FanHouse NFL Wildcard Recaps

What a wild game in Seattle. If you are just looking at the 35-14 win for the Seahawks and assume it was a blowout ... you'd kinda be right. The stats won't prove it (Washington outgained and held a huge margin of time of possession), but it was evident on the field.

For about 54 minutes of this game, Seattle was dominating. In the first half, Seattle's defensive line teed off on the Redskins' Todd Collins and devoured any kind of run game Washington wanted to get going. The same sorts of things happened in the second half. In the Redskins first 10 drives, they punted nine times and turned the ball over on downs the other time (with only one of those drives being over six plays).

The Redskins came alive for a period ending the third quarter and at the start of the fourth: a beautiful 12-play, 84-yd drive that ended with a Antwaan Randle-El touchdown. After a quick takeaway and an ensuing Santana Moss TD, Washington actually took a 14-13 lead. A lead they nearly extended after a wickedly odd kickoff recovery that led to a missed field goal.

That's when Seattle's strengths showed back up. Matt Hasselbeck and the (quietly) lethal passing game whipped a quick five play drive into a TD. Then Collins, who hadn't been picked off since 1997, threw two picks that ended up being returned for TDs and took the Redskins out of reach.