As Russell Wilson has always done, and as he will probably continue to do for many years to come, he once again has shut people the hell up.

On this night, featuring some of the most dazzling quarterback play of the season, Wilson outdid Patrick Mahomes—went throw for throw, run for run, score for score with the quarterback we’re all so eager to anoint the MVP…and won.        

In a career of many splendid moments, this was one of his finest. In one fell swoop, he stared down a rising star, beat a Super Bowl contender and vaulted into the MVP race.

Will Wilson win the MVP award? Probably not. Does he deserve it? He just might.

The Seahawks are in the playoffs after a stunning, gorgeous and magnificent game from Wilson, who beat a stunning, gorgeous and magnificent Mahomes.

What was the key to the 38-31 win?

“It’s no secret,” Wilson said on NBC after the game, “it’s hard work.”

That answer is typical, bland Wilson, whose hype has never matched his electric play.

For so long, his critics have talked about what Wilson can’t do. Mostly, the Wilson haters always said he can’t throw from the pocket, but he could and can.

On the other side, Mahomes has not lacked for hype, and he showed why with one of the most spectacular throws in recent NFL history. But there was Wilson, making his own magic. His timely scrambles moved the Seattle offense down the field. His perfect throws deep, especially to Doug Baldwin, were the kind of skilled passes that if Tom Brady or Drew Brees made them, we’d all slobber over our phones and televisions.

Wilson makes these types of touch passes all the time. He wins. He hustles. He busts his ass. He carries the Seahawks on his back. All the time. And in this instance, he beat one of the biggest stars on the planet.

The final stats for Mahomes: 273 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, 103.4 rating.

The final stats for Wilson: 271 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, 127.2 rating.

It’s just what we’ve all come to expect from Wilson, whose rating entering the game was 111.6—amazingly the highest in a seven-year career in which he’s topped 100 three previous times and never been below 92.6. His 34 touchdowns this season are also a career best (tied), as are his six interceptions.

And yet, he so often gets overlooked. And he might this year, too.

Maybe he will even for this game. At some point by the end of the day on Christmas Eve, you will have seen the unbelievable play by Mahomes referenced above, the one when he slung the football across his body on a 25-yard touchdown to Charcandrick West.

There are literally only a handful of quarterbacks in the near century-long history of the league who could make that pass. It’s as if Mike Vick, Jim Palmer, Doug Flutie and Mister Fantastic were combined into one football player.

Mahomes’ elbow looked like it was going to snap in half, but it didn’t. It looked like there was no way he was going to complete the pass, but he did.

What Wilson did, though, in many ways was more impressive. He didn’t make a singular better play than that one; he made a series of them. He did it with his legs, and he did it with some pinpoint throws.

With the score tied at 17, Wilson threw one of the most accurate passes of the season to Doug Baldwin for a 27-yard score. It was a special catch by Baldwin, but Wilson squeezed the ball in with Baldwin having less than a yard separation from the defender.

Wilson even made his own across-the-body throw.

Mahomes, at one point, looked like he was going to outplay Wilson. But, no, silly rabbit, we should have known better.

Very few quarterbacks ever outplay Wilson.

So, on a night when Mahomes got Mahomes’d by a guy whose been Mahomes-ing for years, we saw something else.

We watched Wilson leap into the MVP race. Actually, leap, throw, run his way into it.

Shutting people up along the way.

Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @mikefreemanNFL.

The Seattle Seahawks clinched a playoff berth with a 38-31 win over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night.

Russell Wilson threw three touchdown passes at CenturyLink Field, while Chris Carson added 116 rushing yards and two scores on the ground. This was enough for the Seahawks to move to 9-6 on the season, clinching a spot in the postseason for the sixth time in the last seven years.

Patrick Mahomes had three touchdowns but left some points on the table with missed throws against a tough defense.

The Chiefs had a chance to clinch the No. 1 seed in the AFC with a win but will now go into Week 17 without even the division wrapped up.

Seahawks Finding Success While Bucking NFL Trends

Any casual fan can tell that the NFL has become a pass-friendly league. Over 20 quarterbacks already have over 3,000 passing yards on the season, and nearly every team looks to pass the ball first and possibly go to the run only with a lead.

However, the Seahawks have gone in the other direction and run the ball more than anyone in the NFL besides the Baltimore Ravens.

Carson has been a big part of the team’s success and showed why Sunday with a big-time effort.

