Bryant doin’ his thang

That ending of that game seemed almost fitting. After going down 20-0 in the first half the Seattle Seahawks clawed their way back into the game.  They actually took a one-point lead, with 31 seconds left on the clock. The Falcons were not going to go down easily though; after all, they have yet to win a playoff game with Mike Smith as head coach and Matt Ryan as quarterback. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to see Ryan pick apart the Seahawks secondary when they were sitting back in zone coverage.

As for the timeout right before Bryant’s first kick; I’m 95% sure that the whistles going off distracted Bryant enough for him to boot it wide right. That was one hell of a ball game though. The Falcons played out of their minds in the first half and took advantage of several mistakes by the Seahawks. Mike Smith came out with a game plan that no one was really expecting;

• They came out and unabashedly picked on Richard Sherman. That strategy paid off on the Roddy White TD towards the end of the second quarter.
• They were not afraid to run right at this defense; Jacquizz Rodgers finished with 64 yards on 10 attempts (6.4 YPA) and Michael Turner finished with 98 yards on 14 attempts (7.0 YPA).
• As touted as this secondary is, they could not shut down Atlanta’s two big WRs; Roddy White finished with 76 yards on five receptions (15.2 YPC) and Julis Jones had 59 yards on six receptions ( 9.8 YPC).
• The Hawks never really seemed to find an answer to future Hall of Famer, Tony Gonzales as he made several clutch catches down the stretch. He finished with 51 yards on six receptions (8.5 YPC).

This man was soooo clutch

The Seahawks finally woke up in the second half and the football game, actually became a game. You have to give credit where credit is due, and thank the football gods that Zach Miller agreed to sign with the Seahawks a couple of years ago. His contribution in this game cannot be overstated as he made several key catches, some of them kept drives alive.

The Hawks offense went all out Air Raid in the second half, and it worked. Russell Wilson, again, proved that he knows what he can lead a scoring drive to put his team up. Unfortunately for Seahawks fans, that scoring drive did not put the game away as Matt Ryan did what Matty Ice does, and led the Falcons to a game winning field goal with eight seconds left.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the astounding offensive stats that the Seahawks managed to produce after being down 20-0 at the half;

• Russell Wilson finished the game going 24-36 (67% accuracy) and 385 yards through the air with two TDs and one interception; that’s 135 more yards than Matt Ryan threw for.
• Lynch had arguably his worst game of the season as he ran for 46 yards on 16 attempts (2.9 YPA); on the other hand Russell Wilson continued to show off his legs as he rushed for 60 yards on seven attempts (8.6 YPA). Lynch and Wilson finished the day with a rushing touchdown.
• The Seahawks had two guys go over the 100 yard mark in receiving yards; Zach Miller eight receptions with 142 yards (17.8 YPC) and Golden Tate with 103 yards on six receptions (17.2 YPC).

Despite this loss it’s still an exciting time to be a Seahawks fan. The future looks bright up here in the Pacific Northwest.