SEATTLE – The best and worst of the Seattle Seahawks were on display for a national television audience Monday night.
As has been the case too often this season, the worst won out.
The Seahawks piled up 507 yards of offense. But they couldn’t stop Dallas Cowboys running back Julius Jones.
Michael V. Martina / The Herald
The Seahawks scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. But they allowed two in the final 1 minute and 45 seconds.
The Seahawks rallied from a 15-point deficit to go ahead by 10 points late in the fourth quarter. But they lost.
Again.
In a near replay of the St. Louis Rams’ comeback over Seattle eight weeks ago, the Seahawks gave up a late lead and lost, this time 43-39 to the Cowboys.
“It’s real hard to swallow,” linebacker Orlando Huff said in a sedate Seahawks locker room afterward. “You think that once you have a nightmare, it’s never going to happen again. Then it happens again, and it’s sickening.”
Just in case anyone outside of Seattle or St. Louis missed that historic comeback, the Seahawks gave an encore performance on Monday Night Football.
Seattle scored 25 unanswered points over a span of 15 minutes, 15 seconds in the second half, taking a 39-29 lead with 2:46 to go.
But Dallas (5-7) scored two touchdowns, sandwiched around an onside kick, in a span of 1:13 to go ahead 43-39.
Seattle’s final shot at the last word fell short when Matt Hasselbeck’s Hail-Mary pass bounced between players in the end zone before finally hitting the ground.
“We were our own worst enemy tonight,” coach Mike Holmgren said. “We do some really good things, and then we do some things that demonstrate our lack of maturity. It has cost us this season – dearly.”
In a season filled with unbelievable meltdowns, Monday night’s ranks among the most painful. Seattle got off to a great start, with the offense marching down the field on the first two drives and taking a 14-3 lead before everything started to fall apart.
Two Seattle turnovers – fumbles by Jerheme Urban and Hasselbeck – allowed the Cowboys to score two touchdowns to take a 19-14 halftime lead. All the while, the familiar catcalls that have become a staple at Qwest Field showered the Seahawks players.
Hasselbeck completed 12 of 14 passes in the first half, but Seattle’s two turnovers prevented the Seahawks from scoring more points.
Turnovers continued to kill them in the second half, as Shaun Alexander fumbled the ball away on Seattle’s second play of the third quarter. Dallas needed just two plays to score, with Julius Jones getting into the end zone for his second touchdown and a 26-14 Cowboys lead. A Dallas field goal built that lead up to 29-14 less than five minutes into the second half.
Then, as if the Seahawks had awoken from a season-long haze, Seattle put everything together at once. Seattle scored on four consecutive drives, including a Hasselbeck-to-Urban touchdown with 5:29 left in the game that gave the Seahawks their first lead of the second half, at 32-29.
The Cowboys’ hopes of getting back in front appeared to be squelched when Seahawks safety Ken Hamlin stepped in front of a Vinny Testaverde pass for an interception with 4:23 remaining in the game. Four plays later, Alexander broke free on a 32-yard touchdown run that put the Seahawks comfortably ahead at 39-29 with 2:45 to go.
Dallas needed less than a minute to answer, going 64 yards in four plays to get within 39-36 on Keyshawn Johnson’s incredible touchdown catch in the back of the end zone. Out of timeouts, the Cowboys tried an onside kick that bounced perfectly into the arms of tight end Jason Witten.
A Testaverde-to-Quincy Morgan 13-yard pass put Dallas in position for a possible field goal, then Jones broke off runs of 16 and 17 yards. The second one, which went right through the teeth of Seattle’s defense, went for the game-winning touchdown.
“We thought we had it,” said Seahawks safety Terreal Bierria, who recorded his first career interception but also got beaten on Johnson’s fourth-quarter touchdown. “The game is never over.”
Jones had 198 yards and three touchdowns to offset a breakout performance from Seattle’s offense. On a day when Alexander was held to a relatively modest total of 83 yards on 21 carries, Hasselbeck threw for a season-high 414 yards and three touchdowns.
In the end, it just wasn’t enough.
Not even the best Seahawks could overcome the worst Seahawks on Monday night.
“I had this feeling once before this season, but there’s nothing you can do about it now,” Hasselbeck said, referring to the 33-27 loss to St. Louis on Oct. 10 that saw the Rams scored 23 points over the final 8 minutes of play. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”
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