"Football has been called a game of inches, but that doesn't really apply to the results.

Close doesn't count in the final record. If it did, the Seahawks would feel a whole lot better about the game they played against San Francisco on Christmas Eve. In a season when Seattle has built a reputation for second-half turnarounds, it nearly pulled off what would have been its most compelling fourth-quarter comeback of the year.

But in the end, it only heightened the frustration that Seattle was again unable to make that one drive that would have changed the outcome.

"When it comes to us being able to throw the football in an obvious passing situation," quarterback Tarvaris Jackson said, "and go down and put points on the board at the end of the game, we haven't been able to do that the whole season."

That's not to say the Seahawks have been entirely ineffective in the final period. Seattle came back to beat the New York Giants by scoring 14 points in the final three minutes back in Week 4. The Seahawks also held the ball for the final 5 minutes, 52 seconds of their victory over Baltimore on Nov. 13, a clock-eating, backbreaking possession that will be remembered for Marshawn Lynch's footwork that made Ray Lewis' knees look like Jell-O."