BAD BEATS: NFL WEEK 16 — The Creeping Death of the Seattle Seahawks

BY ADAM GREENE

Oftentimes a Bad Beat can seem to materialize out of nowhere. It sneaks up on you like you’re a lascivious teenager getting to know your significant other biblically at Camp Crystal Lake.

You might not even know it’s happening, as the camera moves outside the tent to your silhouetted bodies as the whispered chant of ki, ki, ki, ma, ma, ma slowly draws the lumbering camera closer until both of you are impaled on Jason Vorhees’ pointy implement of choice.

It’s a tale as old as time.

Or, at least since 1980.

As such, there’s an obvious choice for this week’s Bad Beat and it’s Chicago Bears 25, Seattle Seahawks 24.

Here’s why you took the Seahawks at -6.5. The game was in Seattle. While the Seahawks are down this season, they’ve lost games to teams in the playoff hunt. Any team that’s been out of the running, Seattle has usually handled its business. And if that team is in the hunt and happened to be the San Francisco 49ers, they handled that business with impunity.

The game was at Lumen Field and this is probably Russell Wilson and Pete Carroll’s penultimate game in front of that particular group of home fans. Wilson’s likelu suiting up elsewhere next season and Carroll, about to hit 71, should be working on his short putts and planning a run for President of the United States, since apparently we only vote for septuagenarians for that particular office.

The Bears were down to their third quarterback, losing the dynamic rookie Justin Fields to an injury and the not so dynamic Andy Dalton was out too. So you made the informed choice, looked at both teams convinced that, especially with Matt Nagy walking the green mile on Chicago’s sideline, a touchdown would be easily covered.

Hell, I made the same pick in the Friday Afternoon Quarterback.

But we were, all of us, deceived. For another quarterback was on the Bears’ roster and this guy owns December like Aaron Rodgers owns these same Bears.

It was Nick Foles. And we were all fools to pick against him.

For all the times we have, as a civilization, written Foles off as a quarterback, one thing is absolutely for real — the dude shows up in December and January. The Philadelphia Eagles won a Super Bowl because Foles went 5-1 in those two months in 2017. He dragged that same team into the postseason and divisional round in 2018 with a 6-2 record.

So we all should have been frightened away from the Bears at Seahawks completely. But you weren’t and looking at an empty bank account after Christmas, you knew just what would fill it back up — a cakewalk home victory for Russ cooking in front of the 12^th man.

You had it all planned out. There would be no installment plans for you. No paying it down month by month only to finally zero out the balances right before you had to start Christmas shopping again next year. You were going to end 2021 debt free and regardless of whatever garbage fire the last 365 days had been, you would come into the new year fresh and flush, all thanks to a home cooked meal served up by DangerRuss himself.

For all the first half, you felt fantastic. Seattle took a 7-0 lead in the first quarter after Wilson hit DK Metcalf on a 41 yard touchdown bomb. That was all the points you needed right there. I mean, the Bears probably weren’t even going to score, you laughed at yourself as you started thinking that not only would you be out of Christmas debt by the end of the day, but you might be far in the black. You could have even more money to spend, maybe get away from the cold for a week somewhere warm in January when everyone else was too broke to travel. The idiots.

Chicago turned the ball over on downs on their next possession and you started looking at AirBnBs in South Texas, Nevada and New Mexico.

But you were snapped out of it the next time Chicago got the ball. A bad punt and good return set the Bears up at Seattle’s 15 yard line. Even a Nagy coached offense could score that close. So when David Montgomery powered the ball into the paint from one yard out, it got your attention. You weren’t nervous, yet. As your dad always said when you were a kid, a blind sow can find an acorn every once in a while and if you give any team the ball on the 15, they’re probably coming away with points. It would now be about how Seattle would respond

And they did. Just 12 plays later, Seahawks running back Rashaad Penny was standing in the end zone celebrating a three yard TD run. Seattle added a field goal before the half you and had a 10 point buffer.

The Bears cut into it in the third quarter with a 20 yard Khalil Herbert run, but the Seahawks answered right back, with a quick strike drive where Wilson tossed a 24 yard touchdown pass to tight end Gerald Everett. The lead was back to 10 and you were back on your phone, looking up vacation rentals in southern Louisiana.

A Bears field goal put you right on the edge of where you needed to be, but you still had your touchdown and extra point. All the Seahawks needed to do was score again or keep Chicago from scoring. How hard could it be?

Pretty hard for an entire quarter, because with 1:01 to go in the game Foles found tight end Jimmy Graham in the end zone for a 15 yard touchdown. It’s a disaster, but you weren’t completely without hope. There was still a minute to go. All the Bears had to do was hit the extra point and maybe, Wilson, Metcalf and Tyler Lockett could team up for some miracle finish in regulation.

But then Chicago went for two. And got it.

There was nothing that would save you then. Even in the wildest of finishes, the Seahawks could only win by six points. Your money was gone. Worse than that, you were broker than you already were to start the day. There would be no trip to the bayou. No magical journey to Santa Fe. No starting 2022 out without Christmas bills.

All of that evaporated like the snow atop the spinning football that Foles tossed to Damiere Byrd for that two point conversion.

Follow Adam Greene on Twitter @TheFirstMan.

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