Dak Prescott, Cowboys push past Seahawks for wild-card win

ARLINGTON, Texas — Dak Prescott saw an opening up the middle, then three defenders between him and the first down.

The Dallas quarterback found a way to get there, and get his first playoff victory two years after a sensational rookie season ended in disappointment.


Ezekiel Elliott rushed for 137 yards and the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter, Prescott scored on a sneak after his dazzling head-over-heels run and the Cowboys hung on for a 24-22 wild-card win over the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday night.

The win for the Cowboys (11-6) was the first for Elliott and Prescott after losing a divisional game in their playoff debut as first-year stars two years ago. Dallas will play at either New Orleans or the Los Angeles Rams in the divisional round next weekend.

“It’s really just a chance to keep going on, simple as that,” Prescott said. “Me and this whole team, we want to win it all. You can’t do that without taking care of the first one. A lot of excitement, but my goal is bigger than just one playoff win.”

The loss ended a run of nine straight victories in playoff openers for the Seahawks (10-7). The Elias Sports Bureau says it was the longest streak in NFL history.

Leading 17-14, Prescott faced third-and-14 from the Seattle 17 with the 2-minute warning approaching. He took off up the middle on a QB draw, barged through a trio of defenders 6 yards short of the first and went down at the 1 when he was flipped head-first by Tedric Thompson.

Prescott, who also had an 11-yard scoring pass to Michael Gallup in the first half, scored on the next play in the eighth win in nine games for the Cowboys.

“He’s just a rare guy,” coach Jason Garrett said. “His leadership, his toughness, just his way, his spirit. It’s like none other. Somehow, some way, he’s going to figure this thing out for us.”

Dallas’ defense, ranked in the top 10 most of the season, stifled the NFL’s No. 1 rushing offense and mostly kept quarterback Russell Wilson under control and handed him his first loss in four wild-card games.

The Seahawks had finished the regular season with six wins in seven games to secure Wilson’s sixth playoff trip in seven years despite a roster overhaul and 0-2 start.


“This has been a special, special year,” Wilson said. “Just the growth of our team, the men in the locker room, just the way that we’ve played together, just eliminating the doubters and the things that people thought that we could only do.”

Prescott, the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2016 when the Cowboys lost to Green Bay at home as the top seed in the NFC, threw for 226 yards, and his sneak for what appeared to be a clinching score because Dallas burned more than five minutes while taking 24-14 lead.

But Tyler Lockett’s 53-yard catch set up a quick Seattle touchdown — Wilson’s 7-yard scoring pass to J.D. McKissic. The Seahawks got within two on their second 2-point conversion following an injury to Sebastian Janikowski.

The missing kicker left the Seahawks no good options on an onside kick with 1:18 remaining. Punter Michael Dickson’s drop kick was caught by Cole Beasley at the Dallas 31, sealing the first playoff win for the Cowboys since beating Detroit in the wild-card round in the 2014 season.

After Wilson ran for 4 yards for a touchdown and Mike Davis’ 2-point conversion run put Seattle up 14-10 late in the third quarter, Prescott led a 67-yard drive to put the Cowboys back in front for good.

A 34-yard pass to Amari Cooper , who had seven catches for 106 yards, led to Elliott’s 1-yard plunge after an apparent touchdown by the quarterback was overturned on replay.

Prescott then had a chance to give the Cowboys a 10-point lead, but K.J. Wright made a juggling interception in the end zone.

Dallas’ defense came through again, though, forcing a punt and giving Elliott a highlight play before Prescott added his. The NFL rushing leader stiff-armed Shaquill Griffin on a 17-yard run to get inside the 20.

Seattle got a double dose of bad news at halftime when Janikowski missed a 57-yard field goal on the final play and injured his left hamstring. He yelled as he grabbed the back of his leg and limped to the locker room, unable to return.

Still, the Seahawks took their first lead basically because the 40-year-old’s injury forced them to try.

Facing fourth-and-5 in Janikowski’s range from the Dallas 39, Doug Baldwin made a toe-dragging catch on the sideline for 22 yards. After Wilson’s TD run, the Seahawks pushed their lead to 14-10 on Mike Davis’ run.

