SEATTLE — Another game in Seattle, another potentially season-wrecking loss.
There won’t be any catchy name for this one like the 2012 Fail Mary or the 2014 NFC Championship Game collapse.
But had the Green Bay Packers won, it might have become known as “The Robert Tonyan Game.” Or “The Kyler Fackrell Show.”
And they would have been most unlikely heroes in recent Packers history.
Instead, Tonyan’s 54-yard touchdown catch on his first NFL reception and Fackrell’s three-sack game will be nothing more than a one-off (or in this case, two-off) bright spot in a game — and season — that was just another wasted opportunity.
If the Packers end up missing the playoffs, they might view Thursday’s 27-24 loss to the Seahawks as one of the reasons. Green Bay entered the game with a 43 percent chance to make the playoffs, according to ESPN’s FPI. At 4-5-1 with six games to play, that dropped to 31 percent. Considering the Packers play at Minnesota a week from Sunday night, they’re streaking toward postseason elimination.
And who knows what changes could come after a second consecutive January without playoffs?
Sure, the Packers could lose at Minnesota but still win their final five games to finish at 9-6-1. The most difficult game in that final quintet is at Chicago in Week 15. But their margin for error is now next to nothing. And, as coach Mike McCarthy always says, you can’t talk about the playoffs until you get to 10 wins.
Think the Packers didn’t sense what was at stake on Thursday?
Roll back the TV video on Aaron Rodgers after he was sacked on third down midway through the fourth quarter. Visibly upset on the sideline after suffering a fifth sack, Rodgers surely sensed the field goal the Packers settled for with 8 minutes, 23 seconds left in the game that gave them a 24-20 lead — after Rodgers hit Davante Adams for a 57-yard bomb — wasn’t going to be enough.
And he was right.
In the same end zone where the Seahawks won the 2014 NFC title game in overtime, they took the lead on Russell Wilson’s 15-yard touchdown pass to tight end Ed Dickson with 5:08 to play.
At that point, the Packers could have used another Tonyan-like play. Tonyan never caught another pass. Rodgers faced too much pressure. Despite completing 21 of 30 passes for 332 yards and two touchdown and reaching 255 straight passes without a pick, the longest streak of his career, he didn’t have one more winning drive in him.
The Packers simply don’t have enough weapons outside of Aaron Jones (103 total yards from scrimmage, two touchdowns) and Adams (10 catches for 166 yards).
Instead, they went three and out — the third-down play was a throw that Rodgers inexplicably bounced well short of receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling. McCarthy punted it away with 4:20 left hoping the defense would give Rodgers another shot.
But the Seahawks ran out the clock, and possibly the Packers’ playoff chances.