Seahawks’ playoff hopes suffer huge blow with Rams win over Arizona

SEATTLE – The worst-case scenario came true for the Seahawks on Saturday.

Needing a win by Arizona over the Rams to keep anything but faint hopes alive of a playoff spot, the Seahawks could only watch helplessly as Los Angeles held on in improbable fashion to beat the Cardinals 13-9.

The win improves the Rams’ record 10-6 to Seattle’s 9-7 with the two teams set to play next weekend at SoFi Stadium in the regular season finale.

But while Seattle can tie the Rams with a win, LA’s edge in the strength of victory tiebreaker makes it statistically unlikely the Seahawks can make the playoffs. The Upshot’s playoff calculator had Seattle at less than 1% odds of making the post-season following LA’s win.

The NFL is expected to announce the dates of times for games of next week by the end of games Sunday.

The Rams’ win was an especially frustrating result for the Seahawks given that Arizona was 5 yards away from a potential winning TD before a Kyler Murray pass went off the helmet of tight end Trey McBride and intercepted by Rams cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon — who was a Seahawk in 2021 before being traded to Pittsburgh late in training camp — with 37 seconds remaining.

That capped a game of missed opportunities in which Arizona scored only three points on three separate possessions inside the Rams’ 14-yard-line and also missed their first extra point of the season.

The win was the ninth for the Rams in their last 11 games following a 1-4 start.

Had the Seahawks not beaten the Bears 6-3 on Thursday, then the Rams would have clinched the NFC West simply with its win Saturday.

Instead, Seattle can still forge a tie atop the NFC West with the Rams with a win at SoFi next week.

But as noted, LA has a prohibitive edge in the tiebreaker that will first come into effect if the teams each finish at 10-7 — strength of victory.

Other tiebreakers, such as head-to-head, will all be even — the Rams beat Seattle in November at Lumen Field, 26-20 — meaning the first tiebreaker to come into effect is strength of victory.

The Rams’ lead in SOV only increased earlier in the day when the Bengals held on to beat Denver in overtime, 30-24.

That reduced the Rams’ total of wins needed to clinch the strength of victory tiebreaker over Seattle this weekend to 2.5 (or three, if you assume no ties).

The Rams can get those wins this weekend from Buffalo, Cleveland, Minnesota, Washington and San Francisco, and could get the needed victories by the end of Sunday.

To state it from the Seattle point of view, the Seahawks need at least three wins from the opponents of those teams to stay alive — the Jets, Miami, Green Bay, Atlanta and Detroit.

Here is a quick look at those games:

— New York Jets at Buffalo, Sunday, 10 a.m. The Bills are 9.5-point favorites against a 4-11 Jets team.

— Miami at Cleveland, Sunday, 1:05 p.m. Miami, which is still in the playoff hunt, is a three-point favorite against a Browns team that is 3-12 and playing out the string.

— Green Bay at Minnesota, Sunday, 1:25 p.m. The Vikings are a 1.5-point favorite in a game they need to win to keep hope alive of taking the NFC North and the No. 1 overall seed in the NFC. Green Bay already has a wild card spot locked up.

— Atlanta at Washington, Sunday, 5:20 p.m. Seahawks fans can safely root for former Husky Michael Penix Jr., as he makes his second NFL start in a game the Falcons need to win as they attempt to stave off Tampa Bay to take the NFC South. Washington is favored by 3.5 points.

— Detroit at San Francisco, Monday, 5:15 p.m. Assuming the Rams have yet to clinch the SOV, the Seahawks can root even harder against their rival 49ers. SF has nothing on the line while the Lions need a win to stay in front of the NFC North race and the battle for the No. 1 seed. Detroit is favored by 3.5.

Worth remembering is that the Rams can still clinch the SOV tiebreaker next week.

Losses by all five would only drop LA’s chances to win the division to 98%, via The Upshot’s playoff calculator, indicating the long odds Seattle faces.

But if LA doesn’t get the wins it needs this week it will at least keep Seattle alive by that small margin heading into the final weekend.

Still, it was a tough turn of events Saturday for a Seahawks team that will spend the week — and likely the offseason — lamenting that they didn’t get the one more win somewhere along the way to have kept their playoff fate in their hands heading into the final weekend.

“I would say if you’re not in charge of your own destiny, you’re always going to think of moments that you felt like you could have taken advantage of better to put yourself in a better position,’’ Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said Friday. “But, that’s always going to be the case, otherwise, we’d be sitting here at 16-0 just thinking that we’re the best thing since sliced bread. So, that’s kind of where we’re at, and it’s not an ideal situation.

“But, I do feel that we probably wouldn’t have won some games as well or put ourselves in this situation if we didn’t learn, evolve, grow, stick together, and stick to the process of how we want to be as a team to be able to get through the ebbs and flows of the season. So yeah, absolutely, there are times throughout the year where we felt like we could have taken advantage of to put ourselves in a better position going into the last week.”