His first touchdown run also showed that he can do plenty of work on his own:

The running back also topped 1,000 yards for the season during the game, becoming the first Seahawks player to reach this mark since Marshawn Lynch in 2014, per John Boyle of the team’s official site.

Mike Davis and Rashaad Penny have also stepped up at times this season, each having over 400 rushing yards on the year.

This has helped the Seahawks move the football consistently while also opening things up in the play-action game for Wilson.

The quarterback more than took advantage, finding his receivers in single coverage while delivering perfect throws time and again:

Wilson made key throws when they were needed the most and came through with arguably his best game of the season.

Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman summed it up:

Still, the offense is successful thanks to the play of the run game.

A year ago, not a single Seattle running back rushed for more than 300 yards, and the team ranked just 23rd in the NFL in rushing. Unsurprisingly, the squad also missed the playoffs for the first time since 2011.

Even with other teams around the league abandoning the run, the Seahawks know how to use it to help their offense. Against opponents more built to stop the pass, with often smaller and faster players, this could give them a significant advantage going forward.

After an impressive win over the Chiefs, they showed they can match up against the best the NFL has to offer. This makes Seattle a team no one will want to face in the postseason.

Recent Ball-Control Issues Could Sink Chiefs in Postseason

Kansas City has had the most exciting offense in the NFL this season. However, the unit can’t do any damage when it isn’t on the field.

Seattle controlled the action of the game Sunday, holding the ball for 35 minutes and two seconds compared to just under 25 minutes for the Chiefs.

The Seahawks ran the ball well, converted third downs and kept their offense on the field to limit the opportunities Mahomes had to beat them. Kansas City also allowed five first downs through penalties, including two end-zone penalty calls that turned into touchdowns.

This wouldn’t be too much of a concern if this were just a bad game, but the lack of ball control has become a significant problem as of late.

The Los Angeles Chargers held the ball for over six more minutes than the Chiefs in the Week 15 upset, with the difference being especially big late in the game. The Chargers ran 19 of the final 22 plays during the last 8:15 of regulation, helping them overcome the 14-point deficit for a 29-28 win.

While the Chiefs won the time-of-possession battle against the Baltimore Ravens, the opposing run game created limited opportunities. Kansas City scored only seven points in the second half of that game in just five possessions, one of them coming in the final seconds after a turnover.

The blueprint is now out on this team, with opponents likely to run the ball and shorten the game as much as possible. They will stop Mahomes by keeping him on the bench.

If the Chiefs are going to make a deep run in the playoffs and contend for a Super Bowl, they will need the defense to get more stops and give the offense a chance to win.

What’s Next?

Both teams will get a chance to face inferior opponents at home in Week 17. The Chiefs will take on the Oakland Raiders, while the Seahawks will host the Arizona Cardinals.

The Pittsburgh Steelers have been one of the most successful teams in the NFL throughout head coach Mike Tomlin‘s 12-year tenure. They’ve won a Super Bowl, two AFC Championship Games, eight playoff games and six AFC North titles under Tomlin, who has a higher career winning percentage than both Chuck Noll and Bill Cowher. 

But the 46-year-old hasn’t gotten enough out of his talented team of late, indicating it’s time for the Steelers to move on and find a fresh face to run a roster that may be on the verge of a major transition anyway. 

Sunday’s 31-28 loss to the New Orleans Saints confirmed it. Tomlin’s Steelers deserve credit for hanging with the NFC’s top seed in a tough road environment, but he was again out-coached in a winnable game, and he again made multiple head-scratching decisions along the way.

It’s true that many who lambasted Tomlin for his decision to run a fake punt on a 4th-and-5 from his own 42-yard line with a four-point lead in the final five minutes of regulation would have praised him had the gamble paid off. But the fact is it did not, and it gave the Saints offense—which hadn’t scored on its last three possessions—a short field, leading to Michael Thomas’ game-winning touchdown. 

If that controversial decision was borne of a lack of trust in his defense, it’s important to keep in mind that it is indeed his defense. He’s a defensive-minded coach with a defensive background, and his defensive unit has given up 24 or more points four times in Pittsburgh’s last five games. 

Regardless, Tomlin deserves to be lambasted for his decision to roll the dice with an unconventional fake that tasked a 248-pound fullback who ran a 4.79 40 at this pro day with having to rush for five yards up the middle, rather than giving the ball to his future Hall of Fame quarterback and allowing said quarterback to target one of his two star wide receivers. 

Your fourth-rated offense has scored 28 points on the road against the league’s hottest defense, and you decide to pin your playoff hopes on Roosevelt Nix on a fake punt? 

