The Seattle Seahawks played their best defensive game of the season, beating the Arizona Cardinals 16-6 to reclaim 1st place in the NFC West.
First of all, I appreciate your patience with me posting today instead of after yesterday’s game like usual. We had a family birthday party last night and I wanted to just lean into it with everyone else.
That’s easier to do when the Seattle Seahawks knock off a division foe to take first place. And man, did they look sensational on defense. Seattle came into this one having won their last six against the Cardinals after years of alternating victories. But this Arizona team is not like the others in recent memory. It was not by random chance that they flew to Seattle in first place in the NFC West. One of the big surprises of the 2024 season, the Cardinals have dramatically exceeded expectations on defense under young head coach Jonathan Gannon and their offense has been relentless as Kyler Murray’s played the best football of his career,
But just as it wasn’t a fluke that they arrived in the Emerald City in first place, it wasn’t a fluke that they departed in second. The Seahawks defense we’ve been waiting for since Mike Macdonald was first hired may finally be here. Seattle was excellent at all three levels against Arizona’s offense, as wrapped their talons around the Cardinals’ neck and squeezed for three and a half hours.
Perhaps just as importantly, this game felt like the playoffs more than any Seahawks home game I can remember in quite a while. As I said last week, if Seattle does end up having a season we feel good about, that win against the 49ers last week would be the fulcrum. And if it was, then this was the team playing downhill. The Seahawks home field advantage has completely evaporated over the last half decade, as Seattle has basically been .500 at Lumen Field for the last number of years, curiously playing better on the road over that time. That stadium was once a fortress packed with 66,000 soldiers whose aura legitimately affected the preparation of incoming teams’.
Yesterday, it really felt like that once again. Cloudy skies, relentless but playable rain, and the rabid fervor of an entire region funneled through the wide eyes and cavernous throats of a rabid sellout crowd. It was like being transported back 10 years, a ravenous defense playing with an almost offensive audacity, carrying their team to a divisional victory and hitting the showers atop their division.
At no time in the last few years did it feel as much like the LOB era as it did when the Cardinals faced 4th & 1 midway through the third quarter from Seattle’s 40. It was a fairly obvious go-for-it situation, especially when you have a squirrelly quarterback like Murray, a bone-breaking running back in James Conner, and two excellent receiving options in Trey McBride and Marvin Harrison. But they were only in that position because Byron Murphy and Jarran Reed stuffed Conner on 3rd & short, setting the stage for their masterpiece.
On the 4th down play, Murray took the snap and saw Devon Witherspoon crashing down on him from his right. Murray pulled the ball down and waggled to his throw side, getting around the blitz and into the flat. Initially it looked like Kyler would be able to sprint for a first down but Witherspoon displayed an outlandish full-speed change of direction, racing down the line of scrimmage to meet him. Sensing this, Murray cocked his arm to throw but Seattle’s coverage filled his lane. He pumped once before lobbing one downfield as Witherspoon chased him out of bounds. It was too late.
There was nothing but hounds of hell waiting for Kyler’s pass and the demon who snagged it was none other than Coby Bryant, whose third-year breakout continues with his move to safety. Bryant picked the ball off and began weaving back up the field. There was only one Cardinal with a chance to stop him but he got sealed off, somehow, by Witherspoon. From there, it was just a matter of watching Bryant fly down the field before paying homage to Marshawn Lynch with an airborne testicular display at the goal line.
Even a day later, I still don’t quite understand how Devon did everything he did on that play, which is how I felt about Earl Thomas almost weekly during the glory days. We tend to talk about great coordinators in terms of their scheme but what has always stood out to me about Macdonald’s defenses is his weaponization of his best players— and Devon Witherspoon is a nuclear warhead.
Later, after a mystifying Geno Smith interception truncated what would have effectively been a door-slamming touchdown drive, the defense stood tall again. Given an unexpected reprieve, Murray steadily worked his offense down the field and inside the Seahawks’ 10. It was the 18th time the Cardinals had a goal-to-go possession this year and the previous 17 had all resulted in a touchdown. Yesterday, however, was different.
