After a red-hot start, the Seattle Seahawks have cooled down of late, falling to 6-3 last week in a loss to the Rams. As for Arizona, they were riding high coming into this division matchup, taking down the Buffalo Bills on a Hail Mary to star WR DeAndre Hopkins. In this game to kick off Week 11, Seattle outdueled Arizona, taking down the division rival by a score of 28-21. Let us look at how this game went down.

A Balanced Attack

For most of this season, the Seattle offense has followed the motto of “Let Russ Cook”. Despite this, the Seahawks have been more effective as an offense when they are balanced, running the ball to complement the pass.

With RB Chris Carson out, RB Carlos Hyde led the ground game to the tune of 14 carries for 79 yards and a touchdown. QB Russell Wilson also scrambled for 42 yards, while RB’s Bo Scarbrough and DeeJay Dallas combined for a line of 7/44. In total, the pass-heavy Seahawks ran for 165 yards and controlled the ball for over 35 minutes, a key stat to a victory.

While the ground game was effective, Russ was still able to cook, going 23/28 with 197 yards and two touchdowns, totaling a passer rating of 119.8. As for the receiving numbers, WR Tyler Lockett got the nod tonight, catching nine balls for 67 yards and a touchdown the only way Tyler Lockett could, a fade from the slot into the corner of the endzone. In two games, Lockett finished with a line of 24/267/4 against the Arizona Cardinals. WR DK Metcalf also found the end zone early in the game but was held for three catches on the night for 46 yards. Six other players caught passes from Wilson, completing the passing attack.

Seattle Has a Defense?

For most of the season, the Seahawks have been known as a team that was carried by their offense, and rightfully so. Seattle was dead last in YPG and 28th in PPG defensively, receiving criticism week in and week out. In this game, the defense stepped up when it mattered most, doing just enough to secure the victory. Pete Carrol’s bunch held Arizona’s lethal rushing attack to just 57 yards on the ground while also sacking QB Kyler Murray three times. Newly signed DE Carlos Dunlap made the biggest impact, totaling two sacks on the night, his second sealing the win for Seattle. LB’s D.J Reed Jr. and Bobby Wagner combined for 19 tackles to lead the defensive performance.

Cardinals Beat Themselves

Even though Seattle deserved this win, the Arizona Cardinals beat themselves all night with mental and physical mistakes. Arizona had a whopping 10 penalties for 115 yards. The three that stood out were a taunting penalty that led to a score, an intentional grounding that put Arizona on their own two, which was immediately followed by a holding in the endzone, resulting in a safety. Penalties have been an issue all season for Arizona. The Cardinals came into the game leading the league in penalties with 79 and are third in penalty yards. If Arizona wants to be legit contenders, they need to clean these up.

Looking Ahead

Looking ahead to Week 12, the Arizona Cardinals will look to salvage their loss against a resurgent New England Patriots team (4-5) in Foxborough. As for Seattle, they will travel to take on the first-place Philadelphia Eagles (3-5-1) on Monday Night Football, looking to move to 8-3 and distance themselves in the division even more.

Writer

-By: Richie Dordas

It took over 65 minutes for this game to have a winner, but every minute was amazing to watch. This game generated over 1,000 total yards of offense between the teams. Both quarterbacks not only passed for over 350 yards but they also picked up over 65 yards on the ground. Unfortunately, one quarterback just took care of the ball better. The magic of Russell Wilson just wasn’t there for him on SNF and the Seahawks lost in overtime 37-34 to the Cardinals and Murray. 

If you just watched the first half of this game, you would have assumed going to sleep that the Seahawks were going to win and it would be an easy day at the office for Russell Wilson.  Russ was cooking and already had two touchdowns passing and over 40 yards rushing. Tyler Lockett was going off with almost 100 yards and two touchdowns. Even with Carson going out early in the game, they still had a rushing touchdown by Carlos Hyde. This Seahawks offense was rolling and other than a brain fart on the part of Wilson, they would have been up by three scores at the half. Luckily the defense stopped them after the pick and the return, and DK Metcalf showed again how he is not human. He hawked down Budda Baker and stopped a potential 90 plus yard pick-six to set up the defense for the stop. 

