Seahawks keys at Cardinals: Short week, stay simple--and to their roots
Kenneth Walker’s been managing pain.
Zach Charbonnet’s been out injured.
The offensive linemen have not been consistently and properly targeting their blocks consistently.
Yet among the multiple reasons for the Seahawks’ sputtering start to this season establishing their new bedrock, their play caller is stepping up to take full blame for their so-far faulty running game.
“Yeah, we’ve just gotta be more detailed,” offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak said.
“And it starts with me.”
Seattle (2-1) has the fourth-worst average of yards per rush in the NFL, just 3.3. The Seahawks are 22nd in the 32-team league in yards rushing per game (95.0).
Walker broke out for 105 yards on just 13 carries at porous Pittsburgh in week two. Otherwise, in the opener against San Francisco and against New Orleans last weekend, Walker has rushed 26 times for a total of just 58 yards. That’s only 2.2 yards per carry.
Charbonnet hasn’t been better. He had 15 carries for 10 yards against the Steelers. He ended up with a foot injury from that game and missed last weekend when Seattle beat New Orleans. In the two games he’s played he’s rushed 27 times for only 57 yards (2.1 yards per carry).
This is not how the offense looked in the preseason last month, when the starting offensive line was bulldozing defenders for huge rushing exhibitions.
This is not why coach Mike Macdonald hired Kubiak this past winter, to improve what was the league’s 28th-ranked rushing offense in 2024.
“There’s room for improvement, just like many facets of our offense,” Kubiak said. “We can coach better there. We can play better there. And it’s something that our guys are putting a big emphasis on.”
The running game is going to look different Thursday night when the Seahawks play at the Arizona Cardinals (2-1) in an NFC West game. That is, the people in it are going to be different, if not the results.
Charbonnet is questionable to play in the injury report for the game the Seahawks issued Wednesday. If he can’t play, 2024 rookie free agent George Holani from Boise State will again back up Walker Thursday.
Fullback Robbie Ouzts is out. He went on injured reserve Wednesday with an ankle injury he got in the second half of Seattle’s win last weekend over the Saints.
Brady Russell, also a backup tight end and special-teams mainstay, will be the fullback at Arizona.
“Number one, he’s a phenomenal teammate and a guy that we have a lot of confidence in that has already been a phenomenal player on teams,” Kubiak said of Russell. “He had a really great offseason with us as an offense so looking forward to getting him on the field this week.”
Arizona is fourth in the NFL against the run so far this season. The Cardinals have held San Francisco (in a 16-15 road loss last week) plus Carolina and New Orleans (in Arizona’s wins) to 76.3 yards rushing per game.
Seahawks (2-1) at Arizona Cardinals (2-1)
Thursday, 5:15 p.m., State Farm Stadium, Glendale, Arizona
Television: Amazon Prime online, FOX 13 Seattle locally
Line: Seahawks by 1 1/2.
Seahawks game keys at Arizona
1. Running early, often and better against Arizona’s strong defense is the first key to the Seahawks getting their division record to 1-1 Thursday night in the desert.
Seattle’s remade offense and remodeled offensive line has been built to run first, pass second off the run. Quarterback Sam Darnold is at his best when his offense is running the ball and he’s throwing play-action, rollout passes off those runs.
“It’s huge to be able to run the football in this system,” quarterback Sam Darnold said. “We want to continue to be better, and we will be.”
Kubiak’s reputation as a run-first, outside-zone play caller from his time as offensive coordinator at Minnesota (2021) and New Orleans (2024) precedes him. Seattle’s opponents this season have moved a safety close to the line of scrimmage, in a “stacked, heavy box,” to clog the Seahawks’ running lanes with an extra defender.
This short week, Darnold intimated he has been changing some run plays to passes at the line with audible calls because of the heavy boxes, and perhaps not changing runs doomed to fail to passes when he should.
“We’re going to continue to (run), and that’s on me, as well, being able to make the right checks and get us in the right play,” Darnold said.
“But we’re going to continue to get better and learn from what we’ve been doing in the run game.”
His offensive line might be missing its starting right guard at Arizona. Anthony Bradford is questionable to play because of an injured backs. Options if he doesn’t play: center Jalen Sundell moving to right guard and backup center Olu Oluwatimi making his first start this season; or recently signed veteran guard Shane Lemieux’s Seattle debut.
2. Containing Kyler Murray
The Seahawks’ defense is second in the NFL in points allowed through three games (15.7 points per game). Seattle’s four touchdowns allowed is tied with Green Bay and the Los Angeles Chargers for the league’s fewest.
They have generated the league’s second-highest rate of pass-rush wins while blitzing at the NFL’s fourth-lowest rate (14.6%). It’s been a four-man pass rush 82% of the time, second-highest in the league. The front four of mostly Leonard Williams, DeMarcus Lawrence, Jarran Reed and Byron Murphy have been excellent pass rushing by themselves. That’s left as many as seven defenders in coverage, often against four or fewer receivers.
The one issue Seattle’s defensive front has had is not containing quarterbacks inside the tackles, allowing them to extend plays outside.
Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray is the biggest challenge yet to that. He’s the fastest QB Seattle has faced, by far. Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon ran Murray fewer times last season on designed runs than Murray had done in previous seasons. But he’s run 20 times in three games this season, for 107 yards.
And Arizona will be without lead back James Connor. He got a season-ending foot injury last weekend in the Cardinals’ loss at San Francisco. That leaves Trey Benson, a third-round pick last year, and Murray likely on more designed runs as the Cardinals’ rushing offense against Seattle.
Murray is 2-8 in his career against the Seahawks. His 62 career rushes against Seattle are his second-most against any team. He’s averaged 6.5 yards per carry against the Seahawks.
3. Keeping it to what they do best
This is not the week to get cute and devise a ton of new plays to run in the game.
The Seahawks didn’t have a true practice this week. They had a walkthrough wearing T-shirts and no helmets Tuesday. Wednesday was the day-before-game walkthrough, then they flew to Phoenix Wednesday evening.
Coach Mike Macdonald on defense and Kubiak on offense are going to stick with the plays their guys have run best since training camp. On defense, that’s likely to mean more four-man rushes with seven in coverage, and a spy (Ernest Jones? at times Devon Witherspoon?) on Murray taking off to run after dropping back to pass. Witherspoon will play for the first time in three games. He missed two with a bruised knee. Pro Bowl safety Julian Love is also returning from injury to play. He missed last weekend with an injured hamstring.
On offense, expect a lot of outside-zone running, with Darnold’s play-action and bootleg passes off that. That, to Macdonald is key to winning on Thursday after Sunday games.
“The preparation and how you take care of your body to get ready to go to play is really important,” Macdonald said. “That’s probably the first thing.
“And the second thing is: Run stuff that you can do. It’s probably that simple.”
Seahawks-Cardinals prediction
Many guys can barely walk by Thursday after a Sunday game. Seahawks Pro Bowl defensive end Leonard Williams, in his 11th NFL season, said he has to trick himself to get out of bed this short game week.
Thursday night games are often clunky, low-scoring, not pretty. That favors Seattle. That’s how Macdonald has rebuilt these Seahawks to win.
The pick: Seahawks 16, Cardinals 13
This story was originally published September 24, 2025 at 6:58 PM.
