Seahawks Play Spoiler in Season Finale, Smack Cardinals in 38-30 Road Victory
Although the Seahawks won't be playing in the playoffs this year, they made sure to finish the season making some noise in a game coach Pete Carroll labeled as their Super Bowl, taking an NFC West title away from the Cardinals in a 38-30 victory at State Farm Stadium.
Leading the charge for Seattle, quarterback Russell Wilson completed 15 out of 26 passes for 238 yards and threw a trio of touchdowns, Tyler Lockett caught five passes for 98 yards and two scores, and Rashaad Penny set a new career-best with 190 rushing yards. Defensively, Jordyn Brooks and Cody Barton combined for 32 tackles and Travis Homer forced a special teams fumble on a botched punt at the end of the third quarter.
After closing out a tough season with momentum, here's five quick takeaways from Glendale:
1. A strong performance by Russell Wilson overshadowed a pair of ugly turnovers.
With his future beyond this season in question, the season finale couldn't have started any worse for Wilson, who tried to spin out of the pocket on the second play of the game and promptly had the football punched out of his hands by Chandler Jones. Scooping up the fumble, Zach Allen returned it for a touchdown to give the Cardinals a quick 7-0 lead. Later after halftime, he uncorked an ill-advised throw to running back Travis Homer and safety Jalen Thompson intercepted the pass, nearly returning it for six points. Arizona punched the ball in the end zone a couple plays later to take a 24-17 lead with 9:25 to go in the third quarter.
But taking those two catastrophic errors out of the equation, Wilson may have played his best game of the season. Immediately after his fumble, while taking a big hit, he launched a 43-yard rainbow to Tyler Lockett to quickly tie the game back up. Later in the half, he found Lockett again on a quick out route to give Seattle its first lead, and he had a third touchdown pass slip through the grasps of tight end Gerald Everett inside two minutes to play in the second quarter. Willing his team to victory, he found a wide open Freddie Swain against broken coverage for a 25-yard score to tie the game again late in the third quarter and then ran through All-Pro safety Budda Baker at the goal line for a four-yard touchdown to retake the lead moments later. While his mistakes nearly cost the team the game, his heroics ultimately carried more weight in a vintage four touchdown performance.
2. Keeping Rashaad Penny may no longer be a cheap proposition for the Seahawks.
Continuing an improbable stretch of play after three-plus seasons marred by injuries, the Cardinals could only contain Penny for so long. In the first half, while he did bust a 20-yard run right before Wilson's first touchdown pass, he was "limited" to 59 yards on 11 carries for 5.4 yards per carry. Arizona did a decent job bottling him up and taking away cutback lanes, something opponents haven't been able to do very well over the past four games.
From there, however, Penny took over, putting the Seahawks on his back in the final two quarters with several explosive runs. On the play before Wilson connected with Swain for a quick six points, the former San Diego State star weaved through the Cardinals defense before being tripped up on a 29-yard run. Then, after Arizona tacked on a field goal to cut the lead to 31-27 with under seven minutes left in regulation, the dynamic back put the dagger in Seattle's NFC West rival. Cutting back to the right on a zone run, Penny found a crease and rocketed to the second level, eventually sprinting back to his left and outrunning multiple defenders on his way to a back-breaking 62-yard touchdown to extend the advantage back to 11 points. Setting a new career-high in rushing yards for a second straight week, he's made a ton of money heading towards free agency and Seattle should expect competition for his services in March.
3. Amid an uneven outing, Jordyn Brooks turns in a historic performance on multiple fronts.
Making his first career start without All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner beside him, Brooks entered Sunday's finale six tackles behind his veteran counterpart for the team lead in tackles and sitting third in the league in that category. It didn't take long for him to establish a new franchise single-season record either, as the second-year defender passed the future Hall of Famer late in the first half with his seventh tackle. On a day where he seemed to be around the football constantly, he wound up tying Wagner's franchise single-game record amassing a whopping 20 combined tackles.
Ironically, Brooks could have finished with even more, leaving several tackles on the field in the second half. He wasn't able to wrap up on Zach Ertz on a tight end screen early in the third quarter and on the very next play, he couldn't corral running back James Conner, who slipped through his arm tackle and eventually flipped into the end zone for six points to knot up the score at 17 apiece. But the 2020 first round pick more than made up for those mistakes with several clutch stops down the stretch and an onside kick recovery inside two minutes to play, capping off a stellar sophomore season in style.
4. Led by Carlos Dunlap, Seattle’s pass rush comes to life harassing Kyler Murray.
For much of the season, the Seahawks struggled to muster much of a pass rush and weren't able to build off a strong second half to the 2020 season. A big part of those struggles revolved around Dunlap, who had half a sack in the team's first 11 games and consequently saw diminished playing time. But down the stretch, the somersaulting veteran pass rusher found his groove and wrapped up his 11th NFL season with a dominant showing in the finale, racking up 2.0 sacks, five pressures, and a pass deflection while consistently bullying both of Arizona's starting tackles with power off the edge.
With Dunlap leading the charge, the Seahawks generated relentless pressure on Murray, who has given them trouble in the past due to his escapeability. That didn't matter for most of Sunday's game, however, as the visitors managed to sack the elusive signal caller five times on the afternoon and didn't let him do much damage outside of the pocket with his legs extending plays. Defensive tackle Poona Ford registered his second sack of the season and had a trio of pressures from the interior, while Kerry Hyder and Darrell Taylor also got in the act with a sack apiece. For good measure, Taylor added a swatted pass at the line of scrimmage in the fourth quarter, forcing the Cardinals to settle for a field goal.
5. State Farm Stadium reaffirms why it has become known as Seattle's House of Horrors.
At the end of the day, these games are played by human beings and unfortunately, the human element came the forefront when star safety Quandre Diggs suffered a devastating right leg injury in the fourth quarter. Trainers immediately called for the cart and placed an air cast on the leg while teammates huddled around him on a knee. The seventh-year defender has been one of the best safeties in the league since arriving via trade midway through the 2019 season and will hit free agency in March, making the timing of the injury even worse. Diggs could be seen in tears as he was carted off the field and teammates carried similar emotions for their fallen comrade, who will likely be facing a long, arduous rehab coming back from a fractured fibula.
Unfortunately, seeing an iconic star secondary player suffer a severe injury isn't something new in Glendale. At this same very stadium, Richard Sherman popped his Achilles and Kam Chancellor suffered a career-ending neck injury in the same game back in 2017. The following year, Earl Thomas broke his leg and infamously gave coach Pete Carroll the bird while being carted off. If there's a silver lining, Carroll indicated Diggs should make a full recovery and be ready for the 2022 season. Now the question is - will it be with the Seahawks or another team?
