LOS ANGELES—There was no sugarcoating what took place in Sunday night's game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
The Seahawks were beaten pretty thoroughly by the Rams in a 28-12 loss, and struggled both on offense, going without an offensive touchdown for the first time since the 2017 opener in Green Bay, and on defense, allowing 455 yards and four touchdowns, including 21 points and 240 yards in the first half.
"Well, this is a rough night for the Seahawks tonight," Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said to open his postgame press conference. "We did not do what we had planned to do at all, and I thought it was a really good night for the Rams. They did a lot of stuff that they wanted to do… So, a difficult night. And you got to hand it to them. They played great. They did just what they wanted to do."
But as unhappy as the Seahawks were with their performance, they head back to Seattle knowing that, even after seeing a five-game winning streak come to an end, they can still make this season a successful one with a strong finish.
"This doesn't change what's ahead at all," Carroll said. "Unfortunately, we had a chance to stay abreast and stay on top of our division, but we'll deal with that later on. Every week is extremely important, and we just got to keep stacking them up. We've played really good football and won a lot of games here and this isn't going to deter us from that."
The Seahawks lost for the first time on the road this season to fall to 10-3, but with three games left, the NFC West and a first-round bye are still very much on the table. The 49ers moved back into first place, one game ahead of Seattle, with their win over the Saints on Sunday, but the Seahawks finish the season with a home game against San Francisco, meaning they still control their destiny in the division race if they win out.
"Everything we want to do is still ahead of us," said quarterback Russell Wilson. "There's no fear in us, at all."
Said cornerback Shaquill Griffin, "Everybody in that locker room, we still believe. We still have the chance to write our own destiny, and we will… It's going to be a totally different team come Carolina.
This loss to the Rams doesn't have to change the course of the Seahawks' season, but to reach their goals, the Seahawks know they'll need to improve their play starting with next week's game in Carolina.
"We just have to learn from it," said middle linebacker Bobby Wagner. "Understand that every team is fighting, it's not going to be easy, every team is going to fight us in the end. We have to focus on the little things and do the little things right. The leadership has to make sure we learn from this, and we will.
"I've played enough football games, it's not the end of the world. It's a loss, we're sitting at 10-3, so it's a lot better position than we were in last year. We just need to learn and we'll be fine."
The Seahawks had a chance to clinch a playoff berth on Sunday, but instead they suffered their worst loss of the year against a good Rams team fighting for its playoff life. Nobody in Seattle's locker room was happy with that result, obviously, but players also have no intention of letting that loss define their season.
"It's the NFL," said defensive tackle Jarran Reed. "We've got to come to play every game, every single week, especially when you're 10-2—you're going to get everybody's best game. They took it to us tonight. We've just got to take it on the chin, go back to the drawing board tomorrow and get back to work… We've just got to go back to the drawing board, do what we do and just play our ball."
Said Wilson, "They played better than us tonight. We didn't play our best game. There were opportunities out there that we had, it just didn't go our way. There's a lot of season left. Where we're trying to go, there's a lot more season left. There's a lot more things to do. Everything is still out in front of us."