Pressure forced an incompletion on 1st down, and more pressure forced a 4-yard scramble on 2nd. On 4rd down, Murray forced a throw towards a well-covered McBride that sailed high and a chance to seriously flip the momentum was swallowed up by the roar of the crowd. Arizona took their field goal and then had to watch as Smith, undeterred by his previous mistake, pulled off two of the more incredible 3rd down conversions you’ll see all year. On both plays he evaded pressure, bought time, and uncorked ridiculous throws beyond the sticks. One went to DK Metcalf, the other to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and both were nothing short of sensational. I’m still buzzing from the Metcalf one. They capped their game-sealing effort with a surprise draw on 3rd & 4, taking a Jason Myers field goal to make it 16-6 and slam the door.
It was a remarkable, if imperfect, display of fortitude and grit for a team that, for the first time all season, looks like they belong in first place.
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SMOKE RINGS
~I’ll get this out of the way early— Geno Smith’s interception in the redzone at the start of the 4th quarter was terrible. An absolutely indefensible decision when he likely could have run for the first down. He narrowly avoided a second pick when he threw behind Walker and got bailed out of a safety when he wasn’t called for intentional grounding in the endzone. For all the numerous ways Geno has been at or near the top of the league (and they are numerous), he leads the NFL in redzone turnovers and that’s unequivocally something that needs to stop if this team has any aspirations of a playoff run.
Other than that, I thought he was excellent on a day that saw him under some of the worst pressure he’s faced all season— which is really saying something behind this O-line. He ended up completing 22 of 31 passes for 254 yards, the pick, and a pretty touchdown pass to Smith-Njigba. He average over eight yards/attempt in the rain without the benefit of a run game or coherent pass blocking. Most importantly, he didn’t shrink after the pick. In fact, he grew to the enormity of the situation, playing fearless when many would play it safe, hoping the defense could hang onto the win. It wasn’t enough for Smith to try and hang onto a lead. He went out there trying to win, and it’s a huge reason he is so beloved both by his current teammates and so many of his former ones as well.
I’d love for the comments section to not become another giant referendum of Geno Smith but I realize that’s like asking the rain to fall upward or a politician to return their Super PAC money.
~The run game, which had been surprisingly effective earlier in the year despite the struggles up front, has stunk of late. Smarter people than me may be able to say whether Ken Walker is running poorly or not but that’s not what I’m seeing. Walker’s stat lines of late haven’t jumped off of any pages but to my eyes, it’s a wonder he’s gotten as many yards as he has. Some running backs are better at evading tackler in the backfield and while Walker is perfectly adept at that, it isn’t the thing that makes him great. No, K-9 is his most ferocious when he’s able to get up to gallup-speed, because his ability to transfer spectacular forward momentum into scalpel-sharp changes of direction is his superpower. When he’s dancing out of tacklers’ arms while taking handoffs, hes never going to reach his game-changing potential.
Walker had just 41 yards on 16 carries but he has evolved in a crucial way to supplement his lack of production on the ground. For going on two months now, Walker has become a huge part of the passing game, shrugging off his collegiate reputation as a limited receiver to add a ton of value to an offense too-often forced to throw quickly. He caught four of his six targets for 52 yards today, giving him 42 catches in 10 games so far this year. That’s a nearly 70-reception pace over 17 games.
~Zach Charbonnet got six carries in relief today, getting shut out through the first three before turning his final trio into 22 yards. That included two huge second half first downs, not the least of which was his five-yard hammer up the middle on the final 3rd & 4.
~DK Metcalf has never put up the huge numbers against Arizona thast he has against so many others but on a day where the offense only scored nine points, he still made his presence felt. Geno only looked his way five times but he translated those opportunities into an 80% catch rate for 11.8 yards/target— none of which were bigger than the aforementioned 3rd down conversion.
