Wild Card Weekend - Saturday 6th January 2007

Middle of the night tension was never supposed to be like this as the team that supposedly can't catch and can't tackle found a way to win by doing both as the clock ticked past 4am UK time.

The Seahawks have specialised in nerve jangling, unlikely finishes this season and now chose the start of the play offs to outdo even their own recent record. As Mike Holmgren said afterwards "If you coach long enough you wind up seeing just about everything" he wasn't joking.

The game started in an unusual way for the 2006 Seahawks as we took the opening possession and scored. After an opening play 6 yard reception by Seneca Wallace (yawn) the main feature of the drive, which started on the 40 after Gramatica's wonky kick, was a great 36 yard reception by the healthy again Bobby Engram. At first It looked like he might take it in for a score but was stopped on the 12. It was disappointing that we couldn't finish it off with a TD but as it turned out then a 23 yard kick proved to valuable indeed.

Next would come the test of the Seahawks defensive backs, especially rookie CB Kelly Jennings and loan officer Pete Hunter, signed on Tuesday played on Saturday. There was a moment of doom when Terry Glenn caught an 18 yard pass with Hunter looking like he was all over the place but to his credit he settled and ended up having a solid game.

The Cowboys were stopped and punted but it needn't have mattered as Hasselbeck gave then the ball straight back. It was a strange one as under no immediate pressure his attempted pass seemed to slip and it wobbled downfield into the arms of Cowboy Anthony Henry. Fortunately the damage was limited to a Cowboys field goal to level it up at 3-3.

Josh Brown took those points back after a long drive to the Dallas red zone was again held up and it was looking promising at this stage as the Seahawks controlled the ball whilst not conceding against our biggest worry, the Cowboys receivers.

Before the half though familiar frailties shone through as going for it on 4th and 2 with 39 seconds left Cowboys QB Romo found Jason Witten at the 3. Backed up on a penalty it mattered little as Crayton caught the next pass and pushed his way in despite the attentions of two Seahawks for 6-10 at the half.

Although down, the Seahawks seemed to hold the momentum as forcing a Cowboys 3 and out they went on a 13 play, 6 minute drive. It included two 4th and 1's before Hass found Jerramy Stevens (pictured above) on a 15 yard pass to take it in and the lead back at 13-10.

So, you've just put together your own chiselled from granite drive to take the lead the very worst thing that could happen would be to give up a kick off return but there he was, rookie Miles Austin skipping untouched down the sideline to put the Cowboys ahead again before my family had even got back to sleep.

After a punt apiece the game ticked into the 4th quarter and Hasselbeck was once again intercepted on the first play of a drive, this time after it was tipped down the sideline and once again the Cowboys turned it into 3 points for 13-20. Whether the knee and the broken finger are still troubling him I don't know but he has certainly been more inconsistent than anyone would have expected this season.

Now the game was really on the line with 10 minutes to go and the Seahawks were given a lifeline when, what I thought was a somewhat fortunate interference call on Nate Burleson, put the ball on the Cowboys 1 yard line. In 2005 the Seahawks were as automatic as you can be from this range but it all went wrong. Alexander was surrounded in the back field for a 7 yard loss which we never got all back on two passes setting up a 4th and goal from the 2 which also failed on a pass.

Deflated with 6:42 left the Cowboys pumped the balloon back up on the very next play with a pass into the flat for Terry Glenn who was immediately tackled by Kelly Jennings who got a hand on the ball and forced a fumble into the endzone. Anything out of bounds back there was going to be a safety but Lofa Tatupu made one of the smartest plays I recall by acrobatically flipping the ball back to keep it alive for Michael Boulware to collect for a TD.

Unfortunately on the Cowboys challenge Lofa had an inch of his foot out of bounds on the play and it was ruled as a safety and 2 points but importantly the Seahawks kept the ball.

Alexander completed another 3rd and 1 which set up Hass to find Jerramy Stevens, who had the nerve to catch the ball on his chest, and find the endzone to make it 21-20 to the Seahawks. Mike Carlson used his nfluk column to continue his personal vendetta against Jerramy Stevens, claiming he had the second most drops in the NFL this season. Mmm, unofficial stats of very dubious value seeing as Mike Sando of the Tacoma News Tribune, who uses an exacting standard himself, doesn't even have him in the top 2 Seahawks for drops!

Whatever, Stevens now has 4 post season TD's for the Seahawks, a record he shares with a certain Steve Largent.

All we the Seahawks had to do was to stop Romo one more time and the game was ours. Cue 35 yard run up the middle by Julius Jones. Jones hurt us in 2004 and here he was again taking it all the way to the 11 and a chip shot field goal at least.

With time still on the clock though there was still football in this one and on 3rd down Romo found Witten who was granted a first down at the 1. The spot was reviewed by the assistant and although he did look short it was one of those they don't normally change but good old Walt Anderson said he was stopped at the 1 1/2 and it was 4th down.

The kick was closer in than an extra point and it was snapped and caught cleanly but something wasn't right, my mind shouted FAKE which didn't seem right but there was Romo running it in only for Big Play Babs to chase him and bring him down close to the line of scrimmage and Seahawks ball.

In space no one can hear you scream but apparently the same isn't true of my living room given it's proximity to upstairs. On closer review Romo caught the ball cleanly but the ball slipped from his hand as he attempted to spot it. One thing that escaped much attention was that Kelly Jennings had actually broken through and thrown himself in Romo's eye line to block the kick and he might well have done so had it been spotted. Whether it was Jennings that caused Romo to take his eye off the ball will never be known but it was a great effort as was Babineaux's hustle to make the tackle.

There was still time on the clock but Shaun Alexander pulled another 20 yard run out of the hat to give the Seahawks some space. We were forced to punt and that only went 26 yards which gave Romo the chance to launch a Hail Mary with 7 seconds on the clock. What we saw was a meeting of the 2 extremes of the NFL as the unlikely figure of loan officer Pete Hunter batted it away from Terrell Owens.

So the Seahawks advance whilst the Cowboys go home but there is no doubt that the Seahawks deserved to win with advantages in time of possession, yards and downs. Also the makeshift Seahawks D had held Dallas to their 2nd worst game on Offense all season.

It was by no means perfect but very much a case of job done in difficult circumstances and possibly the most thrilling end to a play off game in Seahawk history.

HawksHead 8/1/06

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