On paper, tomorrow's Week 14 matchup against the Cardinals looks like an easy victory. Since starting hot at 4-0, the Arizona Cardinals have bumped into a slew of problems on both sides of the ball and slipped into a nightmare scenario, losing their last eight straight. Coach Ken Whishenhunt inexplicably benched QB John Skelton in Week 12 in favor of rookie Ryan Lindley, with results that weren't much better than the Max Hall experiment a couple of years back. Though the Cardinals have still remained effective on defense, ranking second in the league in interceptions, the offense has not been able to convert on any of the opportunities it's been given. At times, those have been on a silver platter. 

Meanwhile, the Seahawks are surging. Despite an ugly last-minute loss in Miami in Week 13, they bounced back strong in Chicago last week and pulled out an overtime win. Russell Wilson is looking more like a seasoned veteran than a rookie. Marshawn Lynch is still finding ways to break tackles and drag defenders for extra yardage on nearly every run. The defense, though underperforming on the road, has played very well in every home game this season, ranking fifth overall, and has feasted on opposing quarterbacks. Just ask Aaron Rodgers, Tony Romo and Tom Brady about that. 

So why does Sunday's matchup with a reeling division rival make me slightly nervous? Here are some things that worry me.

• The Seahawks have a history of playing down to their competition. 
• The Cardinals' defense still managed to pick off Matt Ryan five times a few weeks ago (but still lost, somehow.)
• CB Brandon Browner begins his four-game suspension tomorrow. 
• Larry Fitzgerald is still a weapon, and has torched this unit in the past with reckless abandon (even with shaky QB play.) 
• With resources devoted more toward stopping Fitzgerald, a No.2 WR such as Andre Roberts could emerge and surprise the Hawks' defense. Remember TItus Young in Detroit? Yeah, that happened. 

Of course, this could all be a false alarm if the Seahawks remember who they are tomorrow. This offense has arisen from stagnant and sloppy into smooth and solid. John Skelton? Really? He may not be Ryan Lindley, but he sure as hell isn't Tom Brady either. This is a division game the Seahawks know they have to win to keep the momentum going as the regular season winds down. Though offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell will likely draw up a more conservative, run-heavy approach tomorrow in light of the Cardinals' skilled secondary, that doesn't mean Russell Wilson is suddenly going to crack under pressure. 

Here's what I'm confident about going into tomorrow: 

• The 12th Man will be in full effect.
• Since Week 8 -- the official halfway mark for the regular season -- the Seahawks have scored at least 21 points in every game. The Cardinals have given up 31, 23, and 31 points in three of their past four games; two of those being road games (Green Bay, Atlanta.) So even though they get a lot of interceptions, they still give up touchdowns. 
• The Cardinals rank 24th in run defense, and the Seahawks rank 7th overall in rushing yards. Look for the Beast to be unleashed tomorrow afternoon.
• Since their Week 1 loss in Arizona, the Seahawks have developed and ascended overall, while the Cardinals have reeled since starting off hot. 

So do we have anything to worry about tomorrow? We can only wait and see. But no matter the outcome, it all comes down to the quarterback -- and that's the key area the Seahawks hold an advantage over Arizona in this matchup. 

Final score prediction: Seattle 20, Arizona 10. 

It figures, I end up having to take a week off to recuperate¹, and it just so happens that’s the week the Seahawks end up having to make significant changes to both the roster and the starting lineup on both sides of the ball.  Cornerback Brandon Browner is now suspended for the last four games of the regular seasons after testing positive for Adderall, and offensive guard James Carpenter has been placed on injured reserve after experiencing sharp pain in his surgically reconstructed knee early on in the Bears game.

Both losses hurt, but not as much as they would have just a few seasons ago when Seattle’s roster had been depleted by years of Tim Ruskell’s poor draft choices and shortsighted free agency signings.  The man replacing Browner in the starting lineup is Walter Thurmond, who you might remember was third on the depth chart last season behind Browner and Marcus Trufant.  Thurmond has an ugly injury history dating back to his college career – his season-ending leg injury last year helped pave the way for Richard Sherman to step in and take over the starting job – and at 5’11” and 186 lbs he’s nowhere near as physically imposing as Browner, but there’s no denying that he’s got the talent to be a starting NFL corner.

