SEAHAWKS-CARDINALS FINAL SCORE

🚨SPOILERS AHEAD🚨

The Seahawks owe this win to John Schneider, with a nod to Pete Carroll, because Seattle’s dominant defensive effort in beating the Cardinals 16-6 on Sunday was a symbol for the most important lesson of the season:

Players change teams so often that there’s more pressure on the front office to be right than there is on any other group in an organization. Including players and coaches.

That’s the message that has stood out over the past two wins by the Seahawks, that the majority of the players who are making plays were not on the team until recently:

• Ernest Jones, 10 tackles, added 10/23/2024

• Leonard Williams, 2.5 sacks, added 10/30/2023

• Devon Witherspoon, forced INT, drafted 4/27/2023

• Tyrice Knight, 9 tackles and 1 sack, drafted 4/26/2024

• Coby Bryant, pick-6, draft 4/29/2022

• Julian Love, 2 PD, signed 3/17/2023

This is a sampling of a larger picture which includes Byron Murphy, Jarran Reed, and almost everybody on Seattle’s defense. Very few players will be contributors on a team for longer than three years, so the picker becomes more important than the picked.

Between Mike Macdonald’s defense and Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s offense over the past few games, Schneider’s the hottest picker since Peter Piper.

Pending the outcome of Sunday Night Football, the Seahawks are in first place in the NFC West at 6-5 with a 2-2 divisional record. Nothing has changed about the importance of the Seahawks beating the Cardinals again in two weeks, but at least now Seattle knows what at stake if they continue to win.

And though Schneider did the shopping, whether or not the Seahawks seize their remaining opportunities will be up to the players and coaches.

The most impressive stat of the day:

The Seahawks held the Cardinals to 49 rushing yards on 14 carries and Arizona had 0 runs for a first down…Zero.

This was James Conner’s worst game of the season and he’s having a great year. The key to the game for Seattle’s defense was to make sure Kyler Murray didn’t burn them outside of the pocket and the Seahawks:

• sacked Murray 5 times

• intercepted him on a throw from outside of the pocket

• held him to nine rushing yards

The Cardinals entered the game 5th in rushing yards and 2nd in yards per carry, but something expected to be a weakness for the Seahawks — run defense — was instead the team’s greatest strength.

Hidden Yards

• Michael Dickson had 5 punts and pinned 3 inside of the 20

• Jason Myers missed a PAT, but hidden yards played a factor because there was a 15-yard penalty by Coby Bryant on the touchdown

• The Seahawks went 7-of-14 on third down

Even Geno Smith’s interception, as bad as it was, proved the importance of hidden yards because Arizona started that drive on the 20 whereas Bryant’s interception was taken to the house. The interception took points off of the board for Seattle, but also highlighted how hard it is to drive 80 yards.

(The Cardinals settled for a field goal to cut the lead to 13-6, but that took 5 precious minutes off of the clock.)

And though the game was mostly out of reach, Arizona’s horrific time and situation management in the two-minute drill — literally as bad as a team can do that and still have a field goal try — served as another reminder of how football is a game of seconds and inches and they all count.

Improvement Opportunities on Offense

For winning a game by 10 points, the Seahawks found every opportunity to keep the game close.

• 25 carries for 65 yards (2.6 yards per carry)

• Another red zone turnover

• Fewer total yards and yards per play than Arizona

Can we really praise the Seahawks defense without also criticizing the Seahawks offense when the Cardinals offense had more yards and yards per play than Seattle did?

At first watch of the Geno Smith interception, it appeared as though he had plenty of room to run for the first down. On post-game inspection, I don’t think he could have made the first down, look at the player on the left:

But that doesn’t excuse throwing another interception that takes points off of the board.

Offensive Line

Anthony Bradford left the game with an injury and was replaced by Christian Haynes. Macdonald said after the game that he would expect Bradford to also miss next week’s game against the Jets.

Overall, it’s difficult to praise an offensive line when the run game is still so bad and the team scores 10 offensive points. The Seahawks had 10 drives:

• 1 TD, 61-yard drive

• 1 FG, 49-yard drive

• 1 INT, 73-yard drive

• 5 punts, 2 kneels

Although even when Geno Smith had that play when he must have been at least 10 seconds standing in the pocket, nothing good happened.

The Seahawks play the Jets next week and even though it’s the least-important game left on Seattle’s schedule in terms of their playoff chances, it’s still extremely important.

Seaside Joe 2094