(CNN) Jaxon Smith-Njigba had the game-winning touchdown in the final minute of Monday Night Football as the Seattle Seahawks beat the Philadelphia Eagles 20-17 at Lumen Field in Seattle. Smith-Njigba’s diving catch in the end zone with 28 seconds left capped a remarkable comeback led by backup quarterback Drew Lock, who led a 10-play, 92-yard drive that led to the game-winner. The game-winning drive was just the second game-winning 90-yard field goal in the final two minutes of a Seattle game since head coach Pete Carroll took over in 2010, according to the NFL. Although the victory is memorable. It was a damaging loss for Seattle, and Lock in particular, for the Eagles, whose late-season slump saw their Super Bowl aspirations slip away. Monday’s loss was the team’s third in a row, and while its playoff spot is already assured, Philadelphia is sprinting toward the finish line rather than racing toward it. The offense couldn’t score more than 19 points during the losing streak, and the mistakes slipped to the typically explosive game of Jalen Hurts; those inconsistencies were evident in Monday’s game, as dynamic periods of scoring were punctuated by stalled and faltering attempts in which Philadelphia seemed to have its own way. Hurts finished Monday’s game with no touchdown passes and two interceptions — one of which came on a pass from Julian Love in the final seconds to seal the score — although he had two field goals. The Eagles’ defense, which has been elite in recent years, has also fallen — as evidenced by its inability to stop Lock on the rush — though it showed signs of rallying Monday night after firing head coach Nick Sirianni. took the defensive responsibilities away from defensive coordinator Sean Desai and turned them over to senior assistant and former Detroit Lions head coach Matt Patricia. But in the end, they couldn’t come up with a decisive play to stop Lock and the Seahawks offense, and as a result, the Eagles fall to 10-4 on the season and fifth in the NFC playoffs. They have the same record as division rivals the Dallas Cowboys and are one game behind the first place San Francisco 49ers. Hurts later explained that it takes teamwork to get the season on track, but he has a lot of responsibility as the team’s quarterback. “Everybody has a role in this. I know it starts with me. We have to pick ourselves out of it,” Hurts told reporters. “I really don’t like ‘practice the same ways, get the same results.’ “We have to make an internal change in how we approach things, how we work every day. It starts with the little things, how committed we are to what we do, and it all starts with me: the quarterback. So this is a challenge that I accept, I accepted. “As hard as these times are, I still see a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s just a matter of faith. It hurts. It’s just sad to know what opportunities we had there. what now How do we attack the future? How do we attack what is in front of us? We still have a chance to do something special. But we have a lot of things to clean up before we can do what we want.”
‘Amazing won’t do it justice’
While it was a damaging loss for the Eagles, it was a memorable moment for Lock. The 27-year-old, who was traded to Seattle as part of the mega-trade that saw Russell Wilson go to the Denver Broncos, has spent most of his time as a Seahawk sitting on the bench behind starter Geno Smith. However, when Smith was sidelined midway through the game with a groin injury, Lock stepped in and took the opportunity to shine.
“Amazing doesn’t do it justice,” Lock told ESPN after the game about the game-winning touchdown. “But amazing also doesn’t do justice to what the O-line did, what DK (Metcalf) did on that catch, what the receivers did, what Ken Walker, Zach Charbonnet, the whole game. Tight ends. “It takes a special group to rally around a guy coming into the second game of the year, right? I’m used to the same thing all year. The same cadence. The same spin on the ball. Everything. That’s the type of team – not just the offense – the defense that rallied around me tonight. It was great.”
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