’s all-time list for most wins by a quarterback in their first seven seasons.
And, left tackle Duane Brown said, while the offensive struggles against Minnesota were frustrating, the Seahawks just “stayed the course.”
“We are playing hard, we are playing for each other. We found all kinds of ways to win,” Brown said. “Last week, we put up 40-plus points. This week, we had (three) points on the board going into the half. We find a way to win. That’s the mark of a great football team. We are dangerous right now.”
