SEATTLE — The situation seemed dire for the Seahawks a few times Sunday at Levi's Stadium.

As the Seahawks took over at their own 20, trailing the 49ers 17-13 with 2:38 and two time outs remaining, quarterback Geno Smith said he felt only calm.

"I just think [it's] perspective," Smith said. "I was out there smiling on that last drive. Like when I walked on the field, I just kind of felt like angels in the outfield, like somebody's rubbing my shoulders the whole time. I just felt like there was no pressure."

He proceeded to play that way, completing 7-of-8 passes for 54 yards and running twice for 29, finishing it off himself with a 13-yard run for a game-winning score with 12 seconds remaining to give the Seahawks a 20-17 win.

"He's just a stone-cold assassin late in games," coach Mike Macdonald marveled on Monday.

The numbers bear that out.

Sunday was the seventh time since the beginning of the 2023 season Smith has led a game-winning drive, which is defined as a drive in the fourth quarter or overtime that puts the winning team ahead for the last time.

That's tied with Jalen Hurts of the Eagles for the most in the NFL in that span.

Smith has 10 game-winning drives since taking over as the Seahawks' starting quarterback in 2022, which is second in the NFL in that span behind the 11 of Kirk Cousins.

That accounts for 43.5% of the 23 wins the Seahawks have in that time. (Drew Lock led a game-winning drive in one of his two Seahawks starts in 2023, fittingly against Hurts and the Eagles).

It's also not just a Seattle thing for Smith.

He tied with Tom Brady for the NFL lead with five game-winning drives during his rookie season with the Jets in 2013.

Smith has 17 career game-winning drives in 76 career starts, 13th among all active quarterbacks (Matthew Stafford leads with 46) and tied for 79th all time.

Two others who also had 17 are Hall of Famers Bart Starr (who had 157 starts) and George Blanda (who had 106).

Smith has more game-winning than a few other Hall of Famers, such as Len Dawson and Steve Young. Each had 16, Dawson's coming in 211 career games, Young 169.

Smith has led a game-winning drive in 22.6% of his career starts. That compares favorably with some of the best to ever do it.

Brady, who is the all-time leader in comeback drives according to Pro Football Reference, had 58 in 333 starts, or 17.4%. Peyton Manning, who is next on the list, had 54 in 265 career starts, 20.4%

Russell Wilson, also famous for leading his own game-winning drives throughout his career in Seattle, had 32 in 158 Seahawks regular-season starts, or 20.2%.

Like everything in football, the Seahawks' win was hardly a one-man show.

The defense had to get the ball back to even have a chance, limiting the 49ers to just one first down on offense (and another on a penalty) after San Francisco took over at its own 37 with 3:56 left following the Seahawks' ill-fated attempts to get a yard on third- and fourth-and-1.

Smith also needed help from his receivers, notably blossoming star Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who caught four passes for 38 yards on the march, including two third-down conversions.

All quarterbacks are playing in a golden age for parity in the NFL.

There have been 78 games decided by six points or fewer this year, the most through Week 11 in NFL history, according to stats released by the league this week.

Simply put, more games than ever are coming down to the wire. But if that is giving everyone more opportunities for late-game comebacks, it also makes it more important than ever to have a QB who thrives in those situations.

For the help he needed, Smith made the critical play with his scramble for the TD, a decision that came with some risk.

The play snapped with 18 seconds left and the Seahawks had no time outs.

As Smith dropped, he noticed most of the 49ers peeling back in coverage, including middle linebacker Fred Warner, who initially began to cover running back Zach Charbonnet, who was running a crossing route to the right.

Smith knew 49ers standout pass rusher Nick Bosa was standing safely on the sidelines, departing midway through the third quarter with an oblique injury.

So when he saw an opening to his left, Smith took off.

Had he been tackled in bounds, the Seahawks would have had to hustle to assure getting the ball snapped and clocked in time to run another play or two.

As he saw his quarterback break past the line of scrimmage, Macdonald said he had full trust in Smith, as well as faith in the way the team prepares for such moments.

"You never do it for real until you have to do it for real," Macdonald said Monday. "But these are situations that [research analyst] Brian Eayrs does a great job of scripting it out. We've been working on this stuff since April. ... These are situations that we have an understanding of, so there's a calmness about how we're going to operate.

"Now, that play at the end could've gotten a little hairy if the ball was in- bounds at that time. But we had a plan for it [and] Geno continues to show poise and calmness and confidence in those situations."

Smith downplayed it later, though the emotion he displayed in the moment, uncorking Stephen Curry's famous "night, night" celebration on the sideline not far from where Curry plays, indicates it was a bigger deal than he was letting on.

And why not?

Not only was the win Smith's first in six starts against the 49ers (Lock also started a loss to the 49ers last year), but it kept the Seahawks' playoff hopes at a realistic level while breaking a skid of five losses in six games.

As Smith acknowledged later: "We knew how much was at stake."

Statistically, it was among the most unlikely of Smith's 10 game-winning drives as a Seahawk.

ESPN analytics, which attaches a team winning percentage to every play of a game, gave the 49ers a 90.3% win probability when Johnathan Hankins was called for defensive holding with 3:10 left, giving the 49ers a first down at the Seahawks' 46.

Only one other Smith-led comeback the last three years came in a game where an opponent had a higher win probability — the 21-20 victory at Arizona in the regular-season finale last year when Cardinals kicker Matt Prater missed a 43-yard field goal with three minutes left that would have put Arizona up 23-13, and a 51-yarder on the last play that would have won it.

The Cardinals had as high as a 97.3% win probability in the final moments of that one.

The 49ers — who needed only to hold the Seahawks out of the end zone to win — had an 80.9% win probability when the final drive began.

San Francisco's win probability was still as high as 79.7% when Smith was sacked for a loss of three to create a second-and-13 at the 49ers 37 with 50 seconds left and just one time out. Smith ran for 16 yards to set up his own even-bigger heroics two plays later.

"That's who he is," Macdonald said. "... The poise that he has that he's continued to show his whole career late in the fourth quarter on some of these comeback wins. Happy he's with us."

(c)2024 The Seattle Times Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.