Don't print the Cardinals' NFC West title banner just yet

SEATTLE — You didn’t really think this was going to be easy, did you? You didn’t think the Arizona Cardinals were going to jump from a four-win team in 2023 to one that would lock up the NFC West in Week 12, did you?

You were hoping that was the case, of course. You were hoping that Arizona’s four-game winning streak going into the bye week was a sign that this team had turned the corner. You were hoping that the team’s ability to take care of business in back-to-back home games against the Bears and Jets was a sign of maturity.

Well, don’t print the Cardinals’ NFC West championship banner just yet. A 16-6 loss in Seattle sidetracked those plans. This is the NFL, where fortunes change on a weekly basis.

Man, did they change in Seattle. 

The Cardinals had the opportunity to put a stranglehold on the division with a win on Sunday and 49ers QB Brock Purdy out of the lineup in a loss in Green Bay. That should have been motivation enough to turn in an A-plus performance, but the Seahawks knew that if that happened, they would be the team with hands around their neck, gasping for their last breath as they stared at a second straight season without playoffs for the first time in 15 years.

Desperation is a powerful motivator in the NFL. So was a raucous crowd at Lumen Field where the Seahawks had lost four straight games for the first time since 2008. This was a taller task than some imagined. The Cardinals are not yet the type of team that can steamroll any opponent, and the Seahawks are not yet the type of team that is ready to lie down in front of the roller.

“Not our best game,” coach Jonathan Gannon said. “I told the team: ‘We’re going to learn a lot from this.'”

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While Gannon touched on all three phases in his assessment of the loss, the culprit was plain for everyone to see. Seattle’s defense sacked QB Kyler Murray twice on the Cardinals’ opening drive, it generated pressure on eight of his 20 first half drop-backs, and Murray, sacked five times, was under siege the entire day.

Seahawks defensive lineman Leonard Williams had 2.5 sacks, three tackles for loss, a pass defensed and six tackles.

“I thought he wrecked the game,” Gannon said.

“Credit to them,” Murray added. “We’d get a chunk here or there and then, self-inflicted, whether it was penalties, negative runs…. we just couldn’t keep going in critical times. We didn’t stay on the field.”

Some analysts pointed to the decision to reinsert Jonah Williams at right tackle in place of Kelvin Beachum as the cause for the offensive line’s struggles, but that is a massive oversimplification of the situation. Williams didn’t force Paris Johnson Jr. to have one of his worst games as a Cardinal on the left edge. Williams didn’t remove his interior linemen’s ability to run block or stop pressure up the gut. Williams didn’t prevent backs from picking up blocks. This was a total collapse against a spirited Seahawks defense and Beachum probably would have suffered the same fate. 

“I think part of it was that we couldn’t get the run game going,” said Williams of a rushing attack that produced just 49 yards. “That falls on all of us and that makes it hard when you’re in obvious passing downs pretty often.

“It was a loud environment but I thought we were fine in communication. I just think it came down to execution.”

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Credit the defense with giving Arizona a chance in this one. The 16 points were the second fewest Seattle has scored all season, and six of those points came on a Coby Bryant 69-yard interception return that was Murray’s one major mistake of the game.

With the Cardinals facing 4th-and-1 at the Seattle 40-yard line midway through the third quarter, Murray rolled right on a keeper but couldn’t get the edge with Seahawks cornerback Devon Witherspoon pursuing him.

“It was a play that we have successfully run here in the past,” said Murray, who overthrew receiver Michael Wilson after the run option was taken away. “Once I felt like I wasn’t gonna get the corner, obviously, that’s on me. You can’t give them [six] points especially when our defense is playing the way that they’re playing.”

This was such a pivotal game in the Cardinals’ season. With a win, they could have opened what was essentially a three-game lead on the Seahawks, 49ers and Rams (the latter two both lost on Sunday) with six games remaining because they would have beaten each of those NFC West foes and owned the tiebreakers.

Instead, they head to Minnesota, out of first place, to face the 9-2 Vikings and the very real possibility of dropping back to .500 at 6-6. It was a fun dream to imagine the Cardinals running away with this division. Instead, the NFC West looks like it’s going to be a slog that goes right down to the wire.

Progress isn’t always linear, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be for these Cardinals. 

“It was a frustrating day,” Murray said. “A frustrating day to come out here and lay an egg.”

Top photo via Getty Images

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