With Trufant ruled out for this week’s game with a hamstring injury, the nickel back job will likely fall to sixth-round rookie CB Jeremy Lane.  During the offseason and on into the preseason, Lane garnered more notice for his immaturity and ability to commit penalties at the drop of a hat, but since then it would seem that he’s improved enough to leapfrog Byron Maxwell on the depth chart.  Larry Fitzgerald is still probably going to do his Larry Fitzgerald thing, but Arizona’s anemic stable of quarterbacks makes this Sunday a perfect opportunity for Thurmond and Lane to adjust to their new roles.  The fifth and sixth corners on the depth chart this weekend will be DeShawn Shead, who was activated off the practice squad this week, and Ron Parker, who was signed off of Carolina’s practice squad (Parker also played two games for the Seahawks last year).

Getting back to Browner and Sherman’s failed drug tests, there have been so few specifics released on the matter by anyone that it’s difficult to know what to think.  Do some players try to get away with taking performance-enhancing drugs?  Definitely, and it’s a problem in nearly every other professional sport as well².  That said, the workout and health supplement market is about as well-regulated and policed as a Somali bazaar.  Even when labels don’t intentionally lie about ingredients, poor manufacturing practices leads to many supplements being cross-contaminated by other substances that have been processed using the same machinery or improperly stored close by in the same warehouse.

I believe Browner’s allegation in his appeal was that the lab doing the testing improperly handled samples, and labs can and do get shut down for doing exactly that.  That said, if being married to a lawyer has taught me anything, it’s that it’s one thing to know something happened, but quite another to prove it happened beyond a reasonable doubt.

Because of that uncertainty, Browner’s decision to drop his appeal may have been his way of taking one for the team.  Sherman is still pursuing his appeal and as such will be able to play this week and probably next week as well, which mitigates the loss of Browner somewhat, but if he ends up getting suspended after that then he’ll be unavailable to play until the NFC Championship game, should the Seahawks advance that far.  Therefore, had they both kept up their appeals and lost the Seahawks would have been without both of their starting CBs up through the first two rounds of the playoffs.  This way the team knows it’ll have at least one of its starting corners when it reaches the postseason, and they’ll only have to possibly do without both starting CBs for the games against the 49ers and Rams – not ideal, perhaps, but better than the alternative.

Anyway, moving on.  The loss of Carpenter means the offensive line will have to get by without one of its best run blockers, but either John Moffitt or J.R. Sweezy (or a combination of the two) should be able to fill in well enough to get by.  Moffitt is more mobile than Carpenter, albeit not as strong, and Sweezy is an even more promising athletic talent whose inexperience at the position caused him to struggle early in the season.  Besides, only a few months ago we were discussing the possibility that Carpenter wouldn’t recover in time to play at all this season, so getting to use him at all was a bonus.  Even if the pain in his knee proves to be minor, shutting him down for the year was the right call – far better to play it safe now so he can heal up and anchor the left guard position for the next ten years than risk destroying his knee and prematurely ending his career.  Rookie guard Rishaw Johnson has been activated from the practice squad to take Carpenter’s spot on the roster.

One of the more interesting bits of news in all this is that Paul McQuistan will be staying at right guard.  McQuistan reminds me a lot of Chris Gray – he isn’t particularly big, strong, or fast, but he plays well enough on most snaps to get the job done.  From what I understand, he’s a big favorite of o-line coach Tom Cable, and the offensive coaching staff as a whole seems to love how well he and right tackle Breno Giacomini are starting to mesh together as a unit on the right side of the line.  Will the Seahawks find someone better in the near future to replace McQuistan?  I’m sure they’ll try, but Holmgren and his staff tried over and over again to replace Gray with someone bigger and better, and each time Gray managed to come out on top of the battle in training camp and keep his starting job. 

Also, veteran wide receiver Braylon Edwards was cut this week, but I’d be hard pressed to call that an important move.  Edwards has occasionally flashed the big-play ability that made him a first round pick of the Browns back in 2005, but he seems to have lost a step and has had trouble getting separation from defenders all season long.  His overturned TD catch against Chicago notwithstanding, Edwards hasn’t caught a pass since week six, and according to my stats he's been targeted 16 times but has only made 8 receptions.  Bottom line, his contributions on offense can be easily replaced by the two young, healthy receivers at the bottom of the depth chart, Charly Martin and Jermaine Kearse, and they can both run and move well enough to make an impact on special teams, too.

