NFL: Seahawks knock off Cards 10th straight behind smothering defense and Smith-Njigba

9/20/2026

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total
Seattle Seahawks (2-0)	7	0	14	10	31
Arizona Cardinals (1-1)	0	7	0	0	7

(Glendale, AZ) On a crazy day of football from the New Orleans Saints stunning the Ravens at Baltimore to Minnesota holding the Bears to 3 to a 2+ hour weather delay in Tampa Bay, the Raiders are 2-0 and the Chargers are 0-2. The Seahawks looked like they were going to make it all look normal when they began against the Arizona Cardinals.

Fast Start for the Offense

The Hawks kicked-off and then held the Cards to a 3 and out and got the ball on their own 14. Jadarian Price would run it 4 yards on 1st down. On 2^nd and 6, Drew Lock dropped back to pass and found Jaxon Smith-Njigba wide open across midfield and he took it all the way for an 82-yard touchdown, a career best for JSN. Jason Myers kicked the PAT for a 7-0 lead with 12:25 to go in the 1^st quarter.

Cardinals answer

After a trade of punts, the Arizona Cardinals on their 3^rd possession began on their own 39. After 11 plays, the Cardinals were on the Seattle 2-yard line with a 4^th and goal. New Head Coach Mike LaFleur did not want to chase the Seahawks, answering touchdowns with field goals so went for it and it paid off.

QB Jacoby Brissette found TE Trey McBride as they overloaded the right side and McBride caught one-on-one coverage to the left. Brissette laid out a perfect pass in front of McBride, and he brought it in, add the extra point and it was tied 7-7 with 3 seconds into the 2^nd quarter.

Sloppy Rest of the Half

Seattle then answered with sloppiness and missed opportunities including a 4^th and goal at the 1 with 1:16 to play. Seattle coach Mike Macdonald decided to go for it knowing the Hawks were receiving the 2^nd half kick-off, but the Cardinal defense rose up and stuffed Emanuel Wilson on the 2-yard line.

Time would run out and at the half it was all even at 7-7.

Fast Start to 2^nd Half

As the 2^nd half began with the kick-off to Rashid Shaheed and returned it 27-yards where he got hit and the ball popped and then scooped up by Seattle’s Elijah Higgins who sprinted down the sideline finally being forced out at the Arizona 37.

4 plays later, Drew Lock hit Jaxon Smith-Njigba for his 2^nd touchdown of the game on a 7-yard slant pass for 6. Myers hit the point after and Seattle led 14-7 with 12:27 to go in the 3rd quarter.

The Dark Side gets Darker and Offense awakens both through the air and on the ground

The Seattle Dark Side defense lived up to the hype for a 2^nd week in a row. On the next possession, Julien Love made an incredible pick with his hand literally on the ground as he is falling picking the ball right off the turf.

That led to another scoring drive for the offense who was finding their groove behind Drew Lock. Seattle settled for a 33-yard field goal by Myers to push their lead to 17-7 at the 6:47 mark of the 3^rd quarter.

The Dark Side kept the pressure on forcing another punt, giving the ball back to their offense on their own 20. Lock and company mixing up the offensive play calls with runs and passes drove down to the 12-yard line when Lock found JSN a 3^rd time with the PAT to extend their lead to 24-7 with 12:40 remaining in the game.

This was the first time in Smith-Njigba’s professional career that he scored 3 touchdowns in a game another career best set in this contest.

The defense again was not in the mood to give the Cards any hope and forced a quick punt. Seattle took over on their own 30 and then started to hand the ball off with Wilson getting most of the carries.

The drive would take more than 10 minutes off the clock and end up on the 1-yard line of the Cardinals. On 4^th down, AJ Barner would line up as QB and the tush push was on surging across the goal line for a final 6 and Seattle iced the game up 31-7.

Game Notes

The Dark Side completely dominated this game allowing the Cardinals just 151 total yards. Limiting Arizona to just 3.2 yards per play. The Cards were kept to less than 100 yards in both rushing with 70 and passing with 81.

Julien Love had the lone turn-over with the interception. Seattle had 2 sacks, 7 QB pressures and 5 tackles for a loss. The secondary had 4 pass defenses while Ernest Jones and Devon Witherspoon led the Seahawks with 8 tackles and 4 solo tackles.

The Ground Game wakes up

It’s no secret that the Seahawks want to run the ball and they drafted Jadarian Price in the 1^st round to help that mission, but they also made another move that looks like may be more significant than many thought after week 1. Seattle signed, running back Emanuel Wilson in the off-season to a 1-year contract. Wilson had played for Green Bay for the past few seasons and decided to move on from him after a decent showing filling in for Josh Jacobs last season.

Wilson only had a few touches in the New England win, but he got his chance to show what he can do against Arizona and just like that the Hawks have more depth at RB than many thought.

Wilson carried the rock 21 times for 92 yards and a long run of 18. He took over the 16-play drive that iced the game and took 10-minutes off the clock carrying the ball 9 of those 16 plays.

Seattle ran the ball 40 times for 162 yards and a touchdown.

Price vs Love

Prior to the game there was a lot of pondering about who would have the better game between the former Notre Dame teammates that were now on opposite sides of the ball.

Jadarian Price started for Seattle and was the 32^nd pick in the 1^st round of the 2026 draft. Jeremyiah Love was the 4^th overall pick in the draft and was the starter at Arizona.

Price got off to a good start and rattled off a 25-yard run, the longest rushing play of the season so far. But he also had the ball stripped out of his hands in the 1^st half for the only Seahawk turnover.

Price would leave the game in the 4^th quarter with what was reported as a chest injury and was out of uniform and on the sideline.

Price finished the game with 13 carries for 52 yards, 1 catch for 8 yards for a total of 60 yards.

Love was well short of his former teammate. Love had 9 carries for 29 yards and 3 catches for 16 and total of 45 offensive yards.

Lock finding his groove

QB Drew Lock was impressive when he was thrown into take over for Sam Darnold in week 1 but after getting all the 1^st team touches in practice since game 1 Lock appeared even more in control.

Lock and Smith-Njigba connected 9 times for 152 yards, 3 touchdowns with the long one of 82 yards. But Lock also spread it around finding Shaheed 3 times for 35, Cooper Kupp had 2 catches for 20 while Elijah Arroyo, Price, George Holani, AJ Barner and Eric Saubert all had 1 catch.

Lock was 19/26 for 235 yards and 3 scores with no interceptions.

Special Teams

The special teams avoided a disaster when Higgins scooped up the Shaheed fumble but other than that, Myers after a rough pre-season has been back to his old self going 1-1 in field goal attempts and 4-4 PAT’s. Michael Dickson punted twice for 91 yards with a long of 51.

Shaheed had 2 kick returns with 47 total yards and 3 punt returns for 29 for a total of 76 special teams’ yards.  

Up Next

The Seahawks are now 2-0 and will hit the road again next week headed for the other Washington where they will face the 0-2 Commanders.

Road Warriors

The Seattle Seahawks improved their road record under Mike Macdonald to an eye-popping 16-2 or an 89%-win rate on the road. The league average is about 44%.

Going back to the beginning of the Pete Carroll era in 2010, where winning on the road started to become a more regular occurrence, especially on the East Coast the Seahawks are a combined 75-55-1 or a 57%-win rate.

The rest of the NFL combined won at a 44-45% clip. The other top road teams during this time were the New England Patriots at 66%, Kansas City at 62%, Green Bay at 59%, Pittsburgh at 59%, Baltimore at 58% and Seattle a few hundredths of a percent behind the Ravens.

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