The unraveling of a game and a season began on an easy play. A 30-yard field goal; a kick Shaun Suisham, who had missed only six kicks all season, has had no problems with. A kick that would have given Washington a four-point lead and continued their fourth-quarter surge.
And when the ball slid left, wobbling just over the left upright for a miss, the game changed. Seattle, which lost every ounce of momentum it had built the first three quarters, had new life. The Redskins had lost their chance.
“We needed to come away with some kind of points,” Redskins center Casey Rabach said. “That hurt us.”
So it ended here in the Pacific Northwest, the Redskins 35-14 losers to Seattle. It’s where the Redskins last playoff appearance ended two years ago and finished a season that will go down as one of the more memorable — for tragedy and triumph.
The score did not indicate how close the game was to turning in the Redskins favor. Washington even had chances to get back in the game, but it never threatened seriously again after the missed field goal.
“That gave them momentum,” Redskins associate head coach/offense Al Saunders said.
The Redskins even intercepted a pass at their own 9-yard line after the miss, clinging to a 14-13 lead. But they punted after three plays — a 33-yard kick — and Seattle drove down for the go-ahead score, a 20-yard touchdown pass from Matt Hasselbeck to D.J. Hackett. On the play, Seattle used a four-receiver set for one of the few times in the second half. Usually, they ran the ball out of that formation.
But Hasselbeck pumped to his right, drawing safety LaRon Landry away from the middle. Hackett beat Pierson Prioleau with a double move and completed an easy score.
“If I had to do it all over again, I’d just grab the guy,” Prioleau said. “But I probably wasn’t even close enough to grab the guy.”
The Seahawks successfully went for two.
Nothing went right for Washington after that, even when it appeared that it would. On the ensuing kickoff, Rock Cartwright returned the ball to the Seattle 40-yard line. But Mike Sellers was flagged for an illegal block, pushing the ball back to the Redskins’ 40.
The next play all but ended the game.
Quarterback Todd Collins, looking for Santana Moss down the right sideline, lofted a deep ball. But Moss had broken inside and corner Marcus Trufant made an easy pick, while backpedaling towards the sidelines.
“I looked up and didn’t see anything,” Moss said. “I was about to trot back to the huddle. I peaked back again and he was catching the ball.”
Nobody tackled Trufant, who raced 78 yards for the touchdown and 28-14 lead. Seahawks corner Jordan Babineaux returned an interception 57 yards with under a minute remaining for the final points.
The Redskins rallied from a 13-0 third-quarter deficit with a passing attack that finally showed life. Collins hit Antwaan Randle El for a seven-yard score on the first play of the fourth quarter. Then Landry intercepted Hasselbeck’s pass two plays later.
Three plays after that, Collins connected with Moss for a 30-yard score and the lead. And the stadium famous for its noise grew uneasily quiet.
It got even quieter on the ensuing kickoff. Thanks to the wind, the ball bounced around the 25-yard line and bounced hard past two Seahawk returners. Washington’s Anthony Mix recovered the ball at the Seattle 14 with 12:36 remaining.
“We need to score right there,” Redskins end Phillip Daniels said.
But they didn’t. A first-down pass to Chris Cooley fell incomplete — barely — at the 1. A run was stuffed for two yards and a third-down pass was incomplete. Then came the miss.
“You work all year and put a lot of time into this and then to finish the year off with a miss from 30 yards is disappointing,” Suisham said. “I was hoping we’d get another chance. It didn’t work out that way.”
There were other problems. Washington struggled with Seattle’s defensive speed in the first half. The Redskins averaged just 2.6 yards on 29 carries. They did not do the so-called little things well most of the day.
But if they had converted after Mix’s big recovery, that might not have mattered.
“That’s the signature of our whole season,” Daniels said. “It’s sad to see it come to an end.”
