The Seattle Seahawks find themselves in a precarious position entering their Week 16 game. Last week, the Seahawks were forcibly removed from their position atop the NFC West thanks to the Green Bay Packers putting a licking on the team to the tune of 30-13.
Sadly for Seattle, this meant the Los Angeles Rams with their identical record to the Hawks moved back into first place. This had the unfortunate added result of kicking the Seahawks out of the playoff picture as well. Going into this weekend, Seattle was going to have to find a way to upset the Minnesota Vikings in order to at least keep pace with the Rams.
Unless… of course… the New York Jets could find a way to pull off an upset of their own by taking down the visiting Rams…
….and this did not happen. A sense of false hope was given to the 12th Man with New York taking a slim 9-6 lead over Los Angeles into the half. But the Rams do what they always do this time of year, somehow find a way to sneak out with a win in a game they looked awful in. This was absolutely the case in Week 15 when they had a similar game in San Francisco.
LA scored 13 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, and shut out the Jets entirely in the second half. The Rams are leaving the Meadowlands with a 19-9 win to improve to 9-6 on the year.
This now means Seattle risks genuinely losing even more ground to them against the Minnesota Vikings. Should the Vikings prevail, the Seahawks will fall a full game behind LA in the NFC West standings. This will effectively take full control of their destiny out of their hands, as they will need help from Arizona next week to beat the Rams to make Week 18 a winner-take-all game for the division.
Needless to say, a win is paramount for the Seahawks.
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