The Rams defeat the Cardinals, severely damaging the Seahawks’ playoff hopes

In a moment Seattle Seahawks playoff hopes went from being within reach to immediate life support. The best chance for Seattle to find a way back to control their own destiny was for the Arizona Cardinals to find a way to defeat the Los Angeles Rams.

It was close! But alas, no cigar. When your destiny is left in someone else’s hands, they can fumble it away. Or in the Cardinals’ case, throw it away on a bizarre interception.

Los Angeles defeated the Cardinals 13-9 on Saturday night. with another narrow victory. The Rams looked like they had for the past three weeks, awful, for most of the game, barely getting 13 points. LA is on a stretch where they have only scored 12, 19 and 13 points respectively. But in the end, the 13 points last night were enough. However, Los Angeles’ defense held on the final two possessions, picking off an interception from Kyler Murray both times.

The final nail in the coffin for Arizona came at the end, when the Cards came tantalizingly close to scoring a clear touchdown with under a minute to play. Arizona had made it all the way to LA’s 5-yard line when this happened on first down.

The sound you heard last night was the collective heart of the 12th man sinking in unison as this wiretapping took place. Had the Cardinals managed to score here, it would have set up a winner-take-all showdown between the Rams and Seahawks in Week 18. Instead, LA is now potentially hours away from winning their fourth NFC West title in the last eight seasons.

All hope is not lost for the Seahawks, at least not yet. What it comes down to now is the strength of victory tiebreaker. Seattle needs help, but this time from multiple teams. The Seahawks’ destiny lies not only in defeating the Rams in Week 18, but hoping for other wins today and Monday.

Seattle needs at least three wins from the following scenarios:

If three or more of those games go the opposite way, then the Rams will be the NFC West champions no matter what happens next week.

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This article originally appeared on Seahawks Wire: The Rams defeat the Cardinals, severely damaging the Seahawks’ playoff hopes