SEATTLE — Kam, that was good!
The Seahawks’ flying, strong-in-more-ways-than-one safety did everything except play quarterback to get Seattle to its second consecutive NFC championship game.
Kam Chancellor spent the first half rearranging Carolina ball carriers, knocking them yards back on their heels. He finished it by leaping cleanly over the snapper and landing on both feet to charge in on kicker on a Panthers’ field-goal try — twice.
In the second half, he finished Cam Newton and Carolina.
Chancellor stepped in front of Newton’s pass with the Panthers poised to score and ran the other way for the longest scoring play in Seahawks postseason history, 90 yards. That sealed Seattle’s 31-17 victory Saturday night in the NFC divisional playoffs at partying CenturyLink Field.
“All I saw was green,” Chancellor said with a huge grin. “And green means go.”
All the way to next Sunday’s conference title game for the Seahawks (13-4), at CenturyLink Field against the winner of this Sunday’s Dallas-at-Green Bay game.
Seattle has played both potential opponents. It beat Green Bay 36-16 in its opener Sept. 4 at home, then lost at home to Dallas 30-21 Oct. 12.
“I would love for the Cowboys to win,” Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett said, after disrupting his latest offensive line and backfield. “I’m from Texas. And they beat us.”
Richard Sherman also had an interception of Newton — and this succinct assessment of Chancellor that the Panthers might be living right now.
“He’s a freakin’ monster,” Sherman said. “He damages people’s souls.”
Russell Wilson completed 15 of 22 passes for 268 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. He was also 8-for-8 throwing on third downs against Carolina defense that stacked the middle of the field to defend his and Marshawn Lynch’s runs.
Wilson, already with the most wins (41) by a quarterback in the first three years of an NFL career, improved to 17-3 in December, January and February — including 5-1 in the playoffs.
“Sometimes,” Wilson said, “I think I am made for these situations.”
Jermaine Kearse caught Wilson’s second scoring throw — a Seattle playoff-long 63 yards — during his first career 100-yard receiving day. And Seattle, which became the first defending Super Bowl champion since the 2005 New England Patriots to win a playoff game.
It was a 14-10 lead for the Seahawks entering the final quarter, in which the Seahawks hadn’t given up a point since Week 11 at Kansas City on Nov. 16 — their last loss. The Panthers (8-9-1) broke that streak with a late Newton touchdown pass over Seahawks cornerback Tharold Simon, who got burned often as a surprise starter for Byron Maxwell. Maxwell had shortest of breath from a week-long illness, though he did play on punt teams.
But Carolina’s late score came only after Wilson’s third touchdown pass, to tight end Luke Willson for 25 yards with 10:26 left, and then Chancellor’s decisive interception had made it 31-10.
The 26-year-old Chancellor said it was his first interception returned for a touchdown at any level of football, even Pee Wee.
Wait, the thumping hitter the Seahawks call “Bam Bam” — the man who banged into Carolina’s Mike Tolbert so hard he knocked the fullback back 2 yards to deny him a first down late in the first half just before he twice hurdled the Panthers’ offensive line on a field-goal try and penalty re-try — was once a “Pee Wee”?
“He’s a ridiculous athlete,” Sherman said of the safety who has played through bone spurs in both ankles and a painful hip all season. “Bam Bam goes into dark places. You don’t bring your flashlights you’ll get lost.”
The only real negatives on an otherwise glorious-again Seahawks night in their seventh consecutive victory were starting center Max Unger limping off the field on a re-injured ankle with 3 minutes left, and rookie wide receiver leaving with a knee injury and not returning one play after his 21-yard catch in the third quarter.
Unger was on the sideline walking without medical attention as the game ended. Head coach Pete Carroll said the two-time Pro Bowl selection and glue to the offensive line that protected Wilson as well as it has in two years was feeling better. His status for the NFC title game is still to be determined, but it doesn’t look terrible.
A rollicking first half ended with the Seahawks leading 14-10, the most points Seattle had allowed in four games.
Carolina had scoring drives of 14 and 13 plays, the latter to end the first half with a field goal.
The game began as advertised, with one combined first down in the first four drives and three three-and-outs. The game’s first 18 plays by both of these defense-first teams netted a combined 49 yards.
But then Carolina began giving Newton more time to throw, partly because its offensive line began double-teaming Seahawks quick-twitch defensive end Michael Bennett.
Carolina’s 14-play, 79-yard drive ended with rookie Kelvin Benjamin catching a 7-yard touchdown pass from Cam Newton. That tied the game at 7 midway through the second quarter.
Benjamin had dropped what would have been a touchdown in the second quarter Oct. 26 in Seattle’s 13-9 win at Carolina.
The 14-play march was the longest drive for a touchdown against the Seahawks since Seattle’s last loss, Kansas City’s 15-play march to the game’s first score on Nov. 16.
The Panthers’ increased attention on Bennett began after he forced a fumble by breaking into the backfield in the first quarter. Teammate Tony McDaniel recovered at the Panthers 28.
That set up the game’s first score, Russell Wilson’s 16-yard pass to Doug Baldwin, when the wide receiver put a stutter-stop move on rookie safety Tre Boston.
Both of Seattle’s first-half touchdowns came on targets of rookie defensive backs that didn’t start for the Panthers in that first meeting this season. The Seahawks took a 14-7 lead with 4:54 left in the first half when Wilson precisely plopped a pass into the arm of Lakewood’s Jermaine Kearse over Carolina rookie cornerback Bene Benwikere. Kearse secured the one-arm catch and ran the rest of the way untouched for a 63-yard touchdown. It was the longest completion in Seahawks’ playoff history.
Wilson was nine for 13 passing for 149 yards and the two scores in the opening half. The Panthers held Seattle’s 1,300-yard rusher Marshawn Lynch to 21 yards on eight runs in the first two quarters.
Newton was 11 for 19 for 82 yards and an interception on the first of his four targets of Richard Sherman in the first half. Sherman almost had a second interception, jumping a slant route in the first half, but he dropped it. Carolina scored its touchdown a few plays later. Earl Thomas made a leaping catch at the Seahawks 2 of what officials initially ruled as an interception before a replay review saw Thomas had dropped the ball when he landed.
Those two dropped interceptions netted Carolina its 10 points of the opening half.
Seattle wide receiver Ricardo Lockette flipped the ball into the face of a Panther after his only catch of the first half, to the Carolina 27. That 15-yard unsportsmanlike foul cost Seattle a chance at a 44-yard field goal in the first quarter.
But another signature Seahawks second half —grinding offense, imposing its defensive will — ensured the end for the Panthers, who won their final four games of the regular season for the NFC South title. Carolina joined the 2010 Seahawks as the only teams to win a division with a losing record.
Newton was left looking as sad as teams usually do after playing in Seattle. The Seahawks won for the 25th time in 27 home games.
“The look on his face,” Bennett said, “was like he lost his puppy.”
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