RENTON — It all began with 88-year-old former Minnesota Vikings head coach Bud Grant walking to the middle of TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis in a purple short-sleeved polo shirt — in minus-6 degree temperatures.
Just about everything about the Seattle Seahawks’ 10-9 wild-card playoff victory over the Vikings on Sunday was unique, and Seattle head coach Pete Carroll was reveling in that uniqueness the day after.
“Seeing Bud out there early in the shirt-sleeves thing and everything, that was a great start to the game,” Carroll, who was an assistant coach under Grant with the Vikings in 1985, said Monday at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center. “There was just something about this game that made it really special. It was a unique opportunity all the way through to the very end of it.”
Perhaps the most unique aspect of the game was the weather. The minus-6 degrees at kickoff tied the game for the third-coldest in NFL history.
But while the prospect of playing and coaching in those conditions would make most shudder, for Carroll it made the experience all the more exhilarating.
“I had a blast,” Carroll said. “It was so much fun, because it was just so crazy. Everything about it is just crazy. The preparation part of it, the mental side of it that everybody was dealing with to get right so that they can be at their best, you could feel it and see it. There was big energy about that with our players and our coaches, too, because they didn’t want to succumb to it, they didn’t want to give in to it, and nobody did. So there was a real uplifted kind of emotion about just taking on the challenge and not being overwhelmed by the elements. So the whole thing was fun.”
The ending was also unusual. Seattle’s season seemed done and dusted when the Vikings lined up for a chip-shot 27-yard field goal with 26 seconds to play in the game. However, Minnesota kicker Blair Walsh pulled the kick wide left, much to the disbelief of all who were watching.
“It was a very fortunate victory for us,” Carroll admitted. “We played really good football and did a lot of cool stuff, but we were fortunate to win it, and on we go.”
Walsh had made field goals of 22, 43 and 47 yards earlier in the game. On the 47-yarder, which came late in the third quarter, Seattle’s Richard Sherman came rushing around the end and was within a fingernail’s length of getting a piece of the kick. Could the memory of Sherman nearly making the block have played a part in Walsh missing the kick to win the game?
“The final kick was kicked much faster than the other kicks,” Carroll said. “I’d need to give you the times, but it was considerably faster. So for whatever reason they sped up their mechanism, Sherm couldn’t have been closer (on the third field goal), we can’t figure out how he didn’t get it. So they went quite a bit faster. I don’t know, you’d have to ask them, but that fact is in there.”
The Seahawks under Carroll have also become that unique team that has no problem with falling behind in playoff games. After the game a statistic did the rounds: Since 2010, Seattle is 5-2 in playoff games in which it has trailed by nine or more points. The rest of the NFL is 6-41.
It’s a remarkable stat, one that suggests an uncommon resilience in these Seahawks.
“I saw that stat, too, today and I didn’t know it, but I couldn’t be more proud of that,” Carroll said. “That’s what we’re talking about, that’s how we hope to be. We’ve pulled off some pretty exciting finishes, and we’ve been part of the other end of it, too. But for the most part we’ve done it really well. It’s a really good thing to know about yourself when you’re going into these games. I may have mentioned to the guys we’re not out of the game, there’s still time. Whatever it takes, the offense or the defense, to get it going again. There’s a spark just waiting to happen to get us rolling, and we’re going to keep playing like that.”
A little less unique was the continued excellent play by Seattle’s defense. Seattle held Minnesota to 183 yards of offense, and it was the third time in the past six games the Seahawks did not allow the opposing offense into the ends zone.
The defense was particularly stout against Vikings running back Adrian Peterson. Peterson, the NFL’s rushing champion, was held to just 45 yards on 23 carries. It was the second time this season Seattle bottled up Peterson. He was held to a mere 18 yards on eight carries when the teams played during the regular season, a game won by Seattle 38-7.
“It’s really the discipline that they’ve played with,” Carroll said about why Seattle was able to shut Peterson down twice. “Both games were basically the same. It’s the discipline to understand the scheme that we play and the schemes that they use in their running game, just being patient and tough when you have to be, being physical at the line of scrimmage, and being really well coordinated because it takes all of that to keep him from breaking out. The one time we make a mistake he gets 12 yards. I thought it was a tremendous illustration of what it takes to play great run defense against a really excellent football player. It was play after play after play of continuing to do the right thing. That’s how it goes. It’s not just how tough you are or how fast you run or anything, you have to do things right and the guys are doing a great job of that.”
Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/seattlesidelines, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
