The writing was on the wall for the Arizona Cardinals ahead of their Week 12 game against the Seattle Seahawks:
Handle business in Seattle and move one step closer to an NFC West title while taking the Seahawks’ postseason hopes down a notch.
Coming off the bye and armed with a dominant run game on top of a stepped-up defense against, the odds appeared in the Cardinals’ favor.
Sixty minutes later, that was far from the case.
Unable to replicate much of anything from the past few weeks offensively, Arizona slogged along to a 16-6 loss on Sunday.
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“Not our best game. Didn’t do enough all three phases. Give credit to Seattle. I thought they played extremely well,” head coach Jonathan Gannon told reporters postgame. “I just told the team in there that we’re going to learn a lot from this game. We got to get back to work tomorrow and gotta learn and improve from this game. That’s what we’ll have energy and focus to do.”
That’ll happen when the run game was as ugly as it was against a defense that was ranked 27th in the league entering Week 12.
Averaging 3.5 yards per carry, Arizona’s ground game accounted for just 49 on 14 carries. The longest run of the afternoon was just 14 yards courtesy of Emari Demercado.
Starter James Conner, who many expected to have a big game against the suspect run defense, turned in one of his worst games of the year on seven carries for eight yards. He caught five passes for 41 yards.
It wasn’t just the run game, though, as quarterback Kyler Murray struggled through the air.
While he extended his completion streak to 20, the signal caller finished the day with 285 yards and one interception returned for a touchdown on 64.9% passing. He ran for nine more yards on two carries and was sacked five times.
“I thought the interception was a big play,” Gannon said. “I think we gotta protect the quarterback better, seemed like the pocket was collapsing a little too much. That goes into all 11. That’s not just the O-line. That’s the quarterback, the backs, the receivers, timing, rhythm.”
Tight end Trey McBride led the way for the offense with 12 catches for 133 yards.
But the most glaring stat of the afternoon for Arizona? Zero touchdowns scored.
Wasted defensive effort
As expected, the offense has been a bright spot for the Cardinals more times than not in 2024.
But it was the defense — highlighted by the pass rush — that at least gave Arizona a fighting chance Sunday afternoon.
Accounting for five sacks and six QB hits, Arizona’s defense caused plenty of problems for Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith.
Garrett Williams also snagged the third interception of his NFL career in the fourth quarter.
But for how good the defense played on Sunday, it couldn’t continue its streak of not allowing a touchdown.
It didn’t help that the offense was giving up points, either.
NFC West implications
The loss to the Seahawks makes things even tighter at the top of the NFC West, especially with a rematch between the two set for two weeks from now.
Despite sharing the same records, Seattle for now holds the division lead thanks to its head-to-head tiebreaker over Arizona.
The San Francisco 49ers meanwhile now sit at 5-6 after losing to the Green Bay Packers. San Francisco now sits in last place out west.
Then you have the Los Angeles Rams, who play Sunday night against the Philadelphia Eagles.
A win over the Eagles would move the Rams into first place out west thanks to their head-to-head tiebreaker over the Seahawks.