It’s no accident the Seahawks keep coming down with the 50-50 balls

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – They are dubbed 50-50 balls when floated in the air like that. Often it is a rainbow pass presenting an equal chance to snatch it.

This is the way Giants safety Landon Collins and Seahawks receiver Paul Richardson united in the end zone early in the fourth quarter on Sunday at MetLife Stadium. Collins in the air. Richardson, too. The ball the bounty.

Both players are 6’0, but Collins weighs 218 pounds and Richardson 183. Collins is a Pro Bowl safety, young, brash and tough, as potent a defensive hammer as the Giants present. Richardson looks lanky and lithe in comparison — no match for the force of Collins.

“But Paul is deceiving,” Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said. “He looks thin but he is a wiry, strong player. I think he showed that.”

He did. He took it away from Collins.

“It was an interception,” Collins said. “That was my ball.”

Nope. It was ruled a simultaneous catch. Ball to Richardson, despite the tugging, despite the tussling in the end zone between them. Despite Collins appearing to have the ball in the end.

Why was it even close?

Collins vs. Richardson? There isn’t a coach in the NFL or likely a player who would choose Paul Richardson over Landon Collins in a one-on-one, 50-50, rainbow, snatch-it spot.

But Richardson’s win over this Giants defensive staple helped shape the framework of Seattle’s 24-7 victory that made Seattle 4-2 and the Giants 1-6. It proved Seattle the team of stamina. The team of will. The team that knows how to play in these kinds of taut games and how to win them.

As this game’s gripping, intense crucible evolved, the Giants faded.

“Hey man, that’s a team that doesn’t have all of its best players with all of those injuries, so, I’m not going to say that they are this and that, only that’s not their real team,” Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor said afterward, about the kindest gesture showed the Giants all day in an otherwise full-throttle Seattle punch.

Seahawks safety Richard Sherman was just as gentle.

”Look, you go through all of training camp, all of the preseason getting your timing down with your quarterback and receivers and then to have the whole crew of receivers change with all of their injuries? That’s impossible. There are nuances, hidden things that I’m sure Eli Manning and Odell Beckham (Jr.) and the rest of those guys have been working on for some time that are just lost now. That has to be taken into consideration for that team.”

This, too.

The Giants led 7-3 at halftime.

They trailed 10-7 early in the fourth quarter when they missed a 47-yard field goal that would have tied it.

Before that kick, on third-and-11 from the Seattle 30, Manning threw an ultra-conservative, 1-yard crossing pass to tight end Evan Engram. The approach was a mistake because that was a solid situation to attack, not wait until this Giants depleted offense was absolutely forced to push it.

And that circumstance quickly surfaced.

Because Seattle took it after the missed kick, the Giants defense held, Manning got the ball back, and with 9:49 left was stripped by tackle Jarran Reed with the recovery by linebacker Frank Clark at the Giants 38.

Next play, Collins-Richardson. 50-50.

Seattle up 17-7 and the Giants toasted. Their drooping offense could not handle the Seattle defense with that defense playing firmly ahead. It was a 24-0 Seattle blitz after the Giants’ only score.

“My job is to push that pile,” said Reed, as all 306 pounds of him certainly did on that play (it’s rare “old-man strength” that Reed has, Carroll said). “We attacked,” Reed added. “Eli was right there. That play was Seahawks ball.”

Clark explained: “I just saw a collapsing pocket. I see the ball in the air and then I saw it bounce. The ball just fell right in front of me. That was all mine.”

No one among the Seahawks can explain it, how they have become such a stout second-half team, how the longer the games go the more effective they are under pressure.

“It’s just been that way for awhile now,” Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin said. “Typcially, they are close games, and then we do some of our best work on the brink.”

Carroll says all of his teams from college through the pros have been taught about finishing. They have been coached on it. He said he wonders how other NFL teams do it or if they even have a way to do it. He sees that trait lacking in other teams across the league.

His blueprint is through “language, through mentality and, yes, we actually teach it.”

Seahawks fans are spoiled. They look at this bunch, compare them to their Super Bowl teams and conclude the defense is not as strong and the offense is not as swift. They see flaws.

But the Seahawks play in a flawed NFC.

Just how good and how far can they go?

“You really can’t say the answer to that right now,” Chancellor said in as matter-a-fact, as honest an answer you will find. “It’s game six. As the season goes on we are looking to get better and better. We are a work in progress.”

Seattle showed against the Giants it remains a team that knows how to build a game to a crescendo, that it can keep tightening the noose until opponents wilt, waver and succumb. The Seahawks still possess that ability to simply wear you out.

It creates envy.

“I’m not so sure people think that much of us,” Sherman said. “Even in our division (NFC West), I’m hearing a lot of noise about the Rams. Hey, you know, we did beat the Rams earlier this year. But it doesn’t seem to matter. I think people are tired of us. We’ve been up here doing this for a long time now. I think they want to see somebody else. I think they are saying, `Hey, they’ve already had their shot!’ Yeah, we’ve rode this thing for a long time. I like our chances.”

Why not? It is surely beyond 50-50.