Week 11 Game Changing Plays: Seattle Seahawks Kicked Off the Pace
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Seahawks K Jason Meyer
It’s been a while since we had a good old fashioned missed game-winning field goal in one of these articles, hasn’t it? Well, the Seattle Seahawks are here to oblige!
The biggest missed opportunity of Week 11 was the missed game-winning kick by Jason Myers, icing the Rams 17-16 and completing their season sweep. It’s hard to blame it all on Myers, though. A 55-yard field goal is no gimmie; it’s converted somewhere between 45% and 50% of the time, depending on the kicker, and though Meyers was 6-for-6 from 50+ last season, he was just 3-for-5 this year.
It didn’t have to be like that. Seattle had the ball with 23 seconds left on the Rams 39 with no timeouts remaining, and they opted to run the ball. Why not pass the ball, try to pick up 10 yards, and make a 50/50 kick into a cheap shot? Instead, Seattle settled for the long kick, and they ended up paying for it.
A win here would have Seattle tied with San Francisco at 7-3 entering their big Thanksgiving Day matchup. Instead, Seattle has fallen to sixth in the NFC, and now there’s questions about whether Geno Smith will be healthy to play on Thursday. Uh-oh.
This kick, sending Seattle out of the picture for the bye week in the NFC, was the single most impactful play of the day, but it wasn’t the only news we saw. Let’s go through the other most impactful moments of Week 11.
Houston’s Defense Bails Out C.J. Stroud
It would be a stretch to say C.J. Stroud played badly on Sunday — he threw for 250 yards in the first half alone, for goodness sake. But the one-week MVP candidate was far from his usual efficient self, turning the ball over three times, generally deep in Arizona territory. This kept the Cardinals in the game far longer than they could have been expected to be, having multiple chances in the fourth quarter to take the lead. But Houston’s defense came up big on three different fourth downs, tacking Greg Dortch short of the line on 4th-and-3, watching Kyler Murray miss Trey Mc Bride, and finally having Steven Nelson bat down a deep shot in the closing seconds. Houston’s defense hasn’t always risen to the task this season, ranking 17th in defensive DVOA entering the week, but they stood on their heads to keep Houston in front in this one.
As a result, the Texans remain in the playoff picture, at 6-4 and a slot ahead of the Steelers thanks to their Week 4 head-to-head win. A loss would have spun them down to ninth place, in the middle of the 5-5 pack. As for the Cardinals, they became the first team to be eliminated from a seed this season, being knocked out of the #1 seed in the NFC about 10 minutes before Carolina joined them.
Chargers Continue to Charger
Football is hard enough when you have to beat your opponent. When you have to beat yourself, too, it becomes nearly impossible.
The Chargers had at least four drops, including two passes to Keenan Allen that would have been surefire touchdowns. Add in Austin Ekeler’s fumble at the two yard line, and the Chargers went just 1-for-4 in the red zone, scoring 10 points rather than 28. And when you end up losing the game 23-20, that’s very much relevant! Justin Herbert played well, but he was let down time and again by his skill position players, letting the Packers rookies have a day of their own on the other side.
As a result of their win, the Packers are now the next team up in the NFC playoffs, though they’re still 1.5 games out of the seventh seed. The Chargers would have at least found themselves in the 5-5 mix; instead, they’re in 13th and in serious trouble.
The Zombie Team Lives
It was easy to write off the Denver Broncos at 1-5. Now, they’ve rattled off four straight wins, and while they’re still unlikely to make the playoffs because of the high level of competition in the AFC, they’re alive and kicking, thanks to beating Josh Dobbs and the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday Night.
The Dobbs story is a fun one, but he is a backup-level passer who is just having a remarkable run, as opposed to a long-term answer. And Denver rattled Dobbs, picking him off once and forcing three fumbles.
The Broncos offense didn’t do much all game, but they finally found the end zone and took a one-point lead with a minute left. A chance for a little last-second Dobbs magic? Well, no. Jordan Addison lost his place on the field, failing to pick up one extra yard and giving Minnesota 3rd-and-1 rather than 1st-and-10. That ended up draining two time outs as Minnesota had to run a couple plays to pick up the first, with Dobbs running for his life from the Denver defense. And even though the Vikings did get the first there, they couldn’t avoid the Broncos forever.
Denver’s win has them in 10th place in the AFC rather than 14th, keeping them alive and in play for at least one more week. Minnesota, meanwhile, falls to, uh, seventh, a game and a half ahead of the Packers. The NFC isn’t exactly the highest-level competition here, folks.
The Lion Sleeps…and then Awakens
The Chicago Bears were up 26-14 with 4:15 left in the game. Jared Goff was having a vintage bad Jared Goff day; there’s no way Chicago should have blown this one. Ah, but perhaps I have underestimated the Bears’ ability to play bad football! Four minutes of Detroit remembering “ah, yes, we’re better than this” shifted the tide:
- Detroit’s next drive saw them march 75 yards in 1:16, with Goff hitting Jameson Williams deep for a 32-yard touchdown. 26-21, Chicago, with 2:59 left. OK, that’s fine; just drain some clock.
- Chicago then manages to drain all of 26 seconds off the clock before punting back to Detroit. To be fair, they nearly iced the game away on a Justin Fields shot to rookie Tyler Scott, but it looks like Scott just…checked up, and the ball soared over his head.
- The incomplete pass means Detroit saved their final timeout, giving them enough time on their next drive to march down the field and hand David Montgomery the go-ahead score. 31-26 Lions with 29 seconds left.
Had Detroit lost, they would have slipped to third in the NFC, behind the 49ers thanks to conference record. Instead, they continue to pace the Eagles for the bye week, hoping Philadelphia will flinch and fall in the Gauntlet.
Browns Win Important, Ugly Game
The Pittsburgh Steelers couldn’t pass.
The Pittsburgh Steelers (or, well, at least Najee Harris) couldn’t run.
To be fair, the Browns couldn’t do much of that, either, for most of the day, but Dorian Thompson-Robinson got in a bit of a groove on his final drive. DTR went 4-for-4 on the final drive for 39 yards, enough to set Dustin Hopkins up for a 34-yard game-winning field goal. That’ll do!
The way things shook out, the winner of this game would be in the fifth seed; the loser in the seventh seed by the end of Sunday. The Browns look fairly well cemented into the playoff picture at this point, while the Steelers might end up looking for January tee times if this keeps up. I hear that Canada is nice this time of year.
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