When the Seattle Seahawks (4-1) hosted the Atlanta Falcons (4-2) on Sunday, fans anticipated a hard-fought game – and that’s exactly what they got.

However, it was the hard fighting by cornerback Richard Sherman in the last minutes of the game that, once again, put the Seattle Seahawks in the spotlight of controversy.

After surrendering 21 points to the Falcons in the third quarter, the Seahawks found themselves trailing by a touchdown. You wouldn’t find Seattle’s Head Coach Pete Carroll sweating on the sidelines since he finds that his team is in this position quite often and, as a matter of fact, preaches often that it’s not how you start a game, but rather how you finish.

Quarterback Russell Wilson, entering the game with 19 game-winning drives in his short career, led the Seahawks 70 yards down field, setting up running back Christine Michael’s one-yard touchdown run. It looked like Seattle was going to tie the game at 24 until a lengthy extra point was blocked by the Falcon’s defense. With a little more than four minutes to go and down 23-24, Seattle was going to need its defense to step up.

The 12th man granted that wish when Falcon’s wide receiver Julio Jones couldn’t make a catch which resulted in Sherman poking his hand up to tip the football into safety Earl Thomas’ possession for an interception. Kicker Steven Hauschka was later called on to kick a 44-yard field goal and give Seattle the edge, 26-24.

The game was far from over with almost two minutes still remaining in the contest. Falcon’s Head Coach Dan Quinn, former Seahawk’s defensive coordinator, was not about to lose sight of going into Seattle and beating a premier team in the Seahawks – a statement victory to the rest of the league.

Quarterback Matt Ryan and the Falcons were challenged in their next and final possession when Ryan attempted to pass three times but failed completely. In a last-ditch effort to avoid a turnover on downs and an inevitable loss, Ryan chucked the ball downfield toward Jones where he was there and in line to make the catch. Sherman was there too.

Unfortunately, Sherman was too close for comfort as he clearly should have been called for pass interference – at least that’s what it looked like initially. Even an announcer proclaimed that Sherman got away with the pass interference, noting that he grabbed Jones’ arm and that he got away with it, making the difference in the outcome of the game.

What you probably didn’t see is that at the beginning of that play, Jones put his hands in Sherman’s face, initiating what should have been called a facemask and Sherman stumbled down before swiftly getting back up to tackle Jones.

Had a flag been thrown, not only would it have reset the downs for the Falcons, but the ball would have been placed at the spot of the foul and, ultimately, in extremely good field coverage. It would have been about a 40-yard gain and possibly set up a game-winning field goal kick for Atlanta.

Of course, you could make the argument that both flags should have been thrown and the officials missed two calls – one more blatant than the other. It could very well have been intentional to not call pass interference on Sherman because Jones was not called for a facemask and the officials were just trying to offset a mistake they made seconds before.

If you were able to catch the game in real time, you would have seen a livid Quinn on the sidelines as Sherman escaped penalty. Furiously, Quinn was jumping up and down, yelling at one official and waving his arms in disgust that pass interference wasn’t called.

In a post-game interview, Quinn was more relaxed, admitting, “As you go through the last play – usually one game doesn’t define us…We certainly had other opportunities in the game to go capitalize and finish, so we won’t let it come down to one time for us, or at least comment on that.”

With a sudden change of emotion, one has to assume that Quinn understands why a flag was not thrown.

When asked if Jones thought Sherman interfered with him, Jones told reporters, “I do … But it was just a missed call. It’s over with. It’s done. It’s on to the next one.”

For the Seahawks, the next game will be played on NBC next Sunday, Oct. 23 when Seattle has a divisional date in Arizona with the Cardinals (3-3).