Russell Wilson comes up way short in clutch, DK Metcalf fumes, Seahawks lose at Rams 20-10

It — a rare, improbable, must-have win over the Rams, keeping alive flickering playoff hopes — was all right there for the Seahawks.

Russell Wilson didn’t take it. DK Metcalf and DeeJay Dallas fumed over it.

And the meaningful part of Seattle’s season ended, with three games still to play.

Wilson underthrew Metcalf when he was 5 yards past his All-Pro shadow for a touchdown that would have tied the game in the fourth quarter. Given the stakes, it was one of the worst passes of Wilson’s mostly glorious, 10-year career. Metcalf angrily punched the air, knowing he would have tied the game at 17.

“I wish I could have that one back,” Wilson said.

But Carlos Dunlap got his third sack of the game to end the Rams’ next drive. Wilson had another chance.

On third and 1, Rashaad Penny jumped into a false-start penalty. He got dumped for no gain on third and 6.

On fourth down, Wilson threw while getting hit by an unblocked pass rusher, to Dallas. The running back leaped for the ball that was slightly underthrown. Rams linebacker Earnest Jones jumped into him and contacted Dallas before the pass arrived.

“Unfortunate,” Wilson said of the officials’ decision there.

“That was a big moment.”

Instead of pass interference and a key Seattle first down, official flagged the irate Dallas for kicking the ball along the turf way up field following the the no-call. That 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty on Dallas sent Los Angeles to the clinching field goal of the depleted, screaming Seahawks’ 20-10 loss Tuesday at SoFi Stadium.

“There’s a couple plays we could have made,” coach Pete Carroll said.

“We needed to finish. ...This was a game of opportunities. Some of them we captured. Some of them we didn’t.”

The coach called it extremely difficult “to live with that.”

The defeat was like Seattle’s season: inconsistent, and ultimately maddeningly frustrating.

It ensures the Seahawks (5-9) will finish with a season with a losing record for the first time since 2011. That was the final season before they drafted Wilson to be their man.

He wasn’t in the clutch Tuesday.

Wilson completed just 17 of 31 passes for 156 yards and a final, chuck-it-up interception in the end zone in garbage time of a game postponed two days after the Rams had 29 players go on the reserve/COVID-19 list.

Los Angeles got 17 of those players back by kickoff. The Seahawks played without nine on the COVID list, including top receiver Tyler Lockett, season rushing leader Alex Collins and starting cornerback D.J. Reed.

“The delay helped them,” Carroll said. “It didn’t hamper us — other than not having Tyler. Tyler’s one of the best players we’ve ever seen.”

Carroll said he was shown a video clip of the officials’ non-call of Dallas getting contacted on fourth down late, and “it didn’t look good.”

But, the coach added, “I’m not bellyaching about that call.

“We need to win the game in all the other ways we could win the game.”

NFL receiving leader Cooper Kupp had 136 yards on nine catches with the go-ahead touchdown early in the fourth quarter.

The Seahawks’ losses to COVID-19 since Thursday had trickle-down effects that doomed Seattle.

Bless Austin, starting at right cornerback because Reed was home following his positive coronavirus test, flailed and contacted Kupp in the open field while the Seahawks were getting a third-down stop deep in L.A.’s end. It was early in the fourth quarter of a 10-10 game. Field judge Tom Hill ruled Austin was holding Kupp, a 5-yard penalty and automatic first down. The foul was more illegal contact just at the 5-yard point beyond the line of scrimmage any defensive contact with an eligible receiver is allowed.

Austin and Carroll were incensed. But in the NFL, if you put hands on a receiver down the field, officials more often than not flag it — just not on Wilson’s fourth-down pass to Dallas late.

Instead of the Seahawks getting the ball back, the Rams’ drive continued on Austin’s defensive-holding penalty and automatic first down.

Coaches benched Austin after his penalty. They put John Reid in for him in the crux of the game. Reid had six defensive snaps all season before that.

“Third-down penalties, those are always tough,” safety Quandre Diggs, saying that was a team-wide problem Tuesday.

That gift drive ended with Kupp racing past linebacker Jordyn Brooks over the middle for a 29-yard touchdown catch and run from Matthew Stafford. Los Angeles led 17-10 with 11 minutes left.

Still, Seattle’s defense did enough to win the game. Again.

“It’s tough. It’s tough,” Everett said.

“We have just have to be better on offense.”

Dallas had gotten the Seahawks into the lead by plowing through the opening drive of the second half. Teammates were slapping the often-boiling Metcalf on the back and chest on the sideline for his third-down catch in front of Jalen Ramsey. That got Dallas in position for two runs the final 12 yards of an 11-play march to Seattle’s 10-3 lead.

It was the best, most physical drive of the Seahawks’ skittering season.

“Exactly what we needed to get going,” Carroll said.

That drive not only gave the Seahawks the lead, it got Metcalf back into the game.

With Lockett not playing still on the COVID-19 list following a positive test Thursday, Metcalf was Seattle’s only real threat at wide receiver. And the Rams knew it.

They had Ramsey, just off the COVID list Sunday, sticking on Metcalf not entirely but for the biggest plays, usually on third down. Wilson targeted him early in the second quarter on a third and 6. Ramsey made a decisive cut in front of Metcalf’s out route and deflected the pass away. Los Angeles maintained its 3-0 lead.

