What Seahawks’ big win means for playoff chances

Nov 25, 2024, 4:11 PM

Leonard Williams of the Seattle Seahawks reacts with mascot Blitz during a 2024 game. (Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

(Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

Seattle Sports

Sunday’s 16-6 victory over the Arizona Cardinals was a huge one for the Seattle Seahawks, and it was also one the biggest wins for any NFL squad during the Week 12 slate.

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Not only did Seattle move into first place in the NFC West with the victory, it also saw one of the three largest positive swings in playoff odds of anyone in the league, per Pro Football Focus.

The Week 12 matchup with Arizona put the Seahawks in a position where their playoff odds would swing 28% in either direction with a win or a loss, which was the sixth-highest number in the league. With the win, Seattle’s odds jumped to 36%, while a loss would have dropped them to just 8%.

“That is a monumental shift,” co-host Stacy Rost said Monday during Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy. “I cannot stress how big this win was.”

As Rost pointed out, the tiebreaker aspect is where the Seahawks really helped themselves out with their second straight win over an NFC West foe. They improved to 2-2 within the division and 3-4 against the NFC, the latter of which tied Arizona for the best mark in the NFC West.

“The Seahawks, with wins against San Francisco and the Cardinals in back-to-back weeks, gave themselves tiebreakers (and) also kept themselves from getting into insurmountable situations,” Rost said. “You would not have had a divisional tiebreaker if you lost both those games. Under no circumstances would you have had a divisional tiebreaker. You also would have been really trailing behind in a conference tiebreaker. So you could have won the remaining games, you could have won the rest of the season, and it wouldn’t have really mattered because you would have so much out of your control with tiebreakers.”

Additionally, the Cardinals and 49ers had the two largest negatives swings in odds with losses on Sunday. Arizona could have boosted its odds to 76% with a win, but instead dropped to 40%. San Francisco had a chance to go up to 53%, but is now down to just 15%.

Seahawks Radio Network analyst and former NFL wide receiver Michael Bumpus added that the way the team has won its past two games is very encouraging.

“It’s just the way they did it,” he said. “So you took care of business with these two Ws, but then you looked dominant on the (defensive) line, your linebackers looked on point and your (defensive backs) made some plays.”

The way less-heralded players like Coby Bryant and Josh Jobe have stepped up on the defense has Bumpus feeling like he’s watching a different team than the one that started the season.

“Not only are they winning these ball games, you’re getting contributions from guys that you weren’t getting at the beginning of the year and they’re looking like main components of this team,” Bumpus said. “Depth is important. So yes, the feel is completely different about this team. The worst thing that could happen is for you to go to New York and lose to these sorry Jets (this Sunday), but that’s not gonna happen. The boys gonna get it done.”

Listen to the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Tune in to Bump and Stacy weekdays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.