Seahawks Overcome Shaky Start to Throttle Redskins in First Round Playoff Win….by Mark Arnold

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oming up on the end of the first quarter of their first round NFL playoff game against Seattle in Washington DC the Washington Redskins led the  Seahawks by a score of 14 to nothing. To that point the ‘Skins had put together two long TD drives while rolling up over 130 yards of offense and possessing the ball for nearly 12 of the first 15 minutes of the game. From that point to the end of the game the Seahawks outscored the Redskins 24 to nothing, piled up nearly 400 yards of offense and controlled the ball for nearly 35 of the remaining 45 minutes of the game while beating the NFC East champs 24-14. Considering how the game started it was a remarkable mid-game turnaround by the Seahawks and demonstrated once again that this is not a team to be taken lightly.

         How the Seahawks pulled this win out of what was looking to be potential disaster is no mystery. The Hawks did what they have done all year; they unleashed the “beast” Marshawn Lynch for 130 yards rushing and their marvelous young QB Russell Wilson completed 15 of 26 throws for 187 yards and a score while also rushing for nearly 70 yards of his own. The leaky first quarter defense by the second quarter had found itself and limited the ‘Skins to less than a hundred yards and no points the rest of the way. It was a dominating performance on both sides of the ball and the final score would have been worse had not Lynch lost a fumble on a first and goal play at the one yard line in the third quarter.  Also, it didn’t hurt that Robert Griffin III, as I predicted would be the case in yesterday’s blog, was obviously hampered by the injury he sustained several weeks ago to his right knee. He re-injured the knee several times during the game and was finally knocked out of the game for good with 6 minutes left in the fourth quarter.

         But such are the fortunes of war in the NFL! Credit the Hawks with a gutsy and resilient performance during which they never gave up and had to overcome much adversity on the road and in front of a hostile crowd. Next up for Seattle in the next round of these playoffs is the NFC top seeded Atlanta Falcons. The Seahawks will once again be playing in a hostile environment next Sunday after a 3000 mile plane flight to Atlanta. Add that to the 6,000 mile roundtrip to DC this week and you have to wonder when all this travel will catch up to this team.

         But if I were you I wouldn’t be betting against Russell Wilson and the Seahawks. There just seems to be something irresistible about these guys.

         Go Hawks!

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By Mark Arnold

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