? Seahawks defeat Super Bowl champions 41-36
? New York Jets seal last-ditch victory over Indianapolis Colts
The Seattle Seahawks stunned the defending Super Bowl champions New Orleans Saints 41-36 yesterday in an enthralling opener to "Wildcard Weekend".
The Saints had a 17-7 second-quarter lead but gave up three touchdown passes and the magnificent 67-yard, fourth-quarter rushing touchdown by Marshawn Lynch that secured the victory for the Seahawks, who won the NFC West with a 7-9 record.
Lynch, who rushed for 131 yards on 19 carries, broke at least six tackles, including a fierce stiff-arm on Tracy Porter, as he powered his way through the Saints backfield in a run that symbolised the Seahawks' determination. The touchdown run came at just the right moment for them, with New Orleans mounting a comeback.
A fourth-quarter touchdown run from the former Seahawk Julius Jones and then a field goal from Garrett Hartley brought the Saints to within 34-30 before Lynch's heroics.
A Drew Brees touchdown pass to Devery Henderson with 1:30 left gave the Saints a glimmer of hope but they failed in their two-point attempt and then at recovering an onside kick.
Seattle's first-year head coach, Pete Carroll, played down the significance of the victory. "I know it sounds crazy but we expected to win and so we will take this in our stride and move to the next one," he said. "There was an electric atmosphere in the stadium and I guess the whole city. Our players and our fans played together today in a way that gave us a chance to beat a championship club. It was a great football game."
The Seahawks, whose chance to play at home in the playoffs was criticised by some given their record, will now travel to Chicago or Atlanta in the NFC divisional round.
For the Saints, the defeat was an agonising epilogue to last year's Super Bowl triumph over Indianapolis.
New Orleans were without the injured running backs Pierre Thomas and Chris Ivory but while that meant Brees had to throw more, it was their defensive weaknesses that proved their undoing.
Seattle's Matt Hasselbeck completed 22 of 35 passes for 272 yards and four touchdowns, a week after he was forced to sit out the final game of the regular season with a hip injury. A 45-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Stokley and a 38-yarder to Mike Williams were both superbly executed throws but Hasselbeck benefited from a porous New Orleans defence.
Brees completed 39 of 60 passes for 404 yards and two touchdowns but his efforts alone were not enough. Last year the Saints were the giant-killers but this time they found the situations reversed, which the coach Sean Payton said was tough to take.
"It's not nice being on the other end of it," he said. "In the end we just weren't good enough in a number of areas, I think it was obvious to see. We didn't do a good enough job in the kicking game overall, our return game really struggled, we gave up too many big plays defensively.
Elsewhere yesterday Nick Folk booted a 32-yard field goal as time expired to lift the New York Jets to a heart-stopping 17-16 win over the Indianapolis Colts.
With the wild-card victory, the Jets move on to an AFC divisional showdown against the New England Patriots next Sunday in Foxborough.
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