Let Earl Thomas Guide You Through A Brutal Seahawks Christmas Eve Loss to the Cardinals

I want Earl Thomas to write this blog. The Seahawks blew their chance to grab the number two seed in the NFC with a heartbreaking 34-31 loss to the Arizona Cardinals. Adding injury to insult, the Seahawks lost Tyler Lockett to a similar injury to the one that cost Earl Thomas his season a few weeks ago. The season that was looking redeemed as recently a couple weeks ago is spiraling out of control, and only the poor play of the rest of the NFC West is keeping the Seahawks in the playoff picture.

The only thing that made me happy during Saturday’s game was that Earl Thomas is now live tweeting Seahawks games. And he’s great at it. Since he refused to respond to my tweets asking him to write this blog post for me, we’re going to instead run through the game via Earl Thomas’ perspective.

Football 🏈 Saturday!!!

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 24, 2016

Football was on a Saturday. It was weird! I strongly believe the Christmas/New Years combo should never fall on a Sunday. It’s the absolute worst pairing and it absolutely ruins football this time of year. The Rose Bowl gets played on the second. It’s a mess.

(Note: The best XMas/NY is Thursday for the de facto back-to-back five day weekends.)

Carlson Palmer folds against pressure....Great first series for our defense.. #Seahawks

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 24, 2016

YA BURNT, Carson Palmer. Ya. Burnt. How could he possibly comeback from this tweet? IMPOSSIBLE.

(Note: Carson Palmer owned our shit all day mostly because Earl Thomas was tweeting and not ruining his life on the field. Palmer joins Aaron Rodgers as a good veteran quarterback who was able to ruthlessly exploit our decimated secondary.)

I hate when the fluke ish starts to happen. That blocked FG hurt. . Another sudden change opp coming up for the D..

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 24, 2016

Me too, Earl. Do you want to sip a chocolate malted at a soda shoppe with me sometime? Or like, whatever.

(Note: Earl Thomas is younger than I am. I’m a grown man. I don’t know what’s happening here.)

This is some B.S!!!!

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 24, 2016

I don’t remember specifically what this was about. But I know that I 100% agreed with it in the moment.

(Note: I thought this was an adequately well-officiated game.)

Lets go Mike.B!!!!

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 24, 2016

Michael Bennett and the pass rush were just okay on Saturday. They’ve been pretty bad as a unit since Bennett’s injury when the Seahawks played Atlanta. But Bennett managed to put some big plays together in the run game to keep Cardinals superstar David Johnson in check.

(Note: Relatively in check… Johnson collected what wound up being the game sealing catch… he’s so, so good.)

K.j is the best at sniffing out screens!!!

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 24, 2016

This is true. KJ Wright should have been on the Pro Bowl roster.

(Note: Same with Earl Thomas.)

Prayers up for @TDLockett12 ... love you bro!!

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 24, 2016

This tweet makes me want to cry.

(Note: Losing Tyler Lockett to a broken leg is brutal and awful for him, and hopefully he and Earl both make full recoveries. Also breaking their legs this week were Marcus Mariota and Derek Carr, arguably the two best young quarterbacks in the league this season. NFL football is brutal and awful far too often.)

Making them kiss it @JKearse_15

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 24, 2016

Make them kiss it @JKearse_15

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 24, 2016

As a member of the Kearse Krew (a small yet hearty band of Jermaine Kearse defenders), this has been a trying season. Though Kearse had one drop and one other small mistake on Saturday, it was arguably his most effective game of the season.

This was not Earl’s most effective tweet of the game, but credit to him for fighting through adversity and fixing the typo. Also credit to him for not deleting the typo. That’s a power move, only high-level bloggers can pull off. Good stuff, Earl.

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 24, 2016

This was dropped as the Seahawks inched their way back into the game. Great tweet. Really great stuff.

FItz is a master .. great coverage Shead..

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 24, 2016

That's why @DougBaldwinJr should've made the pro-bowl. Great RD by Russ.

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 25, 2016

These two Earl tweets are individually fine, but together? There’s a fundamental mistake I want to draw your attention to. Larry Fitzgerald made the Pro Bowl, and amongst NFC receivers on the team, he’s pretty clearly the worst. That means that Doug Baldwin’s Pro Bowl snub came at Fitz’s hands. And as much as I love Doug, he wasn’t as good as Fitz this season. So Earl, while your praise is in the right place, BY YOUR OWN LOGIC, Doug’s snub wasn’t really a snub.

(Note: winning arguments by saying “by your own logic” is bad and I feel bad.)

Keep us in it @DangeRussWilson

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 25, 2016

Russ did bring the Seahawks back, and put them a PAT and some better clock management away from beating the Arizona Cardinals to all but clinch a bye in the NFC playoffs. Given how shaky Russ looked at moments, his final line of 300+ yards, 4 TD’s and no interceptions is incredible. It was a vintage Russ performance, and an incredibly Seahawky loss in the end.

This team manages to keep games they shouldn’t be in close in ways that boggle the mind. That they then lose the game because they called an extra timeout and missed a PAT? It’s somehow a perfect encapsulation of the downside of rooting for a team as successful as this Seahawks team has been.

Or, let’s give Earl the last word:

I can't watch football if it's going to make me feel this sick!!! Great battle fellas!!

— Earl Thomas (@Earl_Thomas) December 25, 2016

(Note: I’m gonna steal back the last word to say, seriously, I want Earl writing for The Stranger.)

[Ed note—same.]