But the Cowboys never did lose control of the Seattle running game after allowing Chris Carson’s first career 100-yard game in a Week 3 Seattle win that turned the season for the Seahawks, who finished the regular season with six wins in seven games.

Carson had just 20 yards on 13 carries. Wilson was 18 of 27 for 233 yards, with Lockett getting four catches for 120 yards. The Seahawks had 73 yards rushing after averaging 160 during the season. Dallas came in with the No. 5 rushing defense.

“Once we go up, we do a pretty good job of getting ourselves back down, knowing that we’ve got to start over next week and we’ve got to be able to do it again,” linebacker Leighton Vander Esch said. “It’s a full attack mode.”

INJURIES

Cowboys receiver Allen Hurns fractured his left ankle in a gruesome first-quarter injury. Owner and general manager Jerry Jones said after the game that Hurns was “probably in surgery at this time.” Hurns was being dragged down by Seahawks safety Bradley McDougald at the end of a 14-yard catch for a first down when his lower left leg appeared to buckle. … Seahawks cornerback Neiko Thorpe left in the first half with a shoulder injury.

UP NEXT

Cowboys: New Orleans or the Los Angeles Rams on the road in the divisional round next weekend.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Seattle Seahawks' Super Bowl victory parade draws some 700,000 fans

An estimated 700,000 Seattle Seahawks fans braved sub-freezing temperatures to celebrate the football team's first Super Bowl title at a parade that wound through the city's downtown on Wednesday.

The Seahawks trounced the usually high-scoring Denver Broncos, 43-8, on Sunday to win their first National Football League championship in franchise history.

It was a particularly sweet triumph for a city whose previous major professional men's sports team championship came a generation ago, when the SuperSonics captured the National Basketball Association's crown in 1979. That team left for Oklahoma City in 2008.

Kicking off before noon and running for about two hours, the parade was slowed by the larger-than-anticipated crowd - with some fans perched in trees and atop pillars - that transformed downtown Seattle into a sea of blue and green, the team's colors. Police estimated the crowd at 700,000 strong.

"I've never seen a community come together like this," said Tyler Olsen, 29, a Seattle-area high school math teacher who took the day off to watch the procession. "It's an overwhelming sense of joy."

Shortly after the parade commenced, the crowd burst into an ear-splitting roar as part of a statewide "moment of LOUDNESS" proclaimed a day earlier by Governor Jay Inslee.

In a nod to the team's fans, collectively known as the "12th Man" for their opponent-rattling rumbling during home games, the organized screaming occurred at 12:12 p.m.

As fans cheered them along the route, players and coaches danced and waved from slow-moving amphibious World War Two-era Duck vehicles normally used by tourists, with star running back Marshawn Lynch throwing his preferred candy, Skittles, into the crowd.

The procession culminated at CenturyLink Field - the Seahawks' home stadium - where the team has lost only once during the past two years, and where season-ticket holders were treated to a post-parade victory celebration.

With traffic snarled and public transportation backed up by those heading into the city, not everyone planning to attend the parade made it.

Patti Tinsley, 43, brought her two children, ages 5 and 7, to the light-rail train station in the Seattle suburb of SeaTac. But after waiting over an hour in a line that snaked around the block, she decided to return home - though her spirits remained high.

"This is historic," said Tinsley, decked out in Seahawks regalia. "It's something my kids will always remember."

MISSING SCHOOL

But with over 13,500 students absent from Seattle's public schools - at least 10,000 more than normal, a district spokeswoman said - it was clear that many others had not only made it to the parade but were treating the day as an unofficial holiday.

A day earlier, Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Jose Banda said it was up to individual principals whether students' absences would be excused.

It was a reversal from his position on Monday, when he said that students would not be excused in spite of a suggestion from Seahawks Head Coach Pete Carroll that they get the day off.

Carroll received a phone call on Tuesday from President Barack Obama, who commended the coach on the team's "decisive victory" and said he looked forward to greeting them at the White House in the coming months, according to a White House statement.- Reuters

Manning and Broncos left befuddled by Seattle defense

He authored 55 touchdown passes during the regular season while throwing for 5,477 yards, both NFL records, but a day after winning his fifth league Most Valuable Player award, Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning was besieged by the Seattle Seahawks.

