SEATTLE — Jarran Reed is not known for his eloquence, but the veteran defensive tackle deserves credit for doing what some of his teammates struggled to accomplish Sunday: properly describe Leonard Williams’ impact in the Seattle Seahawks’ 16-6 win over the Arizona Cardinals.
Cornerback Devon Witherspoon couldn’t find the right adjective. “I don’t think there’s a word to describe it,” he said.
Seattle (6-5) had its best defensive performance of the season Sunday, holding Kyler Murray and the Cardinals out of the end zone for the first time all season. The guy who set the tone was Williams, the Seahawks’ highest-paid defensive player and one of the best on that side of the ball. He recorded four QB hits, 2.5 sacks, and an additional tackle for loss against the run while completely dominating Arizona’s front line.
Williams woke up with a good feeling about Sunday’s game, and it turned out to be his best as a Seahawk since the team acquired him from the New York Giants ahead of last year’s trade deadline.
“Playing with him for six years now, I just know when he smells blood in the water early, his whole bag is unlocked,” said Seattle safety Julian Love, Williams’ teammate in New York for four years. “He got after it today. He’s the best in the league. You guys saw that today.”
Williams added: “I was feeding off the crowd. The 12s were just really loud out there today, so it was great energy all around.”
Because of the hole Seattle dug itself through the first nine games, the team’s leaders gathered upon returning from their Week 10 bye and talked about treating each of the final eight regular-season games like playoff bouts. After keeping the San Francisco 49ers offense in check in a much-needed Week 11 victory, coach Mike Macdonald’s unit turned it up a notch against an equally dangerous Cardinals team that came into Week 12 averaging more than 23 points per game.
Seattle held Arizona (6-5) out of the end zone while scoring a defensive touchdown of its own in the third quarter on Coby Bryant’s 69-yard pick six. The win, and the Los Angeles Rams’ loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night, put the Seahawks atop the NFC West via head-to-head tiebreaker with the Cardinals. It increased their odds of making the postseason and winning the division to 23 percent. A loss would have dropped both odds below 5 percent.
“We knew where we were in the division rankings, so ever since (the leaders) had that conversation, we’ve been treating it like playoffs,” Williams said. “Since then, I just feel like our team is coming closer together. We’re playing with great energy.”
The defense carried the load while the offense had only 285 yards and produced just two scoring drives. Quarterback Geno Smith led a seven-play, 61-yard touchdown drive in the second quarter thanks to two big hookups with receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who got the Seahawks inside the 5-yard line with a 46-yard catch-and-run on a screen pass, then hauled in a 3-yard pass on third-and-goal to give them a 7-3 lead.
The offense mostly sputtered after that and struggled throughout the afternoon on third down due to sacks and another red zone interception by Smith, who was picked off on third-and-6 to start the fourth quarter. But after Arizona cut the lead to 13-6, Seattle converted 3 of 4 third downs on a 13-play drive that ate up more than eight minutes and ended with a 50-yard field goal with 1:56 remaining.
“Hats off to the defense and the O-line because they played great enough to where we were able to win the game and control our destiny on offense,” said receiver DK Metcalf.
The Seahawks entered their bye week allowing 24.6 points per game. They’ve surrendered only 23 total in back-to-back wins over the 49ers and Cardinals. Holding the Rams to 20 offensive points in the Week 9 loss was a sign of things to come, particularly because of how well Seattle defended the run, which was the team’s main issue in the first half of the season. With the defense turning a corner, the Seahawks can reasonably expect to be in every game even though the offense is still searching for its identity.
“We should have ran away with that game early, but we put ourselves in bad positions to where we couldn’t finish drives,” Metcalf said. “The defense plays like that, week in and week out, we have no choice but to put points on the board and run away with every game.”
Arizona’s running backs combined for 40 yards on 12 carries. Lead back James Conner had a season-low 8 yards. Murray had previously been one of the best quarterbacks in the league at avoiding sacks and turnovers; Seattle flipped the script in both areas Sunday. Murray was sacked five times, twice on the opening possession by outside linebacker Boye Mafe and rookie inside linebacker Tyrice Knight. Murray completed 24 of 37 passes for 285 yards but threw his fourth interception of the season on a critical fourth-down play in the second half.
Arizona trailed 7-3 at Seattle’s 40-yard line midway through the third quarter. Macdonald called a timeout that negated what was initially an incomplete pass on fourth-and-1, broken up by Witherspoon. That caused a brief moment of frustration from Seattle’s defenders — until the next play happened.
On the ensuing snap, the Cardinals changed their play and ran a play fake to get Murray on the perimeter. After crashing down initially to stop the run, Witherspoon spun and cut off Murray’s path to the edge, forcing an errant pass over the head of receiver Michael Wilson and into the arms of Bryant. While Bryant sprinted toward the end zone, Witherspoon came from out of bounds and blocked Conner from making a chase-down tackle, which allowed his teammate an easy touchdown, the first of his career.
“Sometimes ball doesn’t lie,” Love said. “We got six instead.”
Bryant punctuated the score by diving and grabbing his nether region, an ode to former Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch, who famously did so on multiple occasions, once in a 2010 playoff win over the New Orleans Saints and again against the Cardinals in 2014. The latter was the source of inspiration for Bryant, who decided during a conversation with his brother and father ahead of the game it would be fitting to copy Lynch’s celebration against Arizona.
Inserted into the starting lineup in Week 7, Bryant has a pair of interceptions in five games, and he made sure to give a shoutout to Witherspoon for the assist on his second takeaway.
“I looked to my right, and I just see his helmet block the dude, and I’m just like, ‘Oh, yeah, here’s my chance to do the Marshawn Lynch right now,’” said Bryant, who later added: “I don’t think I’ve ever ran that fast. Even Riq (Woolen) showed love to me. I’ve got to be running fast if he showed love.”
Bryant’s celebration encapsulated the swagger and attitude the Seahawks defense is playing with after a rough start to the season. Witherspoon gave credit to Macdonald, explaining that he’s been great at forecasting what teams will run in certain situations. Williams added to that by highlighting their run defense, which has allowed Macdonald to unleash the pressure packages he couldn’t previously get to because of how seldom opponents had faced obvious passing situations.
“Man, he been dialing up them calls,” Witherspoon said. “A lot of them have been on point.”
The other moment that illustrated Seattle’s much-needed attitude adjustment on defense came in the fourth quarter when Arizona reached the goal line with 11:17 remaining, trailing 13-3. The Cardinals had previously scored touchdowns on all 16 of their goal-to-go drives this season — through 11 weeks, no other team had converted more than 89 percent of such chances into touchdowns. Williams said he could tell by the look in his teammates’ eyes in that moment they were going to stand tall.
In previous games, Williams said, there were times he’d look at his teammates and wouldn’t see the same fight in their eyes that he saw Sunday.
“Now we’re on that track,” Williams said. “It means more.”
Murray had to throw the ball away on first-and-goal, then scrambled for 6 yards before being dropped by linebacker Ernest Jones IV on second down. Facing third-and-goal from the 4, Murray threw high and incomplete in the direction of tight end Trey McBride, leading to a field goal.
“Great D-line play, great sticky coverage,” Love said. “They’re not perfect anymore.”
Smith called this a “huge” win for several reasons, chief among them being what it does for their place in the NFC West. Seattle travels to face the 3-8 New York Jets in Week 13 before a rematch with Arizona in Week 14. Also, Seattle snapped a four-game losing streak at home and finally satisfied its fans, many of whom were out of power this week due to a storm that affected tens of thousands of Western Washington residents.
“It’s funny,” Smith said, “because they were electric today.”
Williams and the defense were, too.
