What we learned from Sunday’s matches

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Eric Edholm’s takeaways

1. Seahawks defense sets tone in huge win. Before his defense faced a key fourth-and-1 at the Seattle 40-yard line midway through the third quarter, Mike Macdonald called timeout just to make sure the Seahawks were on the same page, clinging to a 7-3- guidance. Indeed they were when the Seahawks flushed Kyle Murray out of the pocket and into an awkward pass. It was picked off Coby Bryant and returned it 69 yards for a game-changing score. That was after the Seahawks had held the Cardinals to five punts and a field goal in their first six drives. Geno Smith made the game interesting with an end zone pick (his third red zone INT of the year) and a near interception deep in his own zone after this. But the Seahawks’ defense clamped down in the red zone with 10 minutes left and kept Arizona out of the end zone. Leonard Williams was dominant up front, with 2.5 sacks, six tackles and a batted pass. The Seahawks have kept their playoff hopes on life support with back-to-back NFC West wins led by their defense.
2. The Cardinals’ playoff chances take a hit in the season’s worst offensive showing. The Seahawks obliterated Arizona’s running game and sacked Kyler Murray five times, keeping the Cardinals out of the end zone and handing them a tough road loss. At 6-5, in a crowded division, the Cardinals’ margin of error just shrunk significantly. Murray entered this game as a Dark Horse MVP candidate for some, but he threw a bad interception on fourth down, just trying to make something happen for a sleeping offense. Instead, it was a pick-six the other way, giving the Seahawks the game-clinching score. Murray also had a first-half fumble that was returned for a score that was called back on review. Arizona’s defense made enough plays to give the Cardinals a shot, but they settled for a field goal in the fourth quarter and then let the Seahawks go on an eight-minute drive to run out the clock.
3. Smith-Njigba will be the Seahawks’ big threat. It had been an offensive snoozer for most of the first half, but Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught a short screen, broke Roy Lopez‘ tackle attempt and zoomed 46 yards to the Arizona 4-yard line just before the two-minute warning. Three plays later, Smith-Njigba caught Geno Smith’s TD pass and the Seahawks would not trail again. But they would need Smith-Njigba again on the late field-goal drive, as he caught a big third-down conversion and another grab to help set up Smith’s 18-yard throw to DK Metcalf. Smith was up and down and his protection was shaky at times. Kenneth Walker III had some big plays after being injured in the first half. Metcalf made a couple of big plays. But JSN came through with the game-changing plays the Seahawks needed in a defensive struggle. That’s three straight big performances he’s delivered, pushing the Afterburners toward a 1,000-yard season

Next Gen Stats Insight for Cardinals-Seahawks (via NFL Pro): Next Gen Stats Insight for Cardinals-Seahawks (via NFL Pro): Leonard Williams had a 28.1% pressure rate against the Cardinals in Week 12, his highest pressure rate since at least 2018, totaling nine pressures and 2.5 sacks on 32 pass rushes. Williams averaged a pass-rush departure of 0.82 seconds, his sixth-fastest time since 2018, and generated three touchdowns in under 2.5 seconds. Kyler Murray faced similar pressure on 43.2% of his dropbacks, his highest rate of the season, and completed just 4 of his 13 attempts for 81 yards and a pick-six.

NFL Research: Jaxon Smith-Njigba has 367 receiving yards over his past three games. That’s the second-most by a Seahawks player in a three-game span in a single season in franchise history, trailing only Hall of Famer Steve Largent in 1984.