The Arizona Cardinals missed a chance to take control of the National Football Conference West, falling 28-21 to the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday.
Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray was crunched on their second drive of the game. A rude hello from Seattle’s L.J. Collier and Carlos Dunlap that left Murray with a sore right shoulder.
After not being touched by the Seahawks in their first meeting this season, Murray quickly knew that this time was going to be different.
Photo: AP
“They definitely played for me in certain situations, but like I said, we put up 21, had a chance to win the game at the end, but throughout the game, we started slow and kept shooting ourselves in the foot,” Murray said.
Arizona had an opportunity to sweep the season series from Seattle for the first time since 2009 and hand the Seahawks a third straight loss.
Just a few days after Murray and DeAndre Hopkins connected for a last-second touchdown in a dramatic victory over the Buffalo Bills, the Cardinals offense was mostly shut down by a Seattle defense, who had been the worst in the league.
Photo: AP
Murray was 29-of-42 passing for 269 yards and two touchdowns, but the Cardinals were held to just 57 yards rushing after entering the week as the top rushing team in the league.
“I think it was just flow of game,” Murray said. “I don’t think we had a lot of rushing yards anyway — that’s just the way they were playing it. We had what we had and like I said, we had our chances, we just didn’t play well enough to win the game.”
While Seattle shut down Arizona’s rushing attack, the biggest difference was the Seahawks’ ability to get pressure on Murray. When they met in Week 7 — a 37-34 overtime win for the Cardinals — the Seahawks failed to record a quarterback hit against Murray and produced very little pressure.
On Thursday, the pressure was there nearly from the start. Murray was sacked three times and Seattle recorded seven quarterback hits. Dunlap had two sacks, including the clinching play on Murray on fourth down with 38 seconds left after Arizona drove inside the Seattle 30.
“They obviously play hard and they’re a well-coached team,” Arizona coach Kliff Kingsbury said. “We hurt ourselves a bunch which definitely stopped some drives and put us in second-and-longs and third-and-longs, which we were able to stay out of the first game, but you’ve got to give them credit, they were flying around and tackled us when we had the ball in space.”
Even with the offense slowed, Arizona closed to 23-21 with 13 minutes, 19 seconds left when Murray capped a 15-play, 90 yard drive with a three yard touchdown pass to Chase Edmonds. The Cardinals defense held, but backed up near their goal line, J.R. Sweezy was called for holding on Collier in the end zone, giving Seattle a safety with 9:12 left.
Jason Myers added a field goal with 2:19 remaining for a seven-point Seattle lead, but Murray still had a chance for another late rally.
Murray completed six of seven passes to reach the Seattle 27, but that is where the drive stalled. Murray was incomplete on three straight throws, and on fourth down Dunlap came free around the edge and corralled the quarterback before he could escape.
“We knew the game was on us and that’s how we wanted it,” Dunlap said.
Arizona still have a say in the division race, with two games to come against the Los Angeles Rams.
However, the Cardinals’ schedule is far tougher moving forward than Seattle’s, whose next four games are against teams with a combined 8-28-1 record.
“We’re still very positive. We have six games left,” Arizona safety Budda Baker said. “We were in a situation, down by seven, even with all the penalties, we still could have tied the game or won the game.”
The next generation of running talent takes center stage at today’s Berlin Marathon, in the absence of stars including Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge and Ethiopian world record holder Tigist Assefa. With most of the major marathon stars skipping the event in the wake of the Paris Olympics just more than a month ago, the field is wide open in the men’s and women’s races. Since 2015, Kipchoge has won five times in Berlin, Kenenisa Bekele has won twice and Guye Adola once — with all three missing today. Kenyan Kibiwott Kandie and Ethiopian Tadese Takele are among the favourites for the men, while
Japan’s Shohei Ohtani is the record-breaking baseball “superhuman” following in the footsteps of the legendary Babe Ruth who has also earned comparisons to US sporting greats Michael Jordan and Tom Brady. Not since Ruth a century ago has there been a baseball player capable of both pitching and hitting at the top level. The 30-year-old’s performances with the Los Angeles Dodgers have consolidated his position as a baseball legend in the making, and a national icon in his native Japan. He continues to find new ways to amaze, this year becoming the first player to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases
Zhang Shuai yesterday said that she nearly quit after losing 24 matches in a row — now the world No. 595 is into the quarter-finals of her home China Open. The 35-year-old is to face Spain’s Paula Badosa as the lowest-ranked player to reach this stage in the history of the tournament after Badosa reeled off 11 of the last 12 games in a 6-4, 6-0 victory over US Open finalist Jessica Pegula. Zhang went into Beijing on a barren run lasting more than 600 days and her string of singles defeats was the second-longest on the WTA Tour Open era, which
Taiwan’s Tony Wu yesterday beat Mackenzie McDonald of the US to win the Nonthaburi Challenger IV in Thailand, his first challenger victory since 2022. The 26-year-old world No. 315, who won both his qualifiers to advance to the main draw, has been on a hot streak this month, winning his past nine matches, including two that ensured Taiwan’s victory in their Davis Cup World Group I tie. Wu took just more than two hours to top world No. 172 McDonald 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) to win his second challenger tournament since the Tallahassee Tennis Challenger in 2022. Wu’s Tallahassee win followed two years of
RSS