Week Six Morning Aftermath: Cardinals 27, Seahawks 3

In our SportingNews.com 10-pack for Week Six, we called the Cardinals-Seahawks contest a potential NFC West elimination game.

With the home team losing by 24 and falling to 2-4, it’s safe to say the Seahawks will have a very hard time climbing to the top of the division, given the presence of two teams that have beaten them one time each.

The problem for the up-and-down Seahawks, whose two wins came with a combined score of 69-0 but who are otherwise winless, is the offensive line.  Even with Matt Hasselbeck healthy (for now), there’s nothing he can do if he has no time to set up and find an open receiver.

“We wanted to get to him early and we did,” Arizona defensive tackle Darnell Dockett said, per the Seattle Times.  “He stood in
there.  I take my hat off to him.  But I think at the third quarter, he
just started bailing up out of there real fast.  And at some point I was
thinking he wasn’t even looking for the receiver.  He was just taking
off with the ball.  I guess he knew how we were going to play in this
game.”

So the Cardinals are now tied with the 49ers at the top of the division at 3-2, after entering their bye week at 1-2.  But the Cardinals need to continue to win games in the division — and they need to show that they can win games outside the division in months other than January.

They get a chance next Sunday night against a freshly-wounded Giants team in the Meadowlands, a place where the Cardinals gave up 56 last year to the Jets.

If the Cardinals can somehow win that game, they will be taken seriously.  If they don’t, the jury will continue to be out on whether they can get back to the postseason a year after getting to the Super Bowl.