Seahawks vs. Cardinals final score: Seattle puts away Arizona, 34-22
By Brad Rowland
It wasn’t an utterly flawless performance from the NFC West leading Seattle Seahawks on Thursday night, but the team combined solid play with more than a little help from the Arizona Cardinals, and in turn, parlayed the two into a 34-22 road win.
Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson was mostly fantastic throughout Thursday night’s game, throwing for 235 yards and 3 touchdowns while issuing 0 interceptions. I would stop short of characterizing Wilson’s performance as fully fantastic on account of him losing 2 fumbles, but the flashes of greatness that we have come to expect were certainly there from “Russ”, and he did more than enough to lead the Seattle offense.
In addition, Marshawn Lynch toted the rock 21 times for 91 yards and a score for Seattle, but the overriding story of the night probably wasn’t the Seahawks offense. Instead, the Arizona offense took the spotlight with relative ineptitude. The Cardinals actually ran 6 more plays than the Seahawks on this night, but their 70 plays turned into just 288 total yards (yikes) and Carson Palmer didn’t provide them with a legitimate chance to win.
Palmer did put together a semi-reasonable stat line, as he passed for 258 yards and a touchdown, but his play was far worse than the final line indicated. The 33-year-old veteran threw 2 ghastly interceptions (one of which would have been a touchdown if Brandon Browner didn’t trip and fall), and his 5.7 yards per attempt average leaves a tremendous amount to be desired. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, their running games was much worse than even Palmer could have imagined being, as Rashard Mendenhall and Andre Ellington combined to for 25 yards on 15 carries.
In totality, this was simply a spot where the Seahawks “took care of business”. That is, frankly, an overused cliche, but it is certainly one that applies here, as Seattle went on the road and put away a clearly inferior opponent. At no point did Arizona look to be a legitimate threat to steal this game, and Seattle avoided any kind of letdown that a road game on Thursday night could bring.
For me, the Seahawks are very much the favorites in the NFC race.