~Seattle is back to the two-man pass-funnel that we’ve grown used to over the years and it’s because Jaxon Smith-Njigba has arrived. He came into this game as the NFL’s leader in catches and yards from the slot, hot off a two-game stretch that saw him rack up 290 yards receiving. And while stats weren’t as gaudy yesterday as they were against the Rams and Niners, his performance was every bit as crucial.
JSN led the team in targets (7), catches (6), yards (77), and touchdowns (1). His score was simple enough, capitalizing on a sharp out route from inside the 5 while DK Metcalf cleared the defenders out behind him. But the genius of Smith-Njigba’s game was most apparent on a bubble/tunnel screen a couple snaps before that. On that play, Smith-Njigba feigned a step-back bubble screen before jetting forward and curling under the receivers in front of him. Smith whipped it to him and JSN slalomed down the field, bending around tacklers and between his blockers until he was finally corralled at Arizona’s 3. It was Seattle’s first real chunk gain of the game after starting with four punts and it set up a go-ahead score for a lead that was never relinquished.
Smith-Njigba is still a long ways from being this team’s #1 WR, despite what the numbers say, and that’s simply because defenses have yet to key on him the way they continue to do with Metcalf. But Jaxon is uniquely gifted to take advantage of the extra attention DK commands, combining his high receiver acumen with a shiftiness that was hidden last year when he was being used like one of the ‘Ndales. He now has 29 receptions for 367 yards in the last three games and if defenses do begin to shift his way, DK might detonate.
~As I predicted before the season, 2024 would be the year that saw JSN chase down and surpass Tyler Lockett’s role in this offense. I didn’t expect the shift to be so dramatic. Still, Lockett has usefulness in his diminished role and he came up with two hugely helpful second half catches in addition to him taking advantage of his peskiness to draw a pass interference.
~AJ Barner deserves a little ink. I’ll be honest, I thought he was just going to be a roster filler when Seattle drafted him this year but in Noah Fant’s absence, he’s become quite handy. In addition to be a serviceable blocker, he’s provided something of a safety hatch for Smith when the first couple of reads aren’t there and he’s done a great job with those opportunities. He caught three of four targets for 19 yards yesterday, giving him 19 on 25 in his first year.
~The O-line still sucks. What? They do! I don’t know what you want me to say at this point. I’m still optimistic that a healthy Abe Lucas can help transform this unit for the better but a healthy Abe Lucas has yet to show up. And even though he played basically the full game for the first time in a long time, it’s clear he doesn’t trust that knee. Twice he was knocked off his spot by blitzing linebackers— something that never happened when he was full strength and twice he was flagged for lining up too far off the line of scrimmage. That’s not something a tackle does if he’s confident in his first step.
Hopefully this group can coalesce the way we’ve seen a struggling Seattle defense do but I’m still waiting for the first sign of progress.
~It appears the Mike Macdonald defense we’ve been waiting for is finally here and if you’re trying to pinpoint the reasons for the startling change, look no further than the linebackers. You ever been golfing and you just absolutely stink on the front nine? Got a two-way miss going, the club feels weird in your hands. You begin second-guessing your setup as you stand over the ball. Errant wedge shots front-of-mind as you line up your putts. Then you remember that one thing that clears the mechanism and you absolutely attack the back half of the round, carding a score that makes you spend the rest of the week kicking yourself for not making that adjustment on the first tee.
That’s what going from Jerome Baker and Tyrel Dodson to Ernest Jones and Tyrice Knight is like. This defense leads the NFL in three-and-outs and, as I mentioned earlier, became the first team all season to keep the Cardinals out of the endzone on an and-goal possession. Most impressively, they snuffed out one of the league’s best rushing attacks like a cigarette at closing time.
