Where to begin? First of all, we can confim that this was
one of the worst playoff games of all time. In fact, it is the worst DYAR by a winning quarterback in playoff history, by a sizable margin.
Wilson breaks the record of Drew Bledsoe, who had -116 DYAR in New England's 1996 AFC Championship Game win over Jacksonville. Now, let's play a game of "what if." Let's pretend that Green Bay had recovered Seattle's fourth-quarter onside kick, and then gone on to run out the final 2:09 of the game. Not a huge stretch, is it? If that happens, the Seahawks never take the lead in the fourth quarter, and obviously don't go on to win in overtime. In our imaginary land of make-believe, Wilson finishes 10-of-25 for 121 yards, with four sacks, four interceptions, a fumbled snap, and only five first downs. He also has four carries for 11 yards and a touchdown. That all works out to -218 DYAR passing, 4 DYAR rushing, and -214 total, and that, dear friends, is one of the three worst playoff games of all time, behind only
Kerry Collins' loss to the Ravens in
Super Bowl XXXV and
Jake Delhomme's notorious meltdown in 2008
against Arizona. We're talking
worse-than-Ryan-Lindley numbers here. Of course, in reality Seattle recovered the onside kick, and Green Bay took this sub-Lindley passer ... and let him beat them. After the onside kick recovery, Wilson went 4-of-4 for 88 yards and four first downs (including a touchdown), with one sack, and one run for 15 yards. That's 71 DYAR passing, 6 rushing, 76 total. In six plays! (No, 71 + 6 does not equal 76; the difference comes from rounding errors.) Of all the amazing stats about this game (and there are many), this might be my favorite: In the first 56 minutes of the game, Wilson had three first downs, rushing and passing. After that, he had eight.