The Seattle Seahawks come to State Farm Stadium on Sunday to take on the Arizona Cardinals in NFC West action. Arizona was able to score a nice win over the Cowboys on Sunday, 25-22, for their 11th win of the season. Seattle was also successful, seeing their offense finally do something big with a 51-29 win over the Lions. While out of it on the heels of a tough season, maybe they’re at least ready to close strong. Who can notch the cover in Glendale this Sunday?
Playoff Ramifications in This Game
The Seahawks are eliminated, obviously, while the Cardinals have secured their first berth into the playoffs under the Kingsbury/Murray regime. While it was on the table at one point, the top-seed in the conference is no longer in the offing. However, higher playoff-seeding and a division title can still be had by the Cardinals with a win this week and a Rams loss to a Niners team that will be playing for its playoff future. In week 11, a Cardinals team without Kyler Murray beat the Seahawks, 23-13, with Colt McCoy going for over 300 yards. Now with Murray, what’s in store for the Seahawks’ defense this week?
Gauging Motivation
These final-week regular season spots can be difficult to gauge. You can expect cranked-up urgency when a team is playing for its playoff future. With a team like the Cardinals, who are already in the playoffs and are in a position to win their way into an undefined higher playoff bracket, the motivation isn’t always on-point. Then again, securing a home game against one of the more lower-end playoff entrants would seem to be enough motivation, especially when one struggles to find strong reasons for the other side of this equation to overperform.
Arizona “D” Getting Into High Gear
With a lot of the focus on the Arizona offense or perhaps even the spurt we saw from Russell Wilson last week, one hidden aspect to this equation could be the Arizona defense. Against two robust offenses the last two weeks, we saw the Cardinals keep the Colts in check, albeit in losing fashion, before beating the high-powered Cowboys, 25-22. We see their defense, which has improved against the run and is pretty good against the pass, start to get more into postseason form.
Same Cardinals Team?
The Cardinals aren’t the first team to start off really fast before cooling down to a fair degree before entering the postseason. A 7-0 start had people excited, with the second half of the season going less-swimmingly at 4-5. Now, some injuries had something to do with that, but three straight losses before the win against the Colts showed a Cardinals team in some trouble. It could enhance their chances this week, though, as getting into more of a winning form should be a key concern for this team.
- Get more details: Seattle at Arizona Week 18 Betting Stats
Danger Potential for the Cardinals
At home against a 6-10 team they previously beat on the road with their backup QB would seem to be an ideal spot for the Cardinals. And it might be. You wonder if there’s any mojo with