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¹ I know I’ve mentioned this before, but chronic pain is a serious, uh, pain (you know what I mean).  I’m pretty functional most days, but on those occasions when it gets bad it usually stays bad for awhile, and my ability to write much of anything in a coherent, intelligible manner is one of the first things to go.  In other words, you might not like it when things go silent around here, but you can rest assured that I’m liking it even less.

² On that note, one of the best headlines I’ve ever read was for an article about Floyd Landis being stripped of his Tour de France victory after he failed a doping test: “Nobody Has Won the Tour de France in the Last Twenty Years.

The Seahawks entered this week in control of a wild card berth, and they held on to it today with a road win against the Bears.  At times, it seemed like overthrows, bad calls, and Cutler-to-Marshall were going to conspire to drop Seattle to 6-6, but in the end the offense got it done.

And you know what?  At the end of the fourth quarter, with the game on the line and the ball in Wilson's hands, I was surprised at how much confidence I had that the Seahawks could drive the length of the field for a touchdown.  I don't think I've felt like that about a Seattle offense since Hasselbeck's last pro bowl season in 2007.

Enjoy the win in the comments below.

I don't really have all that much to add to yesterday's article on the Bears game, other than to remind you to watch for the return of #28 Walter Thurmond, who will likely get the start at nickelback over injured veteran Marcus Trufant (hamstring).  Also, there's this:

SEA! HAWKS!

The Seahawks are currently 5-0 at home, but an abysmal 1-5 on the road.  Even worse, in three of those five losses (versus the Dolphins, Lions, and Cardinals) the Seahawks gave up a fourth quarter lead with less than six minutes to go.  As with those previous defeats, there are several mitigating factors to which I cold point¹ – Wilson is clearly building up a great rapport with his receivers, the offense converted 50% of its third downs, etc. – but with so few games remaining on the schedule and a playoff spot on the line, a decent stat line or two is not going to be enough to soothe away the loss.

Thankfully, there are only two road games left to play this season, starting with this Sunday’s matchup against the Bears in Chicago.  And don’t let the Bears’ 8-3 record or intimidating defensive stats fool you, this game is very, very winnable.  I know I tend to go a bit heavy on the statistics around here, but this is one of those times when the numbers are just not telling us the whole truth about a team.

Not that I’m saying the Bears are a bad team, mind you.  On defense, starting CBs Tim Jennings and Charles Tillman are playing like all-pros, LB Lance Briggs is still a beast at age 32, and as a unit they’ve been excellent at pressuring opposing quarterbacks.  On the other side of the ball, Chicago has a solid rushing attack, albeit not a spectacular one, and despite the team’s weak overall stats through the air QB Jay Cutler and his old Denver teammate WR Brandon Marshall are one of the best passing combinations in the NFL this year, and I’m saying that as someone who detests Cutler.

However, as well as Chicago has done, they’ve only looked like Super Bowl contenders when they’ve faced teams with glaring problems on one or both sides of the ball.  In the five games they’ve played against teams with winning records, the Bears have gone 2-3, losing to the Packers (7-4), Texans (10-1), and 49ers (8-2-1).  

The two wins are also questionable, seeing as how they were earned when the two teams in question were not playing their best football.  They had the good fortune of playing the Colts (7-4) at the beginning of the season before Andrew Luck and his teammates turned a 2-3 start to the season into a legitimate postseason bid, and their recent win over the Vikings (6-5) comes well after Minnesota’s hot start to the season cooled off into what is now a 2-4 midseason slump.

In short, the Bears may currently be first in the NFC North, but as emperors go this one appears to be suspiciously clothing-free.  For one, there’s a marked difference in how their run defense has performed this year before and after their week six bye – for whatever reason, they’ve gone from holding teams to 65.8 yds/att to allowing nearly double that yardage (122.83 yds/att) through their last six games.  If Marshawn Lynch and his blockers have some leftover frustration from the Miami game to get out of their system, Soldier Field appears to be a pretty good place to do it.

