Remember the Seahawks-Packers NFC title game? They meet again on Yahoo Sports app
You can look through the history of the NFL and not find many games weirder than the Green Bay Packers-Seattle Seahawks showdown from a few years ago.
And we’re not even talking about the infamous “Fail Mary.”
The Packers-Seahawks NFC championship game at the end of the 2014 season was memorable and bizarre. Every time you hear people talk about Aaron Rodgers making only one Super Bowl, remember that the Packers had another NFC championship all but wrapped up and gave it away that day in Seattle.
The Seahawks and Packers meet again Thursday night in a game that can be live-streamed on the Yahoo Sports mobile app (IOS and Android). It’s a huge game for the 4-4-1 Packers and the 4-5 Seahawks in the NFC playoff race.
But it won’t have the historic implications of what happened in Seattle on Jan. 18, 2015. Thursday night will be the Packers’ first trip to Seattle since that soul-crushing day.
The Packers let a Super Bowl trip slip away
In 2014, the Seahawks were at the height of their powers. They were coming off a Super Bowl championship with stars on both sides of the ball and had the best home-field advantage in the NFL. But the Packers had Rodgers.
The Packers had won 12 of 14 games coming in, including the “Dez caught it” divisional-round game the week before. And 57 minutes into the NFC title game against Seattle, they led 19-7. They were going back to the Super Bowl. It was going to be Rodgers vs. Tom Brady for a title.
It’s still inconceivable how the Packers blew it (and there were plenty of moments before the final three minutes of regulation and overtime they’d like to have back). The Seahawks scored with 2:09 left. Then Packers tight end Brandon Bostick became a legend in the wrong way, as he tried to field an onside kick and fumbled it to the Seahawks. Bostick was supposed to block. Jordy Nelson behind him should have handled the onside kick.
“I just lost track of what my assignment was in that situation,” Bostick told PackersNews’ Ryan Wood this week. “It wasn’t like I was trying to be a hero and win the game. I was just like, ‘Oh, ball. Get it.’ That’s what I did at the time, but that wasn’t my job.”
Marshawn Lynch scored after that to give Seattle the lead, and Russell Wilson completed an insane two-point conversion pass across the field, which meant Mason Crosby’s field goal in the final seconds tied the game instead of winning it. The Seahawks won in overtime on Jermaine Kearse’s walk-off touchdown catch.
Bostick was out of football in 2015 after the Packers cut him. He caught on with the Jets in 2016 and had eight receptions in 16 games. He has been out of football since then.
Aaron Rodgers still frustrated by Seahawks loss
That NFC championship game was odd. Russell Wilson had 14 yards and three interceptions at halftime. The Seahawks’ only touchdown before the final minutes was a fake field-goal attempt in which punter Jon Ryan hit offensive tackle Garry Gilliam on a pass. The Packers controlled the game, for 57 minutes anyway.
There were regrets from those first 57 minutes. The Packers settled for 18- and 19-yard field goals, as Mike McCarthy got too conservative after Green Bay failed to punch in touchdowns. On a first-quarter interception to Richard Sherman, Seahawks end Michael Bennett was offsides but it wasn’t called. This week when Rodgers was asked about that NFC title game, he brought up the “non-offsides call on a pick to Sherman” before any other play.
Then there was the worst play, Packers safety Morgan Burnett sliding down after an interception with a little more than five minutes left, as if the game were over. Julius Peppers gave him the signal to slide and he did, even though there’s a good chance Burnett could have returned it for a touchdown. Everyone will remember Bostick, but Burnett giving up on that play like the game was done was the biggest error.
The Packers had so many chances to win and go to the Super Bowl. They had already defeated the Patriots, the AFC champion, in the regular season. Maybe that could have been Rodgers’ second ring.
“That game will always be frustrating, thinking about how it went down, some of the things that happened,” Rodgers told reporters this week.
“The sting is probably never going to go away from that one.”
Seahawks and Packers battling for playoffs
The Packers have never really gotten over their collapse in Seattle.
They made another conference championship game two years later, but were heavy underdogs to the Atlanta Falcons and got blown out. The Packers missed the playoffs last season and need to have a big second half this season to get a playoff berth. Rodgers will turn 35 in December.
The Seahawks have changed a lot since that day, too. They lost in the Super Bowl after beating the Packers, on the Malcolm Butler interception that will be talked about forever. The Seahawks haven’t been past the divisional round since then. Most of the core of those great Seahawks teams has turned over. Like the Packers, the Seahawks missed the playoffs last season and need a rally this year to make it. The loser of Thursday night’s game will be in a huge bind in the playoff race.
Whatever happens Thursday night, it won’t have the same ramifications of the crazy NFC championship game from four seasons ago. What happened in Seattle that afternoon will live in NFL history forever.
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Frank Schwab is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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