Later in the second, the Seahawks moved the ball for the only time in the half the way they often do: in frantic, hurry-up mode at the end of a half.

Metcalf was running down the field waving his arms while open for one of the few times Tuesday, against what appeared to be zone coverage instead of Ramsey shadowing him. Wilson was trying to throw deep to him. But the pass-rushing Miller hit Wilson’s arm as the QB threw. The hit caused the pass to flail shorter instead, to tight end Gerald Everett. It became an accidental, 34-yard completion that got Seattle into the red zone, instead of touchdown pass to the alone Metcalf in the end zone.

Wilson then got sacked on first down. On third down, the Seahawks’ frustrating first half on offense ended with Wilson throwing late and about 5 yards out of bounds over the goal line in Metcalf’s general direction. That was on third and 17.

As Jason Myers was kicking the tying field goal, Wilson was trying to talk to Metcalf as the receiving was stomping away up the sideline. Metcalf kept walking, gesturing sharply with his arms.

Metcalf finished with six catches on 12 targets, for 52 yards. The catches and targets were team highs. One of Wilson’s passes went off his hands, hard and short in the right flat in the third quarter.

“They are trying their ass off to play right,” Carroll said of Metcalf with Wilson.

“The calls are there. We are trying to get the ball there. We’ve just got to throw it and catch it and make the plays, and we’ve got to get the job done.

“We’ve got to throw it better, and we’ve got to make sure that we make our plays.”

The half ended with the game tied at 3 despite Seattle having the ball for just 9 of the first 30 minutes. As Wilson jogged past him with his helmet still on, the helmet-less Metcalf walked slowly in what appeared to be a lower, simmering boil. A team staffer walked with him off the field into the tunnel to the locker room.

At that point, Metcalf had two receptions for 11 yards. Wilson had targeted him on three of his 13 throws in the first half.

The Seahawks had the ball for just nine of the game’s first 30 minutes, continuing a season-long and debilitating trend.

What’s left for these Seahawks?

“We’re playing for each other,” Carroll said.

“You saw how hard we played tonight.”

For the 28-year-old Diggs, the final three games — versus Chicago, versus Detroit Jan. 2, at Arizona Jan. 9 — should be about each Seahawk being a professional.

An unfamiliar position, to be sure, for a team that has made the playoffs eight of the last nine seasons.

“They pay you to play 17 games,” Diggs said. “You have to be locked in to play 17 games.”

Ongoing COVID situation

Carroll said the nine Seahawks on the COVID list: “Our guys aren’t sick” currently, though he had said Lockett had a rough first day Thursday after his positive result.

The coach said his players being out yet not feeling sick makes it a doubly frustrating situation.

The Seahawks have four days between this loss and playing the Chicago Bears (4-10) at Lumen Field Sunday.

Not a very Merry football Christmas.

“I don’t think we are done with this thing,” Carroll said of COVID’s spreading Omicron variant.

“I think we are still dealing with it.”

Diggs’ price keeps rising

Diggs, a Pro Bowl safety for the first time last season, equaled his career high with his fifth interception of the season in the second quarter. It kept the Rams from adding to their 3-0 lead.

Stafford was trying to hit Cooper Kupp down the left seam. The Rams had no center-field pass route to occupy Diggs in the middle of the field. Diggs glided over across the front of the goal line and easily intercepted his former Detroit teammate’s line-drive throw.

“I definitely wasn’t supposed to be over there,” Diggs said. “It’s just (football) IQ.”

It was his second interception of Stafford this season, and fifth in five regular-season games against L.A. since Diggs came to Seattle in a trade from the Lions in the middle of the 2019 season.

This is the final season of his contract. He’s wanted a new one from the Seahawks since before this past summer, when he held in and refused to practice. The team gave him more guaranteed money for this year instead of a new deal.

The Seahawks did nothing with Diggs’ turnover offensively. Officials penalized guard Damien Lewis for holding on the first play of the ensuing drive, a productive run by Rashaad Penny. On third down Von Miller, off the Rams’ COVID list Tuesday, sacked Wilson.

Diggs had five interceptions in 2020, his first full year with the Seahawks. He has 13 picks in 36 games for Seattle, since his mid-2019 trade from Detroit.

Brooks’ growth

Brooks, the team’s top draft pick in 2020, continued his rapid and decisive improvement in year two.

Specifically defending screen passes.

Opponents such as the Titans and Vikings exploited the replacement for departed screen master K.J. Wright in September. But Brooks had vastly improved his recognition and decisiveness against blockers and receivers on the screen passes.

The Rams had regained the momentum and the ball in a 10-10 game late in the third quarter when on second and 10 Brooks fought through getting blocked as L.A. running back Sony Michel caught the latest screen pass against Seattle. With a Rams lineman all over him Brooks grabbed Michel with one hand and threw him down for a loss of 1 yard.

That led to Seattle getting a three and out. The game remained tied into the fourth quarter.

Dickson, again

Michael Dickson continued to be the Seahawks’ best and most consistent player this season.

The NFL leader in fan voting for the Pro Bowl nailed his 35th punt this season inside the opponents’ 20-yard line, in the first half. That is a new Seattle record for one season.