Seattle Seahawks officially eliminated from playoff contention

The Seattle Seahawks have officially been eliminated from postseason contention with the Washington Commanders win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday night.

Following their 6-3 victory over the Chicago Bears on Thursday night, the Seahawks had two different paths available to them to remain in the playoff hunt. An Arizona Cardinals win over the Los Angeles Rams on Saturday would have set up a pure NFC West division championship next week between the Seahawks and Rams. However, former Seahawk Ahkello Witherspoon intercepted Kyler Murray in the end zone inside the final minute to give the Rams the win.

The next path involved having many games over the final two weekends going in Seattle's favor in otder to put themselves in position to win a strength of victory tiebreaker over the Rams with a Seahawks victory next weekend.

However, the Rams needed just 3.5 combined wins from certain teams this weekend to clinch the tiebreaker before ever getting to the final weekend. Cincinnati beating Denver on Saturday night reduced the number to 2.5 wins. Buffalo beating the New York Jets Sunday morning cut the number to 1.5, and then Minnesota beating the Green Bay Packers trimmed it to just 0.5 wins heading into Sunday night.

The Commanders and Falcons game ended up going to overtime, which also made a tied result enough to clinch for the Rams. Ultimately, Zach Ertz scored to give Washington the outright victory and eliminate the Seahawks from the playoff race.

Even if the Seahawks had survived through this weekend, they would have needed most of the results in Week 18 to also break in their favor.

"I would say if you're not in charge of your own destiny, you're always going to think of moments that you felt like you could have taken advantage of better to put yourself in a better position," head coach Mike Macdonald said on Friday. "But, that's always going to be the case, otherwise, we'd be sitting here at 16-0 just thinking that we're the best thing since sliced bread. So, that's kind of where we're at, and it's not an ideal situation. … Absolutely, there are times throughout the year where we felt like we could have taken advantage of to put ourselves in a better position going into the last week."

The win over the Bears did guarantee that the Seahawks will finish the season with a winning record in Macdonald's first season as head coach.

The Seahawks and Rams will still play next week to conclude the regular season. The NFL accounted the schedule for the games in the final week on Sunday night with the Seahawks-Rams matchup scheduled for 1:25 p.m. PT on FOX next Sunday.

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