First, as a disclaimer, I must say I don't know too much about football to tell about a NFL game with correct terms or to have a really good idea what happened at the game. Also as it's difficult to describe what happened at the game, so especially if you don't know at least some consept of the game, I think you don't understand anything written here.
Seattle's football team Seahawks had really good previous season, they reached the final game, the Super Bowl, which they however didn't win. This success caused huge number of people wanting the season ticket for this season. The tickets were hard to get if you didn't have the season pass. One finnish guy here has two passes, and occasionally he's been offering one of the tickets to someone to join him to the game. This time, as Seahawks entered their first playoff game for the season against Dallas Cowboys, I was going to see the game with him.
I was really waiting for the game, and also fearing for the weather. As all the tickets had been sold out for the whole season, I knew that the first playoff game would be really exciting. The stadium holds about 70 000 spectators, so the atmosphere would be awesome. For the weather, it had been raining most of the week, and the previous night it was pouring like hell. In the morning, it wasn't raining, but as I checked the weather forecast, it told that the chance for rain was 60%. As it turned out, we were lucky, it didn't rain.
The traffic around the stadium area is horrible, so we agreed to take the shuttle bus from Kirkland. The cost for round ticket was just $6, and you save about 1 hour of driving each direction, and also $40 from the parking place. At the stadium it was clear that there were going to be lot of people. We found our seats quite fast, and sat down to wait for the game to begin.
The first quarter went without any points. On the second quarter, first Seattle scored field goal, and after some time Dallas did the same, and further Seattle made another one to fix the score to 3-6 for Seahawks. Then just before the second quarter ended, Dallas managed to make good pass and scored touchdown by barely reaching over the line, and the score was 10-6 for Cowboys. Most of the time Seahawks didn't manage to go forward with rushing, but only with good passes. For Cowboys it seemed almost too easy to rush the 10 yards with just few downs, and many times 20-30 yards even.
On the third quarter, after about 10 minutes Seahawks made good progress and made touchdown, game was 10-13. The kick after the touchdown was followed by nice kick return by the Cowboys, they made 96 yard rush and touchdown, 17-13. The fourth quarter was full of activity. Lot of fumbles and interceptions, and with one fieldgoal the game was 20-13. With less than 10 minutes of the game left, the Seahawks made long 40 yard pass for touchdown, but the guy to catch the ball was much too late. However, the defencing team was issued error due to a pass interference, which gave Seattle 1st down 1 yard at 1 yard, which is almost the same as 7 points. First attempt was 7 yard backward. Second one was incomplete. Third one few yards further, and fourth one incomplete.
Playoff!
Cowboys were to continue from their end, but they fumbled badly and Seahawks catched the ball for touchdown. The opposing coach disagreed with the verdict and after carefull review, touchdown was revised to safety, which gave them only 2 points instead of 7. So the game was 20-15 with about 6 minutes of game left. 5 point difference need 2 field goals or a touchdown. Few minutes later great pass from Seahawks gave them touchdown. With 7 points the game would have become 20-22, but Seahawks risked to try for another touchdown for 8 points instead of the kick goal. 20-23 situation would be much better because then the opponent could score a field goal and they wouldn't win with that. The second touchdown failed so the game was 20-21 for Seattle.
Few minutes to go, Dallas made great dash through the lines of Seattle defence and closed in to the scoring area. The unfortunate truth was, that if the Cowboys didn't fumble, they always could use the fourth for field goal and they would win 23-21. With great effort from Seahawks they stopped the Cowboys at 1 yard line, preventing the touchdown. However as Cowboys got 1st down at 1 yard line, their victory was inevitable. They played time to make Seahawks retaliation impossible, but they didn't manage to pass the line with three first attempts, so they used the fourth one to score the field goal at 19 yards with just 1 minute left for the game.
But then the impossible happened. Dallas quarterback was quite young guy in his first playoff game. Dallas hadn't won a playoff game in 11 years, and this kick was going to break the chain. With all this on his shoulders, the ball slipped from his fingers and the kick wasn't performed. The quarterback figured out that the only chance to win was to score a touchdown, and grabbed the ball and started running towards the touchdown. He was stopped just at the 1 yard line, and he fumbled the ball for Seattle.
Now was Seattle's turn to play time, and Dallas used all timeouts to save time. With 3 safe attempts just to hold the ball and play time, Seattle then used the fourth for the punt. There was only 2 seconds left in the clock, and the ball was more than 50 yards from the goal, so the Cowboys needed one great pass and they only had one attempt for that. The pass was great, about 60 yard throw and both teams trying to grab the ball. Neither one succeeded fixing the final score 20-21 for Seattle.
The game was great, even though I had high hopes, the game was even better than I ever imagined. And the crowd made quite a noise, creating awesome atmosphere as the 12th player. I might go again.
