The Seahawks and Steelers went to overtime on “Sunday Night Football” before Pittsburgh pulled out a 23-20 victory, but the way they got there was anything but conventional. With Geno Smith filling in for the injured Russell Wilson, Seattle had little trouble moving the ball on its final drive of regulation. Smith went 5-for-5 to push the Seahawks all the way from their own 25-yard line to the Steelers’ 25 in a matter of 90 seconds. But that’s not accounting for the last play before Jason Myers‘ 43-yard game-tying field goal.
With just 18 seconds on the clock, Smith fired a first-down pass to DK Metcalf, who inexplicably paused and then powered forward to gain more yards rather than going out of bounds to stop the clock. In the process, he lost the football, almost giving away the entire game. Fortunately, fellow wideout Freddie Swain was in the area and dived atop the ball, recovering it with 11 seconds to go. With the clock still running and Seattle out of timeouts, however, Swain had to sprint back to the line (with urging from an excited Russell Wilson, who briefly stepped onto the field), and Smith spiked it with literally 1 second on the clock.
Officials quickly decided to review the previous play, however, apparently to determine if Metcalf had actually possessed the ball before fumbling it. And they apparently blew the whistle to review the play with 3 seconds on the clock. After the review was over and upheld Metcalf’s obvious catch, Seattle got 3 seconds rather than 1 to spike the ball and set up Myers’ field goal. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin was predictably irate over the call, but the Seahawks took advantage of it, killing the clock once more and then sending Myers onto the field to push the game into overtime.
Oh, and then Wilson — who is currently on injured reserve, not a member of the team’s active roster — somehow got to represent Seattle for the OT coin toss, in case you thought things got more logical from there.
