GREEN BAY, Wis. — No Earl Thomas on defense and no, well, offense on offense resulted in a game that was disastrous and disturbing for the Seahawks.
The 38-10 loss to the Packers comes a week after the Seahawks quieted doubts raised during a 14-5 debacle at Tampa Bay. After seemingly bouncing back with a 40-7 win over Carolina, Seattle face-planted on the road Sunday.
The performance snapped an NFL-record streak of 95 straight games in which Seattle had not lost by more than 10 points, dating to a 34-12 loss to the Bengals on Oct. 30, 2011.
Seattle fell to 8-4-1 on the season and also dropped to the No. 3 spot in the NFC playoff standings, a half-game behind Detroit (9-4) and a half-game ahead of Atlanta/Tampa Bay.
Thanks to Arizona’s loss at Miami earlier in the day, the Seahawks needed only a win or a tie to clinch the NFC West for the third time in the last four years and fourth time in seven seasons since Pete Carroll became the coach in 2010.
Instead, Seattle will have to wait another day to celebrate, while first trying to figure out what went wrong against the Packers — which was basically everything.
The good news for the Seahawks is they finish the season playing their three NFC West rivals, who are now a combined 10-28-1, beginning with a Thursday night game against a Rams team that fell to 4-9 with a loss to the Falcons.
But that was about the only silver lining. The Seattle defense appeared to sorely miss Thomas while quarterback Russell Wilson turned in maybe the worst passing game of his career, throwing a career-high five interceptions (the Seahawks record for interceptions in a game is six by Jim Zorn in 1976). Three others had thrown five, most recently Jon Kitna against Tampa Bay in 1999.
Seattle finished with six turnovers, the final one coming on an Alex Collins fumble in the final minutes.
By the time it mercifully ended it was the largest margin of defeat for Seahawks since a 41-7 loss to the Giants on Nov. 7, 2010, Carroll’s first year.
The Packers struck quickly with a 66-yard pass from Aaron Rodgers to Davante Adams on a third-and-one play to take a 7-0 lead and never really looked back.
Green Bay led 21-3 at halftime and it could have been worse — Rodgers overthrew Adams for what could have been a touchdown late in the half.
Wilson was off-target throughout the first half and threw two interceptions, giving him five in the previous three games at that point.
There was some bad luck on the first, which came when Wilson tried to hit Graham over the middle. But Graham got his feet tangled with Green Bay safety Morgan Burnett and fell down, giving Burnett an easy catch and a return to the 26.
On the second, Wilson threw across his body into the end zone for Doug Baldwin on a play that snapped from the 40-yard-line, with the ball hanging up long enough for Green Bay’s Damarious Randall to race over and pick it off.
But as bad as was Wilson, he was matched by the Seattle defense
Thomas likely couldn’t have done much about the first touchdown, when Adams simply beat Jeremy Lane down the sideline.
Green Bay then tuned Burnett’s interception into a 26-yard TD drive early in the second quarter with Ty Montgomery scoring from a yard out with 9:36 left.
A short punt by Jon Ryan then helped set up Green Bay at the Seattle 48 and the Packers needed just five plays to score on a 9-yard pass from Rodgers to Jordy Nelson.
Seattle’s only score came on a 28-yard field goal by Steven Hauschka to cap its first drive.
The Packers had 254 yards at halftime averaging 8.5 yards per play. Rodgers hit 12 of his first 13 passes — with the only incompletion a throwaway on third down — and finished 12 of 15 in the first half for 202 yards and a perfect QB rating of 158.3.
The Packers picked off two more Wilson passes in the third quarter, each of which were deflected.
On the first, Wilson tried to hit Jermaine Kearse in the end zone with the ball going off of the arm of Green Bay’s LaDarius Gunter and into the hands of teammate Quinten Rollins. That ended a promising Seattle possession to start the third quarter as the Seahawks had driven from their 34 to the Green Bay 20.
On Seattle’s next possession, a Wilson pass to Baldwin went through his hands and off his helmet and right to Randall, who returned it to the 32.
The temperature was 26 degrees at kickoff and while there was a substantial snow accumulation over night, there was little snow during the game and there was no snow on the field.