SEATTLE – In a game full of self-inflicted wounds, the final cut was the cruelest. And the least expected.
Trailing 32-29 on third-and-10 with seconds left in a game that was mostly competitive due to four Seattle turnovers, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, currently the best wide receiver on the planet once again deceived the defense with precision footwork and found himself wide open.
Easy money.
Except the perfectionist wide receiver set his feet wrong. Then he mistimed his jump. He lurched his body upward and got both hands on the football, but lost contact and felt the weight of it crash to earth.
Cooper Kupp’s second effort came up inches short on fourth-and-10, though replays seemed at best indecisive, and Seattle lost a pivotal conference game in which it should never have trailed.
It was a decisive mistake in a game full of them. A silver lining? This team clearly doesn’t need to be perfect. They almost beat one of the NFL’s best teams while barely scratching the surface of their ability.
But the NFL season isn’t very long. And a loss like that can linger.
With a 5-0 record and a win in Seattle, the 49ers have fully pushed the Seahawks off the top of the NFL’s mountain. They haven’t fallen far, but this close to the summit the margins are tight. Now Seattle’s loss to the Marcus Mariota-led Commanders in Week 3 will haunt them all season. They’re 3-2 with a defending champion’s schedule to go.
First up, Seattle must travel to Denver to face another 3-2 team trying to continue the momentum from last year’s playoff success. That happens on Thursday so Seattle won’t have much time to lick its wounds from Sunday’s violent, emotionally charged loss.
Sure, the defense looks incredible and 2024 fifth-founder Nehemiah Pritchett is emerging as new star. Yes, Smith-Njigba seems to have found a level of play even higher than that which won him NFL Offensive Player of the Year a season ago.
No matter. After five games the Seahawks are down two games in their own division. Unless the 49ers really do succumb to their mounting injuries – two more wide receivers on Sunday – the Seahawks-Rams battles for the NFC will be downgraded to battles for the Wild Card spot.
Smith-Njigba’s drop had plenty of company on the road to misery.
A fumble and an interception led to both of San Francisco’s first-half touchdowns. Yet the Seahawks defense was playing well so head coach Mike Macdonald called timeout with 37 seconds left in the 2nd quarter and the 49ers needing to punt.
“He kicks a touchback we’re two plays away from field goal range and in good shape,” Macdonald said.
That would have been about the best-case scenario. Instead, what happened is the 49ers downed their punt at Seattle’ two-yard line. Because San Francisco still had three timeouts, suddenly the backed-up Seahawks needed a first down.
George Holani got the first carry and, wham, fumbled the ball into his own end zone, where it was recovered by the visiting team for an instant touchdown.
For the purist, Sunday’s rivalry matchup was as beautiful a game of bad football as you will ever see.
The two tech hubs that dominated the NFC in the 2010s met yet again with pole playoff position in the conference on the line and once again, everything was bigger. The hits were bigger, the highlights, sure.
But also the flubs, flubbier. The mess-ups, less excusable. The fumbles made you slap your forehead even harder.
Other games have trash talk and taunts and cheap shots.
This game had the entire Seahawks sideline surrounding 49ers linebackers Dre Greenlaw after his late hit out of bound of scrambling Seattle quarterback Sam Darnold, sending him into the drinks cart. Greenlaw, outnumbered dozens-to-one sealed his own ejection by headbutting Seattle linebacker Ernest Jones IV, drawing blood as the Seattle player was not wearing a helmet at the time.
Greenlaw was dragged from the scrum by officials and some cooler headed Seattle assistant coaches, and promptly disqualified from the remainder of the game, possibly for his own protection.
It would be easy to shrug off a close loss to a great team. But the errors are becoming a pattern. Darnold has thrown five interceptions in the three games since he returned from his Week 1 injury. He may no longer be injured, but he certainly isn’t at the top of his game.
The real silver lining is that Seattle has been here before. Just last year Seattle fell to 3-2 falling a three-point loss, that time to Tampa Bay. The Seahawks only lost one more game after that, riding an all-time heater all the way to the Super Bowl.
Do they have it in them again? We’ll know more in four days.