For another, the Bears have a pretty shallow receiving corps.  Despite playing in a run-first offense, Marshall is currently the second most targeted receiver in the league with 124 passes thrown his way.  That’s more than the rest of the players on Chicago’s roster combined (119 targets), with the single next most targeted guy being Earl Bennett at a mere 40 balls thrown his way.  Richard Sherman, take note: as Marshall goes, so goes the Bears’ passing game.  

Better yet, their offense is having trouble hanging on to the ball lately, having committed two or more turnovers in four of their last five games.  The Bears’ defense has been able to make up for the offense’s deficiencies by leading the league in takeaways (they’re currently averaging three per game), but if Wilson and his cohorts can manage to protect the ball on the road, Cutler et al may very well end up giving away the game via interceptions and fumbles.

Oh, and if you’re worried about Chicago’s return game, you shouldn’t be.  Devin Hester has been ruled out for the game with a concussion, but even if he had been able to suit up, this season he simply hasn’t been the dangerous return man he once was.  At the moment, the Bears are 22^nd in yards per punt return and 30^th in yards per kickoff return.

I know the Dolphins loss hurt – I’m still feeling the effects myself – but as you can see there are plenty of reasons to believe the Seahawks will win on Sunday, reasons based on something more substantial than fervent hope.  So, while the Eagles probably won’t give Tony Romo a reason to make that teary-eyed losing face of his (my wife loves it when he does that) and the 49ers will most likely cruise their way to an easy victory over the rebuilding Rams, the Seahawks may very well give us a reason to smile anyway.

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¹ Don’t worry, the stats article will make a return next week regardless of the outcome of the Bears game.  Here’s hoping I’ll get to spend the whole thing talking about how the Seahawks went about crushing the life out of Chicago.
 

Louis Bacigalupi posts comments on the site as LouieLouie.  He’s an accountant by trade and worked in a USFL front office.  He can be reached by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

As I suggested I might do a couple of weeks ago, I went shopping with my wife the Sunday the Hawks had the week off.  That didn’t turn out to be such a good idea, as the “bye” week turned into the “buy” week – it was almost as painful as last Sunday’s loss to Miami.

The Miami Game

What was it that lost the game to the Dolphins?  The difference in the game was that at crunch time, with the score tied and time running out on the clock, the Seahawks tried to play it safe on both sides of the ball, while Miami let ‘er rip and won the game.  As I’ve heard it said, real teams play to win instead of just playing not to lose.

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As if the loss to Miami wasn't bad enough, word has now gotten out that the NFL is planning on handing out suspensions to both of Seattle's starting cornerbacks, Brandon Browner and Richard Sherman, for violating league rules prohibiting the use of performance-enhancing drugs.  Sherman responded to the news by vehemently denying using the drug in question, Adderall, and has vowed to appeal the suspension.

Very few details have been released, including when the tests in question were administered, but losing two of the team's best defensive players for four of the Seahawks' last five games will likely do serious damage to their chances of making the playoffs.  If the suspension is upheld, Marcus Trufant and Walter Thurmond would start in their place, with either CB Byron Maxwell, rookie CB Jeremy Lane, or FS Chris Maragos taking Trufant's spot at nickel back.

Rookie safety Winston Guy was also suspended for four games last week for violating the NFL's performance-enhancing drugs policy, but that infraction appears to be unrelated.  According to his agent (possibly not the most reliable of sources, but in this case he's the only source), Guy's suspension was due to a banned ingredient found in an over-the-counter supplement he was taking, not Adderall.  His suspension also warranted little attention, as he has only been active for two games this season and was in no danger of seeing the field again anytime soon.

In case you aren't familiar with it, Adderall is the brand name for a combination of amphetamines and dextroamphetamines that is used primarily to treat patients suffering from ADHD and narcolepsy.  The drug is also highly addictive and has seen widespread abuse (particularly among college students) because it allows users to stay awake longer, and can also aid in concentration and induce a feeling of euphoria.  Its side effects range from minor complaints like nervousness and nausea all the way up to good stuff like cardiac arrest and full-blown psychosis, so, y'know, I think I'll stick to coffee.

