Russell Wilson and Doug Baldwin executed the perfect scramble drill against the Cardinals

Last night’s Thursday Night Football game between the Seahawks and Cardinals featured many unfortunate injuries, some sloppy play, and one play-of-the-year candidate.

That play came from the Seahawks, who always seem to manage to have some type of weird play happen a few times a year. It seems all too fitting that it happened on a Thursday night game, when things are typically bad or just downright odd.

They always say it takes two to tango, and if you could create a football version of that and come up with a definitive example of it, this would probably be it:

The play came at a crucial time and solidified the Seahawks’ lead in the fourth quarter.

“It was an igniter,” Pete Carroll said. “We needed to get separated on the score ... That was an extraordinary play. I need to see it again. I can’t imagine all those spins and all that stuff he was doing just to find the time.”

It really looks like a play you could only make in Madden. However, the fact that the Seahawks pulled it off isn’t surprising but doesn’t make it any less amazing.

Cris Collinsworth mentioned on the broadcast that the Cardinals talked all week about not falling for the pump fake, and well — they did.

While the scrambling was key, those pumps gave Wilson just enough time to keep Cardinals defenders guessing like they were buying lotto tickets. Of course, they didn’t win.

During the week, head coach Bruce Arians was asked if the Cardinals prepare differently for Wilson than for other quarterbacks.

“Heck yeah, heck yeah,” Arians said, via SeahawksWire. “He’s so different, and he’s so good at what he does; he’ll kill you from the pocket, but he’ll really kill you out of the pocket. You have to get pressure, but you have to be smart about it.”

Wilson killed them.

Huge, in fact. Baldwin was blocking on the actual play. He saw that Wilson was in trouble and read the defense in an attempt to get open while still being in a realistic range for Wilson to sling it to him.

Wilson floated one to Baldwin, who nearly took it to the end zone for a touchdown:

Wilson’s mobility and pump fakes were the game of chess that the Seahawks had to execute on the play to make it work. He deserves tons of credit for that.

But there’s no play without Baldwin. Receivers are taught to do exactly what Baldwin did, and there’s no question that coaches around the country who were watching this game will show this video of Baldwin as a prime example of what to do when a play breaks down like that.

The Seahawks have been one of the smartest teams in the league in everything that they do in all three phases of the game since Carroll got there. Typically we see those examples on defense and sometimes on special teams.

But Thursday night, we saw that discipline on offense pay off.