@ValeKunDo asks, “Kearse catch in overtime, Ryan’s TD pass or the onside kick, what’s your favorite?”
A: With the Seahawks hosting the NFC championship game, we might as well take a look back at the last one played in Seattle, a wild, overtime win over the Packers that sent the Seahawks to Super Bowl XLIX.
As the question notes, there were plenty of famous plays in that game, from punter Jon Ryan’s touchdown pass to tackle Garry Gilliam on a fake field goal, to Russell Wilson’s improbable cross-field heave to Luke Willson for a 2-point conversion, to the onside kick recovered by Chris Matthews, to Marshawn Lynch’s go-ahead touchdown run, to, of course, Jermaine Kearse’s game-winning 35-yard touchdown reception in overtime.
Given the stakes of the game, I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed a more improbable win considering how out of sorts the Seahawks looked on offense, turning the ball over five times, and as outlined above, it took a lot going right for that comeback to happen. As for my favorite, it’s impossible to top a walk-off touchdown pass that sends a team to the Super Bowl, so that’s No. 1, and despite how that Super Bowl turned out, it’s right up there with plays like Richard Sherman’s tip the previous year and Marshawn Lynch’s Beast Quake run for the most memorable plays in franchise history.
Aside from the Kearse catch, the other one that really stands out to me from that win over the Packers is the Matthews onside kick recovery. This was before Matthews’ breakout performance in the Super Bowl, and to that point, only the most diehard fans knew who he was, so for him to make such a massive play when the Seahawks needed it was, in a way, the moment that such an improbable comeback felt truly possible. The Seahawks had done a lot of work to get back into the game, but it wouldn’t have been enough had Stephen Hauschka’s kick not taken a perfect bounce, gone through Brandon Bostick’s hands, and found its way to Matthews.