Seahawks eliminated from playoff contention as Rams capture NFC West title

All that’s left for the Seahawks in 2024 is to find out if they can finish with their first double-digit win season since 2020 if they can beat the Rams in Los Angeles next Sunday.

Seattle’s already faint playoff hopes evaporated Sunday when the Los Angeles Rams got the three wins they needed to assure they will finish with a better strength of victory than the Seahawks, which clinched the NFC West title.

The final result the Rams needed came in about as dramatic of a fashion as possible when Washington rallied from a 10-point halftime deficit to Atlanta to take the lead, and then rebounded from some late heroics from former Husky quarterback Michael Penix Jr. to beat the Falcons 30-24 in overtime

The Falcons — who the Seahawks needed to win to stay alive — had a chance for victory it on the last play of regulation, but Riley Patterson’s 56-yard field goal attempt came up short.

That came after Penix threw a touchdown pass on a fourth-and-13 play to Kyle Pitts to tie the game at 24 with 1:19 left, then Atlanta got the ball back and used a pass interference penalty to get close enough to try a field goal (though ultimately, not quite close enough).

Washington then got the first possession of overtime and drove for the winning points, in the process ending Seattle’s playoff hopes.

Clinching the strength of victory (SOV) tiebreaker means the Rams will win the NFC West regardless of whether they beat the Seahawks this Sunday at SoFi Stadium.

Kickoff is 1:25 p.m. and the game will be televised on FOX.

The date and time were each set by the NFL Sunday night.

If the Seahawks win, both teams finish at 10-7.

But as noted, the Rams are now guaranteed the division title due to having a better SOV, which is the combined number of wins of all the teams the Rams have beaten this year.

Of course, if the Rams beat the Seahawks, then it’s moot as LA would be 11-6 and Seattle 9-8.

The Rams, though, will have little to play for other than finishing as either the number three or four seed — the Rams can’t be the one or the two.

Winning the NFC West guarantees the Rams a home playoff game and LA may prefer to play it safe with players such as quarterback Matthew Stafford and receivers Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp.

The SOV tiebreaker came into effect because if Seattle beats the Rams it would mean the two teams will be tied in head-to-head (1-1), division record (4-2), common games (8-6) and conference record (6-6). Strength of victory is the fifth tiebreaker.

The Rams, who beat Arizona 13-9 on Saturday night to improve to 10-6 and assure they could not finish behind Seattle in the win-loss standings, entered Sunday needing three more wins this weekend to clinch the SOV tiebreaker.

LA got them when the Bills beat the Jets in the morning, the Vikings beat the Packers in the afternoon, then Washington rallied to beat Atlanta in the night game.

Seattle got some help from Miami, which beat Cleveland in the afternoon and assured that the Rams didn’t clinch before the Washington-Atlanta game.

Still, even if the Falcons had won Seattle’s chances were still slim.

The Seahawks would have needed the Lions to beat the 49ers on Monday night and then also would have needed a combination of up to 12 games to break their way next week to prevent the Rams from getting the one more win needed to clinch the SOV tiebreaker.

In that sense, the real damage had been done when the Rams held off the Cardinals when former Seahawk Ahkello Witherspoon picked off a deflected pass in the end zone with 37 seconds left.

Or, as coach Mike Macdonald will spend the offseason mulling over, maybe the real damage was done in the inexplicable home loss to the Giants, or not being able to close out the game against the Vikings two weeks ago.

Or, maybe most damaging of all, losing to the Rams at home on Nov. 3 in overtime, 26-20, when Stafford hit Demarcus Robinson on a 39-yard walk-off touchdown.

That came after the Rams had stopped a Kenneth Walker III run on fourth-and-one at LA’s 16-yard line.

That came after Seattle won the coin toss in overtime and moved quickly downfield, but went for the chance to win the game instead of kicking a field goal, which would have allowed the Rams a possession to go for a TD and win it.

The Seahawks can get a measure of revenge for that defeat Sunday, but it’ll be small consolation.

Still, the Seahawks would take some solace in finishing with double-digit wins for the first time since a 12-4 record in 2020, the last time Seattle won the NFC West.

Conversely, the Seahawks have now not made the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time since the 2008-09 campaigns, when Seattle went a combined 9-23, which resulted in the team hiring Pete Carroll in 2010.

Carroll missed the playoffs two of his last three seasons in Seattle in 2021 and 2023, sandwiched around a wild card appearance and 41-23 loss to the 49ers in 2022, meaning the Seahawks have made just one playoff appearance since 2020 — and just one since trading Russell Wilson following the 2021 season.

Missing the playoffs also means the Seahawks will enter the 2025 season having hosted just one playoff game since 2016 (a 30-20 wild card loss to the Rams in 2020) and have won just one playoff game since that same 2016 season (a 17-9 wild card win at Philadelphia in 2019).

All skids the Seahawks and Macdonald will spend the offseason figuring out how to remedy. An offseason they now know will begin next Monday.