Seahawks vs. Cardinals 2013: Seattle continues NFC West dominance

The Seahawks extended their divisional lead on Thursday night, riding three touchdowns from Russell Wilson to a 34-22 win.

by Jeff Gray

Oct 18, 2013, 12:36 PM UTC

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

The Seattle Seahawks continued their domination of the NFC West on Thursday night, dispatching the Arizona Cardinals, 34-22, to move to 6-1 on the season and extend their divisional lead to 1½ games over San Francisco.

Thanks to timely, if not altogether stifling, defense and dazzling play from Russell Wilson, the Seahawks overcame some sloppy play to eventually pull away from the Cardinals, who managed to stick around longer than they probably should have.

The big story here, as Danny Kelly at Field Gulls explains, was the near flawless performance of Wilson, who carved through the Arizona secondary seemingly at will.

Russell Wilson straight balled out in this game, finishing 18-of-29 for 235 yards passing with three touchdowns and no picks. He did fumble three times, including two that went to the Cardinals deep in Seattle territory, but both were at least in part due to the patchwork offensive line’s inability to hold a pocket...
Otherwise, Wilson really played well. He was accurate, poised, and had several extraordinarily amazing plays. He played confidently, had better rhythm, and spread the ball around. I was happy with the offensive performance overall.

Defensively, Seattle's Legion of Boom secondary grabbed their 10th and 11th interceptions of the season, while the defensive front terrorized Carson Palmer with seven sacks.

Pegging a primary catalyst for Arizona’s loss is a difficult task -- simply because there are so many of them -- but Revenge of the Birds undertakes the endeavor below:

Multiple factors contributed to the Cardinals’ loss tonight. These included bad calls by the coaching staff, mis-communication between Palmer and his receivers, dropped passes, poor protection, as well as confusing decisions made by Palmer himself. Towards the end of the game, the mostly-Seahawks crowd began to rain boos on Palmer, marking his ascent to the Hot Seat. Overall, it was a disheartening performance, especially considering the national audience that had to bear through this disaster.

For more news on the Seahawks and Cardinals, visit SB Nation’s team blogs, Field Gulls and Revenge of the Birds.