Arizona Cardinals fall to Seattle Seahawks on Thursday Night Football

For the Arizona Cardinals, you felt like they would have to play a nearly flawless game to win tonight. Yet, because of the ineptitude of the Seattle Seahawks on offense and an overly physical defense, the Arizona Cardinals were able to get by even with a poor offensive performance.

It wasn’t enough though, as the Cardinals fell 22-16 to the Seattle Seahawks.

The first quarter saw a different start to an Arizona Cardinals game. The Cardinals won the toss and deferred until the second half.

It worked, as the defense had a great first series, forced a three and out and had the ball at the 50 yards line. Then, the offensive struggles started. On the first offensive play, Adrian Peterson fumbled the ball and the Seahawks were in business. They went three and out again, but had flipped field position, with negative 10 yards on offense.

That put the Cardinals deep in their own territory and after a short drive of seven yards, they punted and set up the Seahawks first touchdown of the game, a nine play 51 yard drive.

The Cardinals responded though, with a drive spear headed by Seahawks penalties, 41 yards in Penalties to only 34 yards of offense, the Cardinals used a tight end screen, no that wasn’t a misprint, and tied it up at 7-7.

The Seahawks again were held to a short drive, but a punt and a penalty on the Cardinals, along with a bad decision by Kerwynn Williams, resulted in the Cardinals setting up at their own 1 yard line. It was one play and a safety, to give the Seahawks a 9-7 lead.

Then, after trading punts, the Seahawks had their best drive of the night, going 11 plays for 76 yards, but had to settle for a field goal.

The Cards looked to respond, but an odd decision to go for it on 4-6 from the Seattle 38 instead of either trying a long field goal or punting set the Seahawks up for another quick strike from Russell Wilson to Paul Richardson and the Seahawks took a 15-7 lead at the half.

The Cardinals came out to start the half and went 51 yards in 11 plays for a field goal and to cut the lead to 15-10.

That is how the third quarter ended, yet the night was not without a high body count.

The Cardinals lost D.J. Humphries, Tyvon Branch, and Ifeyani Momah and the Seahawks lost Duane Brown, C.J. Prosise and Richard Sherman.

It didn’t matter for Seattle. They have Russell Wilson, the Cardinals don’t.

On a 2-21, Wilson scrambled around and found Doug Baldwin… It was a play that you cannot describe and it resulted in a 54 yards catch and run and set up a Jimmy Graham’s second touchdown of the day.

The 22-10 lead seemed insurmountable for the Cardinals offense to overcome.

Despite a heroic effort by Larry Fitzgerald, who finished with 10 catches on 14 targets for 113 yards, the rest of the Cardinals combined for 14 catches for 160 yards and the touchdown.

Andre Ellington ran in a touchdown with 20 seconds left, then it was up to a hope and a prayer.

That wasn’t answered.