Seahawks Tie Cardinals In Unendingly Frustrating Defensive Masterpiece

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Ties are good.

There, I said it.

Ties are good.

Well, maybe not good, but certainly not bad.

They represent sportsmanship and equality. And sure, this tie feels like getting your heart ripped out, put back in your chest, and then ripped out again. But sportsmanship is good, right? And equality, yeah? Right? RIGHT?! WHY AM I SCREAMING ON A BLOG?!!?

And the Seahawks, even if they had a shot to win the game, are very lucky to come out of Arizona with a 6-6 tie. It was also a tie that on balance benefits Seattle (Arizona still trails Seattle in the division, and has to come to CenturyLink later this season).

While I resist the urge to throttle Steven/Stephen Hauschka (I love Hauschka, so why does he have to hurt me like this???) let’s break down an absolutely ludicrous game.

• The offense was garbage for the entirety of regulation, and everyone was a little bit blameworthy. Running back Christine Michael wasn’t running confidently, the receivers had too many drops, Russell Wilson wasn’t throwing guys who were open. But let’s be real, the offensive line was was completely destroyed by Arizona’s revamped pass rush.

In the pile of suck that was the Seahawks line, tackles Bradley Sowell and Gary Gilliam draped themselves most visibly across the suck pile. I feel particularly bad for Sowell, who struggled earlier in his career while playing for Arizona, and was carted off the field with an ugly looking knee injury. And while his replacement, rookie George Fant, did commit one of the Seahawks’ 124 holding penalties (not looking at the actual number, but it was a lot), he looked okay in overtime when the Seahawks offense miraculously stopped sucking.

Hey but did you guys notice that when George Fant was in there the Seahawks actually moved the ball?

— Gavin Purcell (@gavinpurcell) October 24, 2016

Was it Fant’s presence or a change in officiating that let the Seahawks finally operate? I don’t know, but with Fant currently first in line to start next week, we’ll likely get an answer soon.

• Ricardo Lockette, despite being mostly remembered for another horrifying football game played in Arizona, was a very valuable member of the Seahawks punt coverage team. He also was good for a terrible penalty every other game. Now after a terrible collision last season that ended his career, how to replace him became a big question facing the Hawks this year. It looks like they found two guys—Raiders castoff Neiko Thorpe and rookie cornerback DeAndre Elliott. For the past couple of weeks, they both have been as fast as Lockette and as disciplined in shutting down punt returns. They also haven’t had any weird penalties, and if they were going to get some weird penalties they would have done so on Sunday.

• In honor of The Bill Barnwell Show coming to Seattle in November (the show at Neumo’s featuring Mina Kimes and Sheil Kapadia is sold out I believe, but you should try to sneak in anyway) I’m giving myself some a one-time official Barnwell-style safe space in this blog. For those of you who don’t listen to that podcast (what are you doing?) safe space is where you get to drop a football opinion and a real life opinion and no one gets to yell at you on Twitter about it.

So here goes:

SEAHAWKS SAFE SPACE: We should not have spent money keeping Jeremy Lane around. He’s fine, and we’re going to see a lot of him right now as the team favored their nickel packages with linebackers Mike Morgan and Kevin Pierre-Louis out. But Lane’s tackling is not great, his coverage is just okay, and he let Arizona get in his head on Sunday. Really though, it comes down to resources: take the Lane money and put it in an adequate left tackle, and this team is miles better. The drop off from losing Jeremy Lane to whoever the Seahawks can develop at slot corner (like maybe DeAndre Elliott) does not end up with a Bradley Sowell level talent getting every snap.

REAL LIFE SAFE SPACE: if you’re at the grocery store, and there’s no one to bag your groceries, and you don’t have a baby in your arms, and you’re under the age of 80? Help out! Standing there is a garbage move. You can save other people valuable minutes, while also getting cardio. Just help out. Also, at this point, chip cards are obviously bad, but you should have them figured out well enough to get through a goddamn transaction.

• Sunday’s tie was a credit to the Seahawks defense. Check this goddamn number out:

The Seahawks defense just spent more time on the field than any team in NFL history and only gave up 6 points.

— Jacs O'Lantern (@JacsonBevens) October 24, 2016

It’s weird after a tie to feel like some of the guys on your team triumphed, but the Seahawks defense really triumphed, and I want to highlight the guys who were goddamn incredible on Sunday.

Cliff Avril’s edge rushing is at another level. He had 2.5 sacks against the Cardinals and almost another strip sack that wound up being an incomplete pass. He was absolutely disruptive to the Cardinals, who were unable to get anything going deep despite tiring out our secondary. Also, Cliff is building a house in Haiti for each sack he gets the rest of the season, so 2.5 families just got roofs over their heads.

Bobby Wagner—who has been incredible all year—led the team in tackles again, and his blocked field goal was one of the highlights of the season. It was also not a penalty. It was just incredible athleticism. He also got in Arizona’s kicker’s head in overtime. And he did an admirable job cleaning up the few misses the defensive line had against all-world running back David Johnson. Wagner was awesome.

As awesome as Wagner? Earl Thomas, who after an off-year and a half, is 100% balling out. Thomas was everywhere in both the run and pass game, saved the game by keeping David Johnson out of the endzone in overtime, and hugged a ref who gave the team a good fourth down spot. It was a power move.

Earl Thomas hugged a ref https://t.co/sHcgFihZla

— Brian Floyd (@BrianMFloyd) October 24, 2016

I’m exhausted. The Seahawks defense’s job doesn’t get any easier heading to New Orleans to face Drew Brees and the Saints. Fortunately for our beleaguered offense, the Saints defense is everything the Cardinals’ defense is not. Which is to say they don’t rush well, they don’t defend the rush well, and they don’t cover tightly. Hopefully the ship can get righted without a hangover. And maybe, just maybe, the Seahawks will spend the week adding some talent on the line. A boy can dream, can’t he?