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After a nightmarish first half left them in a 31-point hole, Earl Thomas III and the Seattle Seahawks clawed their way back to within one score—and No. 29 felt that if the Hawks could just get to overtime, the game would be theirs.

Unfortunately, Seattle’s gallant comeback attempt fell just short. The Carolina Panthers took advantage of several Seahawk mistakes to mount a 31-0 first-half lead. But the Hawks dominated the second half on both sides of the ball to get within seven points.

“I felt like this: If we would have gotten it to overtime, I was just thinking, ‘Overtime, overtime … it’s over,’” Earl said after the game.

But instead, ET III was left to commend Cam Newton and Carolina and wish them luck in the NFC championship game. The Panthers recovered the decisive onside kick attempt and advanced with a 31-24 victory.

It took just four plays for the Panthers to traverse 75 yards and take a 7-0 lead. Running back Jonathan Stewart broke free for a 59-yard run on the first play from scrimmage. He scored from four yards out three plays later to put the home team up 7-0. No. 29 had his sights set on Stewart on that explosive run, but he slipped on the Bank of America Stadium grass.

“First, Kam gets hurt on the kickoff, so he was out on that play and that hurts our communication,” Earl explained. “And then I could have made the play, but I slipped coming up to him. That was my fault. I thought I had on the right shoes. It was a little slick out there, but I thought I was prepared because I tested everything before the game. But I needed longer spikes. I hate that, because once I changed them right after that play, I had good traction the rest of the day.”

As ET recalled, he swapped his spikes and went on to have a tremendous game individually. He finished the game with nine tackles, the most of any defensive back for either team.

The Hawks ended up outgaining the Panthers by a large margin: 403-295. But turnovers proved to be the difference. The Legion of Boom failed to intercept Newton or recover a Carolina fumble. Meanwhile, the Seattle offense coughed it up twice.

The first turnover stung the most. Quarterback Russell Wilson’s second pass attempt, which came on his team’s second offensive play, ended up in the hands of Carolina linebacker Luke Kuechly. The All-Pro took it back 14 yards for a touchdown, and just like that, the Panthers led 14-0.

“When the game is chaos like that, everybody’s not in sync,” Earl said of his team’s rough first half. “It’s hard to win like that.”

The Seahawks punted on their next offensive possession, and Carolina just kept building on its momentum. Newton led a long, 15-play, 86-yard drive that was punctuated with a one-yard touchdown run from Stewart. That gave Carolina a 21-0 lead with 14:18 left in the second quarter.

Stewart finished with 106 yards on 19 carries with two touchdowns. Afterward, Earl commended the patience displayed by the Carolina back.

“That’s it,” Earl said. “If you go back to when we played the Cowboys, Pittsburgh, those patient running backs, man, sometimes they use our aggressive nature against us. And they did that today.”

On the very first play of the ensuing possession, Wilson tossed his second interception of the game, this one hauled in by corner Cortland Finnegan. The Panthers once again capitalized—though the L.O.B. got its first won of the day. Carolina netted one yard in the wrong direction on that drive and was forced to settle for a 48-yard field goal from Graham Gano.

But the Seattle offense continued its rough first half on its next drive. The Hawks went three-and-out. With 6:26 remaining in the half, the Panthers tacked on one more touchdown. Newton tossed a brilliant 19-yard touchdown strike to tight end Greg Olsen to extend the lead to 31.

“When you’re down, a bunch of stuff is happening,” ET III said. “The energy is very weird. Sometimes we’re not ourselves out there and there’s a lack of communication because it’s the playoffs. We just didn’t communicate well (at times).”

At halftime, the Seahawks got back to basics. They communicated, regrouped—and they didn’t give up. Wilson came out of the halftime locker room fired up, and showed it by hitting wide receiver Jermaine Kearse for a 13-yard touchdown pass just over a minute and a half into the third quarter.

Meanwhile, ET and the L.O.B. went into shutdown mode. The Hawks force Punts on all four Carolina drives in the second half. The Panthers tallied just five, 32, 26 and 19 yards on those four series.

The Seahawks narrowed the score to 31-14 when Wilson lobbed a 33-yard pass into the end zone for Tyler Lockett, who got both feet in with 7:40 left in the quarter to cut the deficit to 17. After having to punt on its next drive, Seattle came back with 6:04 left in the fourth quarter when Kearse caught his second touchdown pass from Wilson, this time from three yards out.

With time running out, the Seahawks settled for a field goal, leaving them in a seven-point hole with 1:12 to go. Despite a good try on the onside kick, Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis secured the kick to end the playoff journey for Earl and the Seahawks.

A lot could be pointed to for the Seahawks falling short—a Super Bowl loss hangover that ultimately left them short of obtaining a first-round bye, critical injuries across the board, a tough playoff road that featured a frigid trip to Minneapolis followed by a cross-country journey to Carolina for a 10:05 a.m. PT kickoff. But Earl isn’t buying any of that. Quite simply, the Hawks just didn’t do enough in his eyes to get the job done.

“I don’t want to point to fatigue or anything like that,” safety Earl Thomas said. “I don’t want to make any excuses.”

Even in the disappointing loss, Earl tweeted from the heart to his teammates and to the game he loves—vowing to make the next chapter better.

RELATED LINKS

• Panthers beat Seattle by doing what Seahawks usually do best (SB Nation, Jan. 17, 2016)
• Panthers overcome ‘tight butts’ to beat Seahawks (CBS Sports, Jan. 17, 2016)
• Special to slay Seattle (Carolina Panthers, Jan. 17, 2016)
• Wilson’s appeal to teammate saves Seahawks from humiliation, can’t save season (Seattle Times, Jan. 17, 2016)
• Seahawks struggle to stop another patient running back in Stewart (Seattle Times, Jan. 17, 2016)
• Resilient Panthers rise above Seahawks (AP, Jan. 17, 2016)
• Seahawks: “We’re coming back strong, this is who we are.” (Yahoo, Jan. 17, 2016)
• Earl Thomas on first half chaos on Seahawks D (The News Tribune, Jan. 17, 2016)