SEATTLE — Long after almost everybody else had cleared out, they remained, talking together in front of Kam Chancellor’s locker.
It was impossible to know from across the locker room what was being said, but from the body language, the head-shaking and the lack of smiles it was clear that this was perhaps the toughest loss yet for the Legion of Boom.
By then, everybody knew what happened on the play that cost the Seattle Seahawks the game in a 27-23 loss to the Carolina Panthers on Sunday at CenturyLink Field.
Inconceivably, Carolina tight end Greg Olsen ran right down the numbers on the right side of the field, completely uncovered as he hauled in a 26-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Cam Newton with 32 seconds remaining in the game.
What made it so maddening is that the reason was so simple.
Seattle’s vaunted defensive backs — who have secured so many victories the last two Super Bowl years, who pride themselves on their cohesion and unity, who come out of the tunnel in pregame introductions as a group — were playing two different coverages on the same play.
“We were playing different defenses. Sherm was playing LA. I was in a hook, playing Cover 3. That’s what happened,” Seattle safety Earl Thomas said, referring to cornerback Richard Sherman.
“When I got back to the sideline the coach was like, ‘I called LA,’ and me and Kam were playing Cover 3. The whole backside was playing Cover 3. Sherm is close to the sideline, so he had the correct call. We just didn’t play what was called,” Thomas said.
Whatever is meant by LA and Cover 3 is for people who know more about football than the rest of us, but apparently the difference is enough so that a hot receiver gets to run straight down the field with nobody paying him any attention.
Olsen finished the game as Carolina’s leading receiver, by far, with seven receptions for 131 yards and the game-winning touchdown.
On the decisive play he ran right between Sherman and Thomas, with neither sliding over to run with him.
“That was just a kind of fluky play because we were playing two different plays at the same time,” Sherman said. “Any time you’re doing that, it’s tough in this league. It’s not going to work out well.”
Adding to the frustration was the fact that for most of the game, Seattle’s secondary had played extremely well against the pass.
Through three quarters, Newton had completed only eight of 21 passes for 107 yards and no touchdowns, and Thomas and Chancellor each had an interception.
Newton’s quarterback rating going into the fourth quarter was 11, and it looked for all the world as though the Seahawks had turned things around in their pass defense.
Thomas, in fact, was having a tremendous game as he had four passes defensed in addition to his interception.
“I came into this game with my mind made up what I was going to try to do, and I think I played one of the best games of my career,” Thomas said. “But it sucks when it ends like that, you know? All the other stuff just went out the window. All of it. That’s out the window.”
Seattle (2-4) appeared to be in excellent shape after linebacker Bruce Irvin sacked Newton to set up second-and-19 from the Seattle 49-yard line with 1:20 remaining in the game.
The Panthers (5-0) called their final timeout after that play, and, surely, the Seahawks could close it out from second-and-19.
“I did, but I didn’t,” Irvin said when asked if he thought his sack, his second of the game, would be the decisive play, “There was a lot of time on the clock and we just had to keep playing, and they caught us sleeping.”
Newton passed for 16 and 7 yards on the next two plays, and after spiking the ball to stop the clock with 37 seconds, he found Olsen alone in the end zone for the game-winning touchdown.
“We’re playing hard. There was just miscommunication on the back end,” Irvin said of the fateful play. “Obviously, they were on different pages.”
On Carolina’s last two drives, Newton was 11 for 14 for 157 yards and two touchdowns. Both of those drives went 80 yards.
Last week, Cincinnati scored two touchdowns and kicked two field goals in the fourth quarter and overtime, and Seattle has been outscored 33-3 the past two weeks in the fourth quarter and overtime.
Including last year’s Super Bowl, the Seahawks have lost a fourth-quarter lead in six of their last eight games, losing five of them.
It’s as inexplicable as it is frustrating.
“These guys were playing great and kept doing stuff and made plays,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said of his defense. “How Kam played and how Earl played, they were all over the field making things happen, crucial tackles and plays on the ball and all of that.
“We just needed one more play somewhere in there, and we weren’t able to find it.”
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