How the Seahawks reacted to loss to Rams and shocking early playoff exit

The Seahawks’ season ended unceremoniously Saturday with a 30-20 playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams, just 13 days after Seattle had defeated LA 20-9 to clinch the franchise’s first the NFC West title since the 2016 season, ensuring a home game to open the postseason in the process.

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To lose that home playoff game was surely a disappointing finish for the Hawks, who were hoping for a run to the Super Bowl after the blockbuster offseason trade for star safety Jamal Adams and a MVP-worthy start to the season for quarterback Russell Wilson.

Let’s take a look at what some of the Seahawks’ players and head coach Pete Carroll had to say in press conferences and on Twitter after Saturday’s season-ending loss.

Jamal Adams

From his Twitter account, @prez, Adams sent a note to Seahawks fans.

“Seattle, thank you for embracing me this year! I would do anything to just have had one game in front of you guys. Sorry for letting you guys down this year. Back to the grind, working to improve, and most importantly getting healthy! See you soon. #Prez”

Adams also spoke to the press after the game and responded to a question about whether the early playoff exit was a failure.

“To me, it’s a failure. That’s our goal – it’s not about individual goals, it’s not about anything else, it’s about getting to the Super Bowl and winning it. Obviously a positive you can take from it is hanging a banner. We did win the division, but at the end of the day, man, we knew what our mission was and we fell short, so to me it is a failed season but that doesn’t mean anything. That just means you got another opportunity to get back swinging and fight for a Super Bowl next year. It’s just not our year.”

Bruce Irvin

Irvin, a former Seahawks first-round pick who returned to the team last offseason in a pass-rushing role only to suffer a torn ACL in Week 2 that forced him to watch the rest of the season from home, had a short and sweet message on his Twitter account. Irvin is set to be a free agent this offseason.

Since I been drafted the rams has always been a bad matchup for us smh

— Bruce Irvin (@BIrvin_WVU11) January 10, 2021

Russell Wilson

Seattle’s franchise quarterback delved into why the Seahawks’ offense was slowed down in the second half of the season.

“Early in the season we were able to get the deep shots and stuff like that early on. … I think that our tempo, our pace of stuff and getting in and out and all that, we kinda lost that a little bit I think along the way, maybe a little bit, and I think that’s something that we do really, really well. So to keep that tempo and that pace, I think (that’s) something that I’ll really to try to study it a lot this offseason and see, how do we continue to put our foot on the gas?”

He also spoke about his frustration with another trip to the playoffs ending before the conference championship round.

“We’ve gotta find ways to win these type of matchups. Frustration – yeah, of course I’m frustrated. I think you always want to win. I remember when I got here in 2012, I was hoping to make the team and this and that and get to where we wanted to go, but I always had visions of Super Bowls. When I flew here, got on the plane and I was flying here, middle of the air, all I was thinking about was winning multiple Super Bowls and finding a way to do that and getting to (NFC) Championships and winning… I’ve always had that vision and I’m never going to let that go.”

Tyler Lockett

One half of the Seahawks’ high-flying wide receiver duo had his own thoughts to share about the offense’s issues.

“Because we became a passing team, it became easier for teams to try to scheme a little bit different. When we ran the ball a lot, we didn’t have to worry about teams trying to throw out all these weird, different coverages that we haven’t seen before because they had to figure out how to stop the run. But sometimes when you start passing the ball like we did – we did a great job in doing it, as well – but now you’ve got teams that (are) starting to figure out, like, ‘Let’s drop eight people back, let’s do all this different type of stuff’ that they normally haven’t really shown on film and now we’ve gotta learn how to adjust. I think even in the last eight games, I think we did a great job adjusting. It’s just we had to figure out – we didn’t really know what teams were gonna do.”

Pete Carroll

The Seahawks’ head coach was candid about not being prepared for the season to end Saturday, and shared a bit in his press conference what he told his team after the game.

“I told these guys I have no place in my brain for this outcome. We were planning on winning and moving on and getting going and playing really good football and doing the stuff we needed to do to win. (The Rams’) defense was really effective today. The two turnovers were really costly. That’s how it goes – you look at our whole season, when we take care of the football and we don’t give it up, we win. And today, being down two (turnovers to zero by Los Angeles), it’s really hard to overcome it.”

He also made sure to compliment the Rams.

“This football season, it was supposed to just keep going for us and that’s the way we were planning. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get it done today. Really nice job by the Rams, really good by their defense, and they found enough in their running game to keep it going for their offense. So, really frustrating to be done. The suddenness of this, there’s nothing like it. … Really disappointed in this outcome.”

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