SEATTLE — In the stadium where they hadn’t won in eight seasons, where their Super Bowl dream once perished, where they have been derided and dominated and disregarded for so long, the San Francisco 49ers gazed at the video screen and waited to learn whether they would be feeling like that again. Already they had bolted their sideline in celebration, thinking, trusting, that they had denied Seattle the winning touchdown, but now — at the end of a confounding sequence late in a fourth quarter that unfolded as if jolted by caffeine, a triple shot of mayhem — the Seahawks were extending their arms above their heads.
At the end of a long replay review, the CenturyLink Field scoreboard flashed San Francisco 26, Seattle 21, but anyone and everyone knew that the actual margin of victory on Sunday night was not five points but more like five inches — and, really, fewer than that. About the width of a soda can decided the N.F.C. West title, upended the playoff bracket and awarded the 49ers home-field advantage for the first time since 1997.
“I thought we’d won in every type of way possible,” defensive tackle DeForest Buckner said, “but today was another first for us.”
In a vicious conference where San Francisco was one of three teams to win 13 games, the rookie linebacker Dre Greenlaw ensured that the 49ers would secure the top seed by listening to his position coach: By scanning Russell Wilson’s eyes to anticipate a fourth-down slant, and by planting his feet just inside the goal line as Wilson threw toward Jacob Hollister, Greenlaw positioned himself to deliver a tackle that will resonate from Mill Valley to Milpitas, and beyond.
The Seahawks trudged off the field to unpack how they bungled a 1st-and-goal at the San Francisco 1-yard line. The 49ers, who had dropped 11 of their last 12 to the Seahawks dating to their 2014 loss in the N.F.C. title game, zipped through the tunnel and into their locker room to celebrate their first division championship since 2012.
“Just made a tackle my coaches and teammates would be proud of,” Greenlaw said.
In a season in which four teams entered Week 16 with a chance to claim home-field advantage, it seemed appropriate that it took until the penultimate play of the final game for the N.F.C. hierarchy to achieve a modicum of clarity.
Unlike the fifth-seeded Seahawks, who must travel to Philadelphia to play the Eagles next Sunday, the 49ers can rest, and watch from home. Instead of needing three victories to advance to Super Bowl LIV, they need two. The 49ers avoid No. 2 Green Bay or No. 3 New Orleans — which would have been the top two seeds had Seattle won — until the conference championship.
If they get there, of course.
Because it is altogether possible that San Francisco hosts Seattle in two weeks, which might — might — offer the necessary distance to process just how the 49ers nearly blew a game it looked like they won, then won a game it looked like they wouldn’t.
The 49ers plowed to a 13-0 halftime lead, scoring on their first three possessions, their touchdown — a 30-yard reverse by Deebo Samuel — so exquisite it belonged on a red carpet, then countered every Seattle second-half touchdown, all three of them, with one of their own. Until the Seahawks forced a punt, then barged to the 49ers’ 1 after Wilson connected with John Ursua for 11 yards on 4th-and-10. A yard separated Seattle from the N.F.C. West title, and on the sideline lurked its once and future bulldozer, Marshawn Lynch, signed last week to bolster their depleted running back corps.
Wilson spiked the ball to stop the clock. But since the Seahawks couldn’t cycle in the proper personnel before the next play, they were penalized five yards for delay of game, pushing the ball back to the 5, with 22 seconds remaining.
“We didn’t function cleanly,” Coach Pete Carroll said.
Two incomplete passes followed before Greenlaw recalled the advice of Demeco Ryans, who coaches the 49ers’ inside linebackers. Every Thursday, they practice red zone and goal-line situations. Greenlaw tells Ryans to be hard on him. Ryans tells Greenlaw to keep his feet inside the goal line. Greenlaw hit Hollister with such force that it reversed his momentum.
“In real life,” Seattle offensive tackle Germain Ifedi said, “things don’t always have the happiest ending.”
The Seahawks, after winning all five games in the Eastern Time Zone this season, are not cowed by another cross-country trip. They nearly overcame a 12-point fourth-quarter deficit, and after 12 carries (for 34 yards) against a formidable defense and another week of practice, Lynch should be more comfortable in Philadelphia.
“Your boy just wanted to get some legs,” Lynch said.
Regardless of how much he had been training, building endurance and simulating contact, it was unreasonable to expect him to emerge as Seattle’s lead back after having not played in nearly 15 months: Just two weeks ago, he was dispensing tequila shots in the parking lots outside the Raiders’ stadium in Oakland, Calif., his hometown, before their final home game there.
Then again, a week ago the Seahawks had two healthy running backs, Chris Carson and C.J. Prosise, and an imposing left tackle, Duane Brown. A week ago, the Seahawks were barreling toward a potential No. 1 seed. Then they lost all three players, and the game, to Arizona, demanding they recalibrate.
Which last week they did almost immediately, summoning Lynch for a physical, and which Sunday night they did almost immediately again, opening the second half with three consecutive scoring drives. Lynch fueled the first, with a 15-yard burst, and punctuated the second, with a 1-yard touchdown, after which he shook hands with teammates whose names he might not have known.
The problem for Seattle, though, resembled that which has bedeviled the N.F.L. all season, and just might continue to do so during the playoffs: The 49ers do not surrender.
Coach Kyle Shanahan often tells players after absurd victories that he didn’t think they would win, and in this joyful season, unlike any they have experienced across the last six years, the San Francisco 49ers have triumphed in the slop at Washington, amid earsplitting cacophony in New Orleans and the din of Seattle. This month alone, they have won twice on the final play and lost twice on the final play.
On Sunday, they got a reprieve: A full nine seconds remained when Greenlaw stuffed Hollister. They had to wait, yes, but after eight years of despair here, it was worth it.
“I don’t know if it’s a ‘Here we go again type’ thing,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey said. “I mean, you definitely wish we would stop doing that. But you have to win them how you win them. This team is built for stuff like that and the people that are here are built for things like that.”
Source: Football - nytimes.com
