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It felt like an uphill battle from the start, so the missed opportunities make the loss a little harder to swallow.
It wasn’t that it would have led to a win necessarily for the Arizona Cardinals, but it would have made the game more competitive throughout and given them a real shot at the end of the game.
Here are tonight’s winners and losers from the Cardinals 22-16 loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
Winners
Larry Fitzgerald - The gold standard for what a football player should be. Came out and gave Arizona a shot. 10 catches for 113 yards on the night on 14 targets.
Pass Rush - The Seattle offensive line is bad, but the Cardinals did a nice job again, with another five sack night. Chandler Jones, Antoine Bethea, Olsen Pierre, Frostee Rucker and rookie Haason Reddick each got in on the act. It was a great pressure performance from the pass rush.
Cardinals Run Defense - Seahawks as a team had 23 carries for 75 yards and no touchdowns. That’s 3.3 yards per carry. Most of that came on a Thomas Rawls 23 yard run and a J.D McKissic 17 yard run.
Andy Lee - Has been rock solid for the Cardinals. Averaged 46 yards a punt and downed two inside the 20 with only one touchback. The Seahawks had 18 return yards on the game.
Losers
Health - A brutal game for both sides as the Cardinals lost D.J. Humphries to an apparent ACL injury, Tyvon Branch to an unknown knee injury and Ifeanyi Momah to an ankle injury.
Meanwhile the Seahawks lost newly acquired Duane Brown to an ankle injury, Richard Sherman to an achilles injury and apparently, Kam Chancellor had to be carted to the locker room after the game.
Wide Receivers - Six drops by my count, I look forward to the official stat after the game. When you have an average (and that may be generous) quarterback, you cannot afford to miss plays. Dropping six passes when you combine that with Stanton’s five missed throws to open wide receivers is 11 plays missed. Can’t have that.
Cardinals Chances - They’ll likely win next week, but now sit at 4-5 and basically four games out of the division. They’ll be in it because the NFC is a train wreck right now, but this game hurts.