To be fair to Manning, his offensive line was overwhelmed from the start of Denver's shocking 43-8 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday (Monday, PHL time) in Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium. However, it was Manning's two first-half interceptions that transformed a bad start into a drubbing by halftime.

The Broncos' offense was out of sync from the start, with a bad snap on the first play of the game leading to a 2-0 deficit. Manning finished with a Super Bowl-record 34 completions for 280 yards, but the Broncos didn't get on the scoreboard until the final play of the third quarter.


After the game, Manning took offense to the notion that his team was embarrassed.

"From the get go, give them a safety, not the way you want to start a game, and for whatever reason, we couldn't get much going after that," he said. "But I give Seattle a lot of credit. They are an excellent football team and they caused a lot of our mistakes, and at the same time, we just didn't play well tonight.

"They executed better than we did. It's not embarrassing at all. I would never use that word. There's a lot of professional football players in that locker room that put in a lot of hard work to be here, to play in that game, and the word 'embarrassing' is an insulting word, to tell you the truth."

Manning brushed off questions all week about the importance of a second Super Bowl title to his legacy. Sunday night (Monday, PHL time), the story was more the dominance of Seattle's defense than the Denver quarterback's place in history. Still, with all due respect to Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman and his media-shy teammate, running back Marshawn Lynch, Manning was the story leading up to the game.

The Broncos knew the Seahawks had the league's top-ranked defense. What they appeared unprepared for was the speed and toughness of the unit as a whole.

"We knew they were an excellent defense as far as the scheme we thought they were going to play," Manning said. "I think we played a great football team. We needed to play really well in order to win, and we didn't come anywhere close to that."

Denver's record-setting offense unraveled from the beginning, with offensive tackles Chris Clark and Orlando Franklin constantly walked back into Manning by Seattle defensive ends Cliff Avril and Chris Clemons.

"You do what you're capable of," Broncos coach John Fox said. "We mixed and matched that some. [The Seahawks] played very well."

While the Seahawks finished with just one sack - which Clemons recorded on a fourth down when the outcome already was determined - Manning was not able to sustain drives in the first half. He was under constant pressure, and he grossly overthrew his receiver on a first-quarter interception, then had his right arm hit by Avril in the second quarter, leading to a pop-up pass that was fielded by Seahawks linebacker Malcolm Smith and returned 69 yards for a touchdown.

The Seahawks entered the game quietly confident they could jam Denver's receivers at the line and pressure the pocket. Defensive coordinator Dan Quinn said the goal was to send waves of defensive linemen at Manning and make him slow his delivery - as quick as 2.2 seconds, according to Quinn - just a tick.

"If it's at 2.6 or 2.7 [seconds], that's when you can get the hits," Quinn said. "We knew they'd have to deal with us, in terms of being fired up."

Manning admitted the throngs of Seahawks fans often made it difficult for the offense to hear his cadence. By the time he found some rhythm with underneath passes in the second half, the game had long since snowballed out of control.

"Absolutely not," tight end Julius Thomas said when asked if it was fair to pin the loss on Manning. "In order to point the finger at Peyton Manning, you would be neglecting all the things he did this season to get us to this point. By no means are we blaming Peyton for anything. He is the reason we are here, he is our leader, and we are going to stand by him 100 percent."

The Broncos became the first team to lose five times in the Super Bowl, and vice president of football operations John Elway lost for a third time overall, the first time as an executive. Elway, who has Manning's signed five-year contract framed in his office and considers the 37-year-old, five-time MVP a friend more than an employee, said there isn't much he can say to Manning.

"It was a great year," Elway said. "It's always disappointing. Only one team is happy at the end of the year, and you've got to give them a lot of credit. They played well. They took advantage of mistakes we made. I'm proud of these guys."

Next will be a March exam on Manning's surgically repaired neck, followed by a decision on whether Manning, who turns 38 next month, will return for another season. It is difficult to envision him walking away after a record-setting season that ended in a bitter defeat.

"It's disappointing for our entire team," Manning said. "We worked hard to get to this point and overcame a lot of obstacles to be here, putting in a lot of hard work. It is a really good thing just to have this opportunity, but certainly to finish this way is very disappointing. It is not an easy pill to swallow, but eventually, you have to." - Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com