It’s entirely possible that decision was the difference in a game that cost Pittsburgh its minuscule division lead over the Baltimore Ravens. 

Sure, the Saints still had to score and then make a defensive stop. But Tomlin made it easier on his opponent. 

He also decided against challenging a potential Thomas fumble on a second-quarter New Orleans scoring drive—a decision that could be related to the that fact he hasn’t won a challenge in over two years. And on a critical fourth-quarter third-down play in field-goal range, he allowed the fumble-prone Stevan Ridley to run the ball instead of interim top back Jaylen Samuels. 

You can probably guess what happened.

Tomlin isn’t just the NFL’s worst challenger. He routinely mismanages the clock and wastes valuable timeouts, he struggles with situational coaching, and his justification for baffling decisions is often lacking. All of this was on full display when the Steelers blew a game in Oakland earlier this month, and it was even an issue when the team impressively defeated the New England Patriots last week. 

Maybe more importantly, it’s fair to question what kind of hold Tomlin has on the Steelers locker room. Former Tomlin pupil James Harrison said in July that he believes Tomlin lacks disciplinary skills, while in September legendary former Pittsburgh quarterback Terry Bradshaw essentially called Tomlin soft. Roethlisberger and other key players have been publicly critical of their teammates; star receiver Antonio Brown, who has had a particularly rocky relationship with the media, sent out a cryptic tweet earlier this season that alluded to a potential trade; and last month, Steelers players were panned for raiding Le’Veon Bell’s locker once it was confirmed the disgruntled running back wouldn’t return to the team. 

It just doesn’t look like a united front, and with so many loud veteran voices, that isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

On the field, a rebuild might not be as far off as Steelers fans would like to believe. Bell is almost certainly gone, Roethlisberger often appears to be running on fumes, and even Brown is likely beginning to decline. Tomlin’s oft-toothless, middle-of-the-pack defense lacks playmaking ability, and the Steelers are not projected to have a lot of salary-cap space in the offseason. 

And it’s not as though it’s working as is. This team has failed to win a playoff game in five of its last seven seasons and has reached the conference championship just once (and was defeated by three scores) since losing Super Bowl XLV to the Green Bay Packers. 

That Packers team just fired its championship-winning, long-tenured head coach because it hadn’t been able to make a Super Bowl run since then despite the presence of an elite quarterback. It needed a major shake-up, which is why Mike McCarthy is now unemployed and there’s an uptick in optimism surrounding Green Bay.

Considering Roethlisberger’s age and career trajectory, Pittsburgh’s situation might be more dire than Green Bay’s. And just like in Green Bay, the quarterback isn’t replaceable.

The general manager isn’t the problem either, because the Steelers clearly have the talent. 

That leaves Tomlin, who now needs a Week 17 win and help from the Cleveland Browns against the Ravens—or a tie in the Titans-Colts game—to merely to sneak into the playoffs.

Even if that happens, barring a sudden Super Bowl run, the Steelers should cut bait and embark on a fresh coaching search in the new year. But if it doesn’t happen, they’d be smart to start that process on or before Black Monday. 

Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012.

Multiple players were ejected during the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game between the Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers.

Mitchell Trubisky scrambled for what appeared to be a first down and drew an unsportsmanlike penalty on Marcell Harris. The late hit spearheaded a scuffle between the two teams on the Bears’ sideline, which led to the ejections of 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman and Chicago wide receivers Anthony Miller and Joshua Bellamy, per Andrew Siciliano of NFL Network.

The first down was also wiped out, as those penalties, as well as a holding on the Bears, resulted in the play being nullified.

It was clear a number of Chicago players were upset with the late hit on their quarterback, which occurred right in front the team’s sideline. Sherman didn’t hesitate to mix it up, shoving plenty of opponents despite being heavily outnumbered given the position on the field.

The Bears had a chance to ice the eventual 14-9 victory away during the drive that featured the ejections, but an Allen Robinson II fumble gave Nick Mullens and the 49ers offense a final opportunity against the vaunted Chicago defense.

They couldn’t take advantage, though, as Mullens threw an incompletion on fourth down and saved the Bears from needing a last-minute drive without two of their wide receivers.

The game was far more important for Chicago, who moved to 11-4 with the win and is attempting to catch the Los Angeles Rams and/or New Orleans Saints for a first-round bye after already clinching the NFC North with a Week 15 win over the Green Bay Packers.