James Conner came into this one on pace for nearly 1200 rushing yards and was held to eight. Kyler Murray entered the matchup pacing over 500 and got just nine. Seattle’s efforts against the powerful rushing attacks of the Rams, 49ers, and Cardinals seemed unfathomable even a month ago. A real Pygmalion story arc for Seattle’s run D this year.
~It starts up front, and Leonard Williams delivered one of the best performances by a Seahawks interior linemen I can remember. It felt like he won on every single snap, harassing the ever-loving fuck out of Arizona’s backfield. By the time the stadium stopped rocking, Williams had stuffed the box score with six tackles, half of which were for a loss of yardage including 2.5 sacks. His dominance freed up his cohorts to attack as well, and attack they did. Jarran Reed and Boye Mafe joined the sack party while Byron Murphy and Dre’Mont Jones had much larger impacts than their stat lines will show. A truly cohesive effort.
~Behind them, Ernest Jones’ streak of excellence continued. Once again he led the team in tackles with 10, making him for-for-four in that category since joining the team. Beside him, rookie Tyrice Knight continued to blossom. Fans of the show may remember how high I was on Knight even before the draft because his instinctive (if raw) play-making ability seemed like the perfect clay for Macdonald to mold. He showed out with his first career sack among nine tackles with some excellent coverage sprinkled in. His day would have been truly special had his fumble return for a touchdown not been overturned by replay.
~The secondary continues to play well. In addition to their incredible efforts on the pick-six, Devon Witherspoon and Coby Bryant had fantastic performances. They combined for 11 tackles but box scores don’t show big hits and they each thumped the way you want to see your tone-setters thump. Julian Love only had two tackles (in large part because the Cardinals rarely reached the third level) but his presence was still felt in the form of lid-sealing coverage and two PBUs. He’s a leader on this team, and it’s no coincidence he was the first player extended in the Mike Macdonald era.
~We don’t yet know what the decision-making relationship between Macdonald and John Schneider is but one thing we do know is that the head coach has punted basically every one of his GM’s defensive free agent acquisitions either out of the starting lineup or off the team completely. And the results have been stunning. Gone are Baker, Dodson, and (basically) Jenkins. In are Jones, Knight, and Bryant; and they look like killers. I’m willing to give Schneider and Macdonald one full offseason together next year but Seattle’s GM is on the hottest seat in the organization, as far as I’m concerned.
~After a season-low four penalties last week, Seattle had just five today. The discipline we’ve been craving might have finally shown up.
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The Seattle Seahawks are 6-5, roughly where I expected them to be before the season. How they got there is anything but. You’d love to have the Giants and Rams games back but consecutive wins against the 49ers and Cardinals cover a multitude of sins. This team is flawed— deeply in some areas. But their excellence in others has been enough to make up for most of it and first place is first place no matter how you carve it up. Perhaps most crucially, their vibes are, in this moment, inarguably better than those permeating the other three teams in the division.
The path from here to the end of the season is steep and fraught with danger but for the first time all season, the Seahawks seem equipped to traverse it. Yes, there have been some really disconcerting individual and collective efforts this year but you can’t drive very far looking in the rearview mirror.
Winning record. First place in the division. And if the ‘yoffs started today, the Seahawks would be the #3 seed. Sign me the hell up. Onward and upward.
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***Keeping this here for the rest of the season — just want y’all to know how much I appreciate y’all over all these years***
Guys, I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed writing this column over the last 13(!) years. It is with equal parts gratitude and sorrow that I announce this will be my final season writing Cigar Thoughts.
Few things have given me greater joy than recapping Seahawks games for y’all over the years and I am eternally grateful for the incredible support y’all have shown this column over the years. I am proud, appreciative, and satisfied.
The podcast will continue.
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As most of you know, Cigar Thoughts is also a podcast. Check out this week’s conversation with BEN SOLAK:
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The 2024 season of Cigar Thoughts is also proud to be sponsored by Fairhaven Floors in Bellingham, WA.