Seattle’s Week Three blowout victory over the New Orleans Saints turned out to be a complete anomaly. The Seahawks went back to their old ways of keeping fans on the edge of their seats and giving them mini heart attacks until the very end in their 23-20 win over the Arizona Cardinals on Thursday night. Jason Myers kicked the game-winning 52-yard field goal as time expired to make up for his earlier miss from 53 yards out.
The thing is, this game shouldn’t have gotten to that point. Seattle was in the driver’s seat the whole game. The offense was moving the ball, the defense sacked Kyler Murray six times and intercepted him twice, and the Seahawks looked to have iced the game with Zach Charbonnet’s second touchdown of the game midway through the fourth quarter.
That was until Jaxon Smith-Njigba was called for a (I’m just going to say it) horrible holding penalty, where the Cardinals defender just ran into him, but nevertheless, the touchdown was wiped off the board and the Seahawks were pushed back to the 13-yard line.
Then ensued the most frustrating sequence of plays in the game for the Seahawks. I had mentioned I was a fan of Klint Kubiak’s balanced play-calling so far this season, and it was a reason why the Seahawks had been having success. I was ready to eat all my words right there.
The Seahawks ran the ball for five yards, committed a false start penalty, ran the ball again, then dialed up a screen pass to Cooper Kupp. Seriously, what are you paying Sam Darnold $100 million for, if you don’t trust him to put the ball in his hands in huge moments? It’s not like Darnold had been playing poorly either, he had made some big throws earlier in the game. Those play calls were so conservative, it was like they were playing in the first preseason game. No shot into the end zone, just accepting to take a field goal.
So that’s what they did. Myers kicked his second field goal of the game to make it 20-6.
Now, I have to give credit where credit is due, Kyler Murray made some great throws. He made a beautiful pass to Marvin Harrison Jr. for a touchdown over Devon Witherspoon, who actually had great coverage on the play, to bring the Cardinals within one score.
On their next drive, Seattle was facing a third-and-six backed up on their own 26. Sam Darnold delivered a beautiful pass, dropping it in the bucket downfield for Smith-Njigba, who went the entire first half without a target, for a huge gain of 36 yards. Seattle then ran the ball three straight times, failing to pick up a first down (again, more conservative play-calling), which led to Jason Myers missing the field goal.
The Cardinals drove down the field after Michael Wilson made a one-handed catch on fourth down, and Marvin Harrison made another huge grab over Witherspoon to set up the game-tying touchdown with 28 seconds left.
The Seahawks had one timeout left, but it looked like this game was headed for overtime. That was until Cardinals kicker Chad Ryland kicked the ball short of the landing zone, giving the Seahawks the ball at their own 40-yard line. Darnold delivered another beautiful pass to Jaxon Smith-Njigba for 22 yards to help set up Myers’ game-winning field goal.
The Seahawks are 3-1 — that’s the good news. But there are lots of things to clean up.
Tariq Woolen, who’s had a tough start to the year, committed three penalties yesterday. The conservative play-calling needs to be addressed, you could argue that it single-handedly kept the Cardinals in the game. The Seahawks need to be more aggressive moving forward to close out games. It cost them in the first game against San Francisco, and it almost did again yesterday.
Kenneth Walker needs to learn how to run forward. I don’t know why I have to say this, but there were multiple times Walker ran backwards and lost four or five yards, putting the offense in a tough spot.
Nevertheless, the Seahawks have 10 days to rest and figure out these kinks before their matchup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
