Pete Carroll May Have Revealed Why the Seahawks Play So Many Close Games

The Seattle Seahawks staged an entertaining comeback on Sunday Night Football against the Minnesota Vikings that left them at 5-0 on the season. Their last four games have all been one-score contests. It seems like the Pete Carroll / Russell Wilson era Seahawks are always in games that are close late and now we may know why. Here's the postgame scene from the Seattle locker room.

"Can you win the game in the first quarter?"

"Can you win the game in the second quarter?"

"Can you win the game in the third quarter?"

"Can you win the game in the fourth quarter?"

It appears the Seahawks only think the final quarter is where a game can be won when the truth is, the outcome of a game is a totality of the events of the entire game. Technically, results become official when the final whistle is blown, but it takes a full game to decide the winner.

There's a reason that win percentages throughout a game exist. Sometimes you fall behind 28-3 in the third quarter, you lose. And when that happens the team that held onto the lead kind of won the game in the first and second quarters.

Maybe if Carroll and the Seahawks put a bigger emphasis on trying to win in the first three quarters, they wouldn't have so many close games. Or maybe they avoid throwing an interception on the goal line in the fourth quarter.

Or maybe this is just a football coach cliche that means as much as "one game at a time." When the Seahawks last won a Super Bowl in February 2014, they certainly won it in the first, second and third quarters when they took 8-0, 22-0 and 36-0 leads. I guess that just doesn't sound as cool in the locker room though.