Even with all that going the Cardinals still seemed composed and like they were still in the game. They did get D-Hop involved early on with a 37-yard touchdown catch that just was a beautiful play. As well they ended the half getting a quick field goal to cut the lead some. 

The second half is when things got truly interesting. After punts from each team, the defenses stepped up and grabbed picks on each of the quarterbacks. Then went on to score back to back touchdowns to make the game close. With the Seahawks up by three with about two minutes left, most people would have assumed that they should be able to run out the clock and finish the game. Yet, they got stopped and left a minute on the clock for Murray and that offense to try for the win. 

Murray moved them down the field with big plays from Chase Edmonds in the passing game, and set up a game-tying field goal attempt. Zane Gonzalez hit it from 44 yards out and brought the game into overtime. In overtime, the Seahawks received the ball and Russ tried for another one of his signature game-winning drives. Unluckily for him, the Cardinals defense finally showed up and forced the Seahawks to punt and gave Kyler the chance to win. In less than three minutes, Murray moved his team into field goal range and they decided to go for the win. Gonzalez nailed the field goal but due to the play clock almost hitting zero, Kingsbury called timeout and iced his kicker. On the next attempt, he missed it wide left. 

Again, Russell Wilson had a chance to make the game-winning drive but got stifled by a defense he was carving up for most of the night. After getting the ball moving, Wilson passes to Metcalf and he takes it up the sideline for 48 yards and a score. At least they thought it was a score until the flags came out and it’s offensive holding on Seattle. In the next play, Wilson passes short middle and gets picked off by the rookie LB Isaiah Simmons. After a few run plays to solidify the spot, the Cardinals send Gonzalez back out there for the game-winning field goal. This time he nailed it and the Cardinals won in overtime. 

The biggest takeaway from this game was that the Cardinals are serious players this year and the Seahawks will live and die by Russell Wilson. Murray is showing more improvements this year with new weapon Deandre Hopkins and a full year with Kenyan Drake at RB. As well that defense is showing it can step up when need be. The Seahawks defense is on a historically bad pace and averaging over 475 yards allowed per game. If Russ doesn’t put up at least 30 plus points, this team will lose more often than not. 

Writer

-By: Darren Braxton

         Arlington, TX – It was the coming home party that Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray had always dreamed about, as his Cardinals absolutely railroaded the Dallas Cowboys at Jerry’s World, winning 31-10 under the Monday Night Football Lights. The Texas native was 6-0 when playing in AT&T Stadium during his high school years coming into Monday night, and that streak proved prophetic, as Murray shredded the Cowboys defense with both his arms and his legs for 262 total offensive yards and three total touchdowns.   

Welcome home, Kyler Murray 

            AT&T Stadium is Kyler Murray’s home away from home. The Bedford, Texas product grew up just 20 minutes away from Jerry’s world, where he cemented himself as a rising football legend. On the high school level, Murray led Allen High School to three consecutive high school championships, going undefeated under center for the Eagles. As a college quarterback, Murray beat the Texas Longhorns 39-27 in AT&T Stadium to lead his Oklahoma Sooners to a 2018 Big 12 Championship win. And now, as a starting NFL quarterback, Murray looked to keep that level of dominance going. And he did not disappoint (sort of). 

            The first quarter started off weary for Murray, only completing 5/13 of his passes (38% completion) for 31 yards, along with 38 rushing yards on 6 carries. Thankfully, the Cowboys were just ineffective (more on that later), so the game was 0-0 at the end of the first quarter. Come the second quarter, though, and it’s like an entirely different Murray (and Cardinals team as a whole) walked out onto the field. In the passing game, Murray was still somewhat lacking; only attempting 11 more passes for the rest of the game, completing four of them, for 157 yards. He did find the endzone twice through the air though, with both scores coming by way of third-year wideout Christian Kirk (2-86-2). He scored the first one on a shovel pass on a designed jet sweep in the RedZone for a 6-yard score, while the second one was a straight go route down the middle of the field for an 80-yard score. Murray’s top target, star wideout DeAndre Hopkins (2-73), was relatively quiet for the night, but managed to rip out a 60-yard catch-and-run in the fourth quarter during garbage time. On the ground, Murray was second on the team with 74 rushing yards on 10 carries, including a one-yard touchdown that he literally scampered into the endzone for on a read-option play. Kenyan Drake led the way with 20 carries for 164 yards and two scores, the second of which came off a 69-yard rush he ripped off out in the Cards’ last drive of the game. 

