Arizona Cardinals Are No Super Bowl Threat After Being Run Over By Seattle Seahawks
By Ed Morgans
@writered21
Getty Images
With Ryan Lindley at quarterback, the only chance the Arizona Cardinals had to beat the Seattle Seahawks Sunday night was to play great defense and leave Lindley with little more to do than manage the offense in a low-scoring win. Instead, the Cardinals were embarrassed on both sides of the ball, as the Seahawks ran over Arizona, 35-6.
A win would have given the Cardinals home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. Now, Arizona has work to do just to win the NFC West at all, having lost games to Seattle this season. Two plays in the fourth quarter sealed the Cardinals’ fate tonight. The first, a 79-yard touchdown run by Seattle’s Marshawn Lynch that was as brutally beautiful as it was clinically crushing to the Cardinals chances. Lynch ran through several would-be tackles, taking Beast Mode and Skittles to a whole new level on his nearly field-long rampage.
On Arizona’s next possession, a long Lindley pass was intercepted by none other than Richard Sherman, which put any thoughts of a miracle Arizona comeback down the drain for good. Lindley had the kind of game you would have expected him to have against Seattle’s tremendous defense (18-for-44, 216 yards, one interception), but Arizona’s defense did the quarterback no favors, giving up 35 points, 596 yards of total offense, and the Lynch touchdown run, which will be one of the plays of the year, during which the Cardinals just looked helpless. Seattle rolled up 267 yards rushing to Arizona’s 29.
All of it adds up to the realization of what we may have already been known going into tonight, which was that the Cardinals are, by no means, any threat to come out of the NFC and make a second Super Bowl appearance in six years. Seattle is better. The Dallas Cowboys are better. The Green Bay Packers are better. Now knowing that the road to the Super Bowl won’t go through Glendale (even if that road ends there in February), the one redeeming quality this feisty, but battered Cardinals team had in its corner is gone as well.
Tonight, we saw the Seahawks (11-4) team that dismantled the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl nearly a year ago. Arizona had to hold Seattle to a shell of that form to have any chance to win and the Cardinals came up woefully short in every phase of the game. Had Seattle kicker Steven Hauschka not missed three field goals, the final score would have been even more lopsided.
Arizona (11-4) has had a heck of a season and head coach Bruce Arians has done a wonderful job during his tenure there. The Cardinals are relevant and they are a good football team, and that is much to Arians’ credit. But even if Drew Stanton comes back to the quarterback position in the playoffs, it’s clear that as good a story as Arizona is, the Cardinals are no Super Bowl threat.
Ed Morgans is an ACC Basketball Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @writered21 and add him to your network on Google.
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