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Kam Chancellor did his best Earl Thomas III impression on Monday night, and the Seattle Seahawks won because of it.

The game-changing moment on Monday Night Football was strikingly similar to a play from last season, where Earl forced a fumble just inches away from the goal line to help the Hawks beat the St. Louis Rams and secure the No. 1 seed in the NFC. This time around, No. 29 was making the tackle, and Chancellor punched the ball out of Calvin Johnson’s hand with just a few blades of grass to spare to seal Seattle’s 13-10 win over the Detroit Lions.

“We saw one of the great plays in ball, when the team’s on the precipice of winning the football game and a guy makes a play. The play Kam made was just extraordinary. We’ve seen it before. Earl made one against the Rams a year ago right at the same kind of situation,” said head coach Pete Carroll. “Those guys are battling for the football. It was a fantastic effort from the defense all night long.”

Earl was uncharacteristically speechless after the play. Facing 3rd-and-1 from the 12-yard line, Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford found Johnson underneath for first-down yardage, and the All-Pro receiver turned upfield. ET came from his spot up high and put his hat on the big Detroit receiver. He did his best to explain it from his vantage point afterward.

“I don’t know what happened. I just closed my eyes and went low,” Earl said. “I just saw the ball out and Kam jumping up. It’s amazing. I don’t know. I don’t know what to tell you.”

That was ET’s fifth and final tackle of the game. The Seahawks defense was lights-out for most of the game in front of the raucous 12s at CenturyLink Field. Before that final 90-yard drive, they had allowed just 166 yards of total offense in the defensive battle. Even including that drive, the Lions finished with just 256 total yards: 203 passing, 53 rushing.

Neither offense was off to a strong start, as Earl and the Legion of Boom picked up where they left off after a 26-0 dismantling of the Chicago Bears last week. ET didn’t have a single tackle against Chicago, calling the game “boring” but one of the best in his career.

He didn’t make his first tackle on Monday night until the last play of the first quarter, where he cleaned up a 19-yard reception by Detroit tight end Eric Ebron. Earl came up and made another tackle on the first play of the second quarter. Lions running back Ameer Abdullah was hit in the backfield but spun out of it, forcing ET to come up and stop him for just a two-yard gain. The Lions punted two plays later, and the Seahawks took over at their own 33—the best starting field position for either team to that point in the game.

Russell Wilson and Co. took advantage of it. The Seattle quarterback made an incredible play on 3rd-and-12, evading a sacking and finding Jermaine Kearse downfield for a 34-yard gain. On the very next play, he connected with Doug Baldwin in the end zone on a 24-yard strike to make it 7-0.

Detroit answered with a solid drive of its own. ET made a nice tackle to halt running back Theo Riddick after a five-yard gain midway through the drive, but Stafford linked up with Johnson to move the chains on the following play. Later in the series, Stafford looked to Johnson again on 3rd-and-6, but with Richard Sherman in coverage and Earl helping from up top, the pas fell incomplete. The Lions settled for a 41-yard Matt Prater field goal, and Seattle retained a 7-3 lead.

On the ensuing drive, the Seahawks used a long run from Fred Jackson and two great plays from Wilson to score again. Wilson hit rookie receiver Tyler Lockett for a 23-yard gain over the middle, and on the next play, he scrambled for 15 yards to bring Seattle to the Detroit 10-yard line. However, two sacks and a false start penalty drove the Hawks back to the 33, forcing kicker Steven Hasuchka to knock down a 51-yard field goal, making it a 10-3 game at the break.

Seattle came out of the half strong. Wilson again ducked a would-be sacker and found Lockett for a nice gain, and he once again followed it with a solid 11-yard scramble to put his team in scoring position. Running back Thomas Rawls gained six yards on first down on the next play, but that’s as far as Seattle went. Hauschka again came on to boot home a 52-yard field goal, which proved the difference on the scoreboard.

