Seattle's death grip

I have seen more lopsided halves of football.

Not sure I’ve seen many more dominant, though, than the one Seattle played in the desert on Sunday.

The Cardinals ran exactly one play in Seattle’s half of the field over the final two quarters. It was the final play of the game.

This occurred for two reasons.

The Seahawks had the ball four times in the second half. They scored three touchdowns and kicked a field goal. It is neither hyperbole nor exaggeration to say that Seattle was two plays away from a 38-0 victory in Arizona: a fourth-down stop to start the second quarter and a fourth-and-goal conversion toward the end of the half.¹

Now, I’m going to pause for a bit of perspective. This is the second time in four regular-season games that Seattle has held an opponent to fewer than 160 yards of net offense.

This is noteworthy.

Before holding the Panthers to 139 yards on Dec. 28, 2025, Seattle hadn't held an opponent to fewer than 160 yards in 10 years.

In fact, I looked over the past 20 years of Seahawks football to see how often the Seahawks have held an opponent to fewer than 160 yards of net offense:

I’ll put it this way: The Seahawks held Arizona to 154 yards in December 2012 during a 58-0 victory that, in many ways, marked the beginning of the Legion of Boom’s era of dominance.

It was the first time in seven years the Seahawks had held an opponent to fewer than 160 yards of offense.

That happened six times over the four seasons from 2012 through 2015, when Seattle allowed the fewest points in the league.

Then it didn’t happen for 10 years.

Now it has happened twice in the past four regular-season games.

I’m not saying this defense is the Second Coming. However, this is what it would look like if it was.

All right, before I get to my explanation on why Seattle absolutely made the right call to go for it on fourth-and-goal at the end of the first half even though the Seahawks didn’t get it, can I spend one paragraph on the Washington Huskies’ victory over a directional Washington?

OK. The offense looked better. Hard not to, given how underwhelming the Huskies had been through the first two games. But of all the issues this team currently has, from the injury-riddled running backs to the not-ready-for-primetime offensive line, perhaps the very worst sign is that Demond Williams has been treated for some sort of injury in each of the team’s first three games. This week it was something to do with his wrist. But hey, maybe the Big Ten games won’t be as physical as Washington’s grueling non-conference schedule.

OK. Now let’s get to one of my favorite parts of football: 2-minute strategy.

Specifically, I’m going to put a microscope over Seattle’s decision toward the end of the first half.

On the surface, this looks like one of those bird in the hand versus two in the bush kind of questions:

Do you take the sure thing (field goal)

Or

Do you try for a touchdown and risk coming away with no points?

There are two complicating factors, however:

Seattle’s decision on fourth-and-goal was more than simply asking, “How likely are we to score a touchdown if we go for it?”

The Seahawks also needed to decide how field position would impact the likelihood of Arizona scoring on its next possession.

Now I’m going to show the depth of my dorkiness by putting some actual numbers to that situation. See, I’m tracking these situations this season.

In Week 1, there were 8 instances in which a team got the ball back with somewhere between 1:29 and 0:45 seconds remaining in the first half.

Those 8 drives resulted in two touchdowns, two field goals, one punt, and three times in which time expired in the second quarter:

In other words, half the time a team got the ball with somewhere between 1:29 and 0:45 remaining in the first half, it scored in Week 1.

Now, let’s break those eight possessions out individually, adding time and field position as a consideration:

The above chart is organized by time left on the clock, which you’d think would be the primary limiting criteria.

That’s not necessarily true, however. Let’s organize it by field position, and just for fun, I’ll add in how many timeouts each team had left when the drive began:

There were four times that a team got the ball beyond its own 20, and three of those four drives resulted in points.

There were four times that a team got the ball at or inside its own 20, and of those four teams, only the Houston Texans mounted a scoring drive.

For the record, the Seahawks kicked off six times in Sunday’s game. The Cardinals average starting field position off those six kicks: Their own 32. There was only one time that Arizona began at or inside its own 20.

So let’s bring all of this together.

If Seattle had attempted the field goal, Arizona would have had a viable scoring opportunity on its final drive.

If Seattle opted to go for it on fourth-and-goal and scored the touchdown, the Seahawks wouldn’t give a rip about the Cardinals starting position. They had just scored a touchdown, yay! You’ll take that every time (unless you can run out the clock on a victory and then you take a knee).

If Seattle opted to go for it on fourth-and-goal and was stopped, the Cardinals would get the ball on their own 1 with one timeout left. It’s very unlikely Arizona would mount a scoring drive in those situations. In fact, with Seattle having two timeouts remaining, there’s a good chance the Seahawks would get the ball back.

Verdict: Seattle handled this right.