Seahawks and Bears send TNF into hibernation for Christmas

At the end of the third quarter, Caleb Williams had just taken his fifth sack and had 58 net passing yards. But Seattle barely led. They barely led despite finally running the ball well, at 5.8 yards per pop and 122 total yards. The sneaky killer was simply: Field position. The Seahawks started every drive in the first half behind their own 20 except for the final one. And, when finally gifted a ball at the 35, they fumbled at the Chicago 38.

This game simply droned on, with the Bears finding a Williams sack every time they gained some momentum and the Seahawks finding themselves either just short of go-for-it territory or too focused on how poor their offense was playing to go for it. (To be fair to them, their only red zone trip of the game nearly ended when Geno Smith threw a ball directly at Tremaine Edmunds.)

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But then we had the final drive, and a Sickos Only level of vindication. The Bears embarked on what may have been the worst drive any team accomplished all season. It was so bad that it somehow felt worse than what Matt Eberflus did against the Lions on Thanksgiving.

After a D'Andre Swift draw started the drive with an easy second-and-3 conversion, the Bears found themselves on fourth-and-1 at the Chicago 39 with all three timeouts left and a little over two minutes left in the game. Seattle called a timeout before Chicago could run the play to stop the clock at 2:14.

The Bears then went into full galaxy brain mode. They false started on fourth-and-1. With all three timeouts left as well as the two-minute warning, Thomas Brown called for the punt. It was a sensible decision given how poorly the Seahawks offense had been playing, if not necessarily a by-the-analytics smart play. But don't worry, Brown covered his bases there too, because he called timeout to put the offense back on the field, ensuring that if they passed the two-minute warning, Seattle would be able to eat some clock.

Then Caleb Williams, who finished this game with seven sacks and firmly into "Chasing David Carr territory," did this:

This is the point where the game officially left boring and became what some would call "drunk" or "hilariously stupid." One of those plays that feels so out of touch with everything that came before it that it feels like a schlocky action movie that spent the whole budget on one badass scene. Mortal Kombat Annihilation. That's what this game became.

The Bears would then, critically, continue to be hilarious. Williams immediately took his seventh sack, which the Bears countered by running a screen play on second-and-15 that gained one yard. By the time they snapped the ball on third-and-14, there were less than 50 seconds left and they weren't close to field-goal range. Which, no matter, Mr. Williams went back to the wild scramble bailout game:

Williams finally threw an incompletion on first down after that catch, and the clock stopped with 31 seconds left. Then, when it would benefit them the least, the Bears called their second timeout because they couldn't get lined up correctly. After two incompletions, the Seahawks called timeout on fourth down almost out of deference to the fact that they had successfully iced the Bears on fourth down last time, so why not?

Williams reared back and finally threw his first pick in a million pass attempts.

The stupid game, and the stupid Thursday Night Football, was over. (Actually, we had a lot of bangers this year, I'm sad to say. It was a good year for TNF.)

The Seahawks have a heartbeat for the NFC West, somehow, after scoring six points and looking absolutely flummoxed as a passing offense. They need to beat the Rams in Week 18. They need the Rams to lose this week. Or, the Rams can win in Week 17, but (goes into the arcane vault of tiebreakers) 13 of 16 matchups over the next two weeks to go Seattle's way in getting past the seldom-seen "strength of victory" tiebreaker. If you want the full breakdown on exactly what games need to go Seattle's way, this is the gist of it per Deniz Selman on Bluesky.

Looking over who needs to win, I'd call it less unlikely than 13 of 16 feels on its face. Miami and Denver need to keep going, of course. The most important problem is going to be that 49ers-Cardinals Week 18 game, which they desperately need Arizona to win.

The real problem Seattle has is that any game defense seems to give them problems right now, even the husk of Eberflus’ defense that stays in zone all game.

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