Earl and the Seattle defense were incredibly stout in the third quarter. They forced a three-and-out on the next drive, only to be ushered right back on the field when Lockett let the punt bounce off his pads and into the arms of the Lions coverage team. The LOB came up with a strong stop on second down, and cornerback Cary Williams nearly intercepted Stafford in coverage of Golden Tate on third down, forcing another Detroit punt.

The Seahawk defense came up with another quick stop on its next time out. It looked like the Lions might get something going when Stafford connected with Johnson for a third-down conversion—but the Lions were flagged for illegal hands to the face, and the drive fizzled out once again, and Seattle took over in great field position on its own 47.

Unfortunately, the Seattle offense couldn’t do anything with that field position. Wilson found tight end Jimmy Graham for a first down on the drive. But two plays later, WIlson was sacked by Ezekiel Ansah, and he coughed up a fumble, recovered by Ansah. Fortunately, thanks to some strong play by the Seattle D., as well as two penalties on Detroit, the Seahawks got the ball right back.

But on the ensuing Seattle drive, it as déjà vu all over again. Safety James Ihedigbo knocked the ball loose from Wilson’s grip in the backfield, and Caraun Reed scooped it up and took it the distance, making it just a 13-10 game with 8:32 left on the clock.

“It doesn’t matter,” Earl said of his team’s offensive woes. “We got the win. It worked itself out.”

Seattle went three-and-out on its next drive, but a booming 65-yard punt by Jon Ryan gave the Lions 91 yards of LOB to work through. As it turned out, the Lions could only make it 90. As he often does in late-game situation, Stafford was clicking. ET was forced into action when Tate broke away for 22-yard gain before No. 29 threw him out of bounds.

“There wasn’t any feeling,” ET said, describing that final drive. “We just had to get the job done.”

Another key play came when Stafford hit Timothy Wright up the seam with Chancellor in coverage for a first down. The Seattle safety said afterward that he had to do something to make up for that play, and he did. A pair of Zach Zenner runs set up the fateful 3rd-and-1 from the 11-yard line with just inside of two minutes to go.

Stafford found Johnson on a short route out to the left for first-down yardage at the nine, and the star receiver looked up toward the end zone. Earl dove into the path of the surging 6’5” receiver to slow his progress at the three. Chancellor came in from the sideline, and as Johnson stretched the ball toward the goal line, the LOB enforcer punched the ball right out of the receiver’s grasp.

From there the ball bounced into the end zone, and linebacker K.J. Wright pursued it. The only player in the area, Wright tapped the ball out of the back of the end zone for a touchback. By rule, players are not allowed to bat the ball in any direction in the end zone, but no flag was thrown, and the Seahawks took over at their own 20-yard line.

Wilson had one last trick up his sleeve to secure the victory. The star Seattle quarterback again evaded some overwhelming pressure and found Kearse for a 50-yard gain to drive the final nail in the coffin.

“It’s unbelievable. Give us an inch, and we protected it,” Earl said. “It feels so good. We need games like this to come together. I just felt like we were so close. We needed this.”

NEXT UP

The Seahawks will look for their first road win Sunday as they face the 4-0 Cincinnati Bengals. Both Seattle’s offense and defense are still looking to get into a rhythm as the Seahawks are still without a rushing touchdown and an interception on defense through four games.

The Legion of Boom will need to be at its best Sunday as Bengals’ quarterback Andy Dalton has tossed nine touchdowns and only one interception. In addition, Dalton is third in the NFL in passing yards.

The Bengals won the team’s last meeting in 2011 in Seattle 34-12. In that game, ET led all players with 10 tackles.

RELATED LINKS

• Locker room sound vs. Lions (Seahawks.com, Oct. 6, 2015)
• Postgame videos: Earl Thomas (Seattle Times, Oct. 5, 2015)
• Thomas and Chancellor’s game-saving plays (Seahawks.com, Oct. 5, 2015)