Not hyperbole to say tonight’s Seahawks-Cardinals game is absolutely pivotal in NFC West
Yes, it’s still only November. It’s typically not the time to call any game “critical.”
A half-dozen, telling games will still remain in the regular season. Any contender that doesn’t win most of them won’t have anything to contend for come January’s playoffs.
Yet the Seahawks’ game against their NFC West-rival Arizona Cardinals Thursday night at empty-again CenturyLink Field is huge.
It’s pivotal, in the truest sense of the word.
A win for Seattle (6-3) would reverse its alarming trend of three losses in four games. A victory would put the Seahawks back to the top of the division for the most advantageous part of their schedule. After Thursday, they have only one game remaining against a team with a winning record.
That’s Dec. 27 against the Rams (6-3) in the next-to-last week of the regular season. Before that, Seattle has three games against the NFC East, the NFL’s equivalent of Division II. Those include back-to-back games next at Philadelphia (3-5-1) on Nov. 30 after a 10-day break then at home against the New York Giants (3-7). Then after that, the Seahawks have a home game against the New York Jets (0-9) and a road one at Washington (2-7).
A win Thursday and opportunity wouldn’t just be knocking for Seattle, it would be barreling through the door. A 12-4 or even 13-3 season would become realistic possibilities. That will likely be enough to win the league’s best and most rugged division. The Rams and Cardinals have yet to play each other. They will give each other more defeats than the three losses each have entering Thursday night.
But a Seahawks loss to the Cardinals? That would make things slippery for Seattle.
It would drop the team to third place in the West. The Seahawks would lose the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Cardinals (having also lost in Arizona Oct. 25), so they would fall essentially two games out of the division lead with six games remaining. Another loss would put Seattle suddenly just one game ahead of the Chicago Bears (5-5) for the NFC’s seventh and final playoff spot. The Seahawks would go from the conference’s only unbeaten team four weeks ago to the edge of missing out on the postseason for only the second time in nine years.
So, yeah, it’s not hyperbole to call Thursday night’s game “pivotal.”
Yet Russell Wilson won’t allow himself to consider all the ramifications. He never does.
“Staying focused on what the mission is right now. I’m so focused on this week,” Seattle’s quarterback said. “No matter how good it is, or how tough it is, you’ve always got to be in the moment, right now.”
For Wilson, it sure beats looking back.
The Seahawks won’t win Thursday, or even against those NFC Least teams, unless he gets less pressure and makes better decisions than he’s had the last four games. After Seahawks lead rushers Chris Carson and Carlos Hyde got hurt early in their first meeting with Arizona, the Cardinals relentlessly blitzed Wilson from everywhere in the fourth quarter and overtime.
Wilson ended that night with three interceptions, including one with a minute left in overtime when the Cardinals tricked Wilson into thinking their were blitzing then dropped linebacker Isaiah Simmons directly into Wilson’s third-down throw intended for Tyler Lockett at midfield. That mistake set up Arizona’s winning field goal.
Those were the first of the 10 turnovers Wilson’s had in the Seahawks’ three losses the last four games. The Bills and Rams the last two weeks have copied Arizona’s defensive plan. They’ve disregarded Seattle’s running game that’s remained without the injured Carson and Hyde and blitzed Wilson. Buffalo and Los Angeles knocked down Wilson 34 times in the Seahawks’ last two games. That’s a huge reason he’s turned the ball over seven times the last two weeks.
But Hyde is playing Thursday. And Carson will be a game-time decision on whether he will join him. Having one of both of them in the backfield will give Arizona some pause in blitzing Wilson so freely and often. It should give Seattle more manageable third downs. More manageable, that is, than the third and 14 he threw the final interception at Arizona, or the third and eight on which he fumbled a low shotgun snap from fill-in center Kyle Fuller (who will be playing again hurt Thursday) and third and nine he threw his second interception in the fourth quarter last weekend at the Rams.
This uneven Seahawks season has shown when Wilson is perfect or nearly so, they win. He has only three turnovers in their six wins. When he makes mistakes, they lose—see the 10 turnovers in those three losses.
Seattle’s defense pressuring Kyler Murray far more than it did while dropping back and hoping he didn’t pass over it or run past it last month would sure help reduce that burden on Wilson. Murray dropped back 48 times in the first meeting. The Seahawks not only failed to sack him, they had no hits on the QB that night.
“We’ve got to make sure he isn’t feeling too much burden,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said of Wilson.
A win Thursday night, and he won’t.
A loss? That will push the weight of their playoff hopes down onto not only Wilson, but every Seahawk.
“We’re ready to go,” Carroll said, “and looking forward to it. ...
“Our guys are fired up to go for it. And our guys are always fired up to play on Thursday night.”
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 8:31 AM.