This one hurt.  I wasn't terribly happy with several calls in the game, but there weren't nearly enough questionable ones to explain away ten accepted penalties -- the Seahawks simply regressed in that department.

Despite that problem, the team played well enough to win on both offense and special teams (Washington's return TD was fantastic to watch, and how good was Russell Wilson and his receivers?), but were let down once again on defense.  The number of big runs they're giving up in the middle of the line is a major concern.  I'd have to watch the All-22 film to confirm this, but it looked to me like Bobby Wagner is charging forward too soon and getting lost in the wash instead of hanging back and filling whichever hole the ballcarrier ends up choosing once he gets to the line.

I'm also thinking about writing a letter to the Vatican nominating Leroy Hill as the patron saint of blown coverages.  Vent your frustrations in the comment thread below.

Headed into their bye week back in mid-October, the Dolphins were riding on a respectable 4-3 record, but since then they've lost their last three games to drop their record to 4-6.

Miami's offense is pretty bad.  Their rookie QB Ryan Tannehill has thrown a combined five interceptions in his last two games, he hasn't completed at least 60% of his passes since week six, and he's currently tied with Matt Cassell for fewest touchdown passes in the NFL (among QBs with a minimum of 200 pass attempts, anyway).  Reggie Bush is averaging a little over four yards per carry, but he's the only part of the running game that seems to be working.

However, it would be a mistake to dismiss the Dolphins as an easy win.  Their defense is a top-ten unit with plenty of accomplishments to its name (7th fewest points allowed, 5th lowest TD percentage allowed, 4th lowest yards per rushing attempt average allowed).  The two defenders to keep an eye on are DE #91 Cameron Wake, who has 9.5 sacks already this season, and LB #58 Karlos Dansby, whom most of you will probably remember from his years with the Cardinals.  The Dolphins also have a strong special teams unit with a great return man (#34 Marcus Thigpen) and an even better punter (#2 Brandon Fields).

That said, as long as the Seahawks don't take this game for granted they should be able to fly home tonight with their seventh win of the season.  The Hawks are already halfway through a sweep of the AFC East, having beaten the Patriots and Jets already, but more importantly they need to prove to themselves and the rest of the league that they can earn wins even when they play somewhere other than Seattle. 

Over the last few games, we’ve seen Russell Wilson start to come into his own, first with a good showing on the road against the Lions, then with a great game at home against the Jets’ top-five pass defense.  As I said in last week’s stats article, the Seahawks appear to have finally found their next franchise quarterback, and unlike the Redskins, who effectively used up four high-round picks in order to land Robert Griffin III, all John Schneider and Pete Carroll had to do to acquire Wilson was wait patiently until their number came up in the third round.

But bargain or not, Wilson can look forward to a great many comparisons to Matt Hasselbeck in the years ahead.  All new NFL starters are inevitably measured against the last great player to man his position for the team in question, but no one has to put up with more of that kind of relentless scrutiny than quarterbacks.  Even when a quarterback has a pretty strong career, if he didn’t perform better than the team’s previous great then in many cases he ends up being considered a failure.  Just ask Danny White, who was a reliable passer for Dallas for the better part of the 1980s (Tom Landry had nothing but praise for White in his autobiography) but is largely looked upon as a disappointment by Cowboys fans because he wasn’t quite as good as Roger Staubach.

Since Wilson has just ten career starts to his name, any comparison to a veteran QB with 150+ starts under his belt like Hasselbeck is going to be borderline ridiculous at best, but I’m going to do it anyway.  (Hell, if I was the sort of person who let my brain talk me out of doing potentially stupid things, I never would’ve started posting articles on the internet in the first place.)  Both quarterbacks are intelligent, and both have a certain Tarkenton-like flair for improvisation when a play breaks down.  Before injuries began to slow him down, Hasselbeck was surprisingly mobile (from 2001-08, he averaged 3.9 yds/att on 273 rushes), but even in his prime he was nowhere near as fast or elusive as Wilson.  Wilson also leads Hasselbeck in the all-important categories of hair, Levis commercials, and cult leadership potential, while the veteran QB is the undisputed winner in terms of height, wisecracks, and Super Bowl starts.

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