SEAHAWKS: Hawks shoot down Cardinals in win

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It wasn’t a well played offensive shoot out but the Seahawks muscled out a 22-10 win over the Arizona Cardinals in a wet Quest Field. It vaulted the Hawks to sole possession of 1st place in the NFC West while improving their record to 4-2.

The game started out great for the home team, with Marshawn Lynch going into “beast mode” as the Seahawks drove down to the Arizona one. The drive stalled however as Sean “I love getting penalties” Locklear committed a false start and the Hawks eventually kicked a field goal. Then the offense, well, looked like the offense of last year.

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The following 4 possessions ended like this: fumble, punt, punt, punt. In all this, Russell Okung went out with an ankle injury and the wheels seemed to be coming off. By now, with all these drives dying, you would think the Cardinals would be up by a lot.

Don’t mess with the Seahawks defense.

Instead of getting discouraged with all the offense’s struggles, the defense was relentless. Cardinals QB Max Hall only completed 4 passes in the first half. Almost every Seahawks blitz worked. It actually got to the point it looked like Arizona was defeated before it took its first snap of all the failed series it had in the first half.

Eventually the Seahawks got a turnover as Marcus Trufant striped Tim Hightower which led to a couple of plays and a Mike Williams touchdown. And as you might have guessed, the Cardinals and Seahawks both stalled on offense again to make it 10-0 heading into halftime.

On the Cardinals opening drive in the first quarter, the Seahawks defense still wasn’t letting up. Chris Clemons forced a fumble on Max Hall which eventually led to another Olindo Mare field goal, who would finish the game going 5/5 on field goals. You might think he was the story of the game, or the Hawks defensive line, which just absolutely harassed Max Hall who was replaced by Derek Andersen in the third quarter.

But the real story of the game was Mike Williams (again).

Mike Williams was phenomenal making clutch third downs receptions, highlight reel grabs, and abusing all the Cardinals corners with his 6 foot, 5 inches frame. The USC product finished with 11 catches for 87 yards.

The rest of the game the Seahawks steadily got field goal after field goal, all the while the defense shutting the Cardinals down. Marshawn Lynch helped run out the clock in the second half with his physical running as he finished the game with 89 yards on 24 carries. Matt Hasselbeck was also stellar, having 192 yards along with a touchdown and NO interceptions.

The Seahawks are one win away from tying their win total from last year a real testament to Pete Carroll and his coaching staff.

“I think our best games are ahead of us as we grow together as a team” said Hasselbeck in a postgame interview.

Let’s hope so Matt.

Reach Nathan Parsons at nextseasonsports@gmail.com