            On defense, Vance Joseph’s unit played like the 2000 Baltimore Ravens defense; pushing Dallas’ offense around like schoolyard bullies. They forced two interceptions against Andy Dalton and caused halfback Ezekiel Elliott to fumble on back-to-back drives. Each turnover led to an Arizona scoring drive (three touchdowns and a 26-yard field goal by Zane Gonzalez). The unit’s leader, strong safety Budda Baker, was looked like Ed Reed out there; registering seven total tackles, a sack, two QB Hits, a pass deflection, a forced fumble, and his first career interception. There’s a reason Baker is the highest-paid safety in the NFL, earning every cent of the four-year, $59 million contract he signed earlier this off-season.  

2-14 can win the NFC East

            Let’s face it; the NFC East in 2020 is the worst division in football, arguably in contention for the worst of all time. The New York Giants (1-5), Philadelphia Eagles (1-4-1), Washington football team (1-5), and Dallas Cowboys (2-3 going into Monday night) are a combined 5-17-1 in six weeks. There are six teams in the league with five wins individually. That’s how pathetic this division is. And Dallas is the most mercurial of them all. Going into week six, the Cowboys offense was first in average yards per game (488.0) and passing yards per game (381.4). Quarterback Dak Prescott was the reason Dallas ever had a chance of winning any of the last five games they’ve played in. He was on pace for 5,939 passing yards and 38 total touchdowns (29 passing touchdowns, nine rushing touchdowns). That is, until he suffered a season-ending compound fracture against the Giants in a Week 5 win. 

            Many in the football cognoscente believed that quarterback Andy Dalton would be capable to fill in just fine for Prescott, as both quarterbacks had similar career numbers through the first four seasons. But the man affectionately known as the “Red Rifle” looked aimless and defeated from the first snap of the game against the Cardinals on Monday. Dalton often checked down to his underneath receivers, with his longest completed pass traveling only 21 air yards. He finished the night completing 34/54 of his passes (63% completion) for 266 yards, a touchdown, and those two ugly interceptions. The three-headed receiver corps monster that is Amari Cooper (7-79-1), Michael Gallup (2-23), and CeeDee Lamb (7-64) were kept in relative check by the Cardinals secondary, with Cooper being the only Cowboy to register a touchdown on the night. A touchdown that came on an UGLY 18-play drive, in which Dallas head coach Mike McCarthy kept trying force the ball in through the air, instead of trusting his bell-cow back in Ezekiel Elliott to punch it in (flashbacks to Super Bowl XLIX, anyone?) 

            As for the defense, what can be said about this unit that hasn’t already been said? Good news; star linebacker Leighton Vander Esch returned from his IR stint. Bad news; the defense played just as bad, if not worse, than before. Dallas’ lone sack of the night came when Murray tripped over his right tackle for a loss of 11. It was a gimme-sack, essentially. Dallas, as a unit, only registered two tackles for loss and two pass deflections. Mike Nolan’s return to coaching defenses is looking like an instant regret for McCarthy, as Dallas ranks in the bottom half for total defense.  

What’s next? 

            Arizona is riding a two-game win streak against awful teams in the New York Jets and the Dallas Cowboys. Their real test as to whether or not they’re a real team comes in week 7, as Arizona is set to host the NFC West division leader Seattle Seahawks, who are coming off a bye and are still one of three undefeated teams left in the NFL at 5-0. 

            As for Dallas, the Cowboys have a chance to get right next week as they travel East to face a Washington Football Team that has no identity, no direction, and no clear answer at quarterback.  

Writer

-By: Juan Guarin-Camargo