Seahawks defeat Chiefs and are playoff bound!

The Seahawks defeated the Chiefs on Sunday 38-31 and clinched a playoff spot. Here is what happened.

What a strange NFL season this has been. The best part of the year, though, has been how the Seahawks have exceeded nearly every expectation and made the playoffs. On Sunday, Seattle defeated Kansas City 38-31 and now have a spot in the NFC playoffs.

The concern coming into the game was how Seattle’s secondary would do against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City offense. As it turned out, and even though Seattle gave up 31 points, the defense did OK.

A couple of touchdowns Kansas City did score were simply because Mahomes is some kind of quarterbacking savant. The defense did its job on those plays; Mahomes was simply better.

But this game did not belong to Mahomes. It belonged to Chris Carson and Doug Baldwin and Tyler Lockett and others. Seattle wanted to run the ball and control the clock. Check and check. Seattle ran for 210 yards and held the ball for 35:02 versus the Chiefs’ 24:58.

Carson ran for 116 yards on 27 carries and two touchdowns and passed the 1,000 yards rushing mark for the year. He is a very good running back and will continue to be in Seattle for years to come. This alone is reason to celebrate as a Seahawks fan.

Carson ran bullish on several runs, but none was greater than his 1-yard touchdown run when he literally ran over two Chiefs.

Baldwin had seven catches for 126 yards a touchdown. And he had this beautiful catch on Seattle’s final touchdown drive of the game.

And nearly as good was Lockett who finished with 99 yards on four catches, including this gem.

The Seahawks game plan was to keep the Chiefs off the field. Besides the time of possession, Seattle ran 75 plays to Kansas City’s 60. The Chiefs defense simply started to tire at the end. The banged-up Seahawks offensive line protected Russell Wilson well enough and this was a fairly complete Seattle victory.

Now the team can basically rest in week 17 versus the Cardinals. And one big reason is that the players on the 2018 roster simply want to play as a Seahawks team. Baldwin and Carson, to name two, appeared to get nicked up during the game and came back to play and be productive.

Forget players who didn’t want to be Seahawks in 2018, players like Richard Sherman and Michael Bennett. While Seattle will be going back to the playoffs, Sherman will be watching postseason games on his TV. Bennett might be too. 12s can be proud of this year’s team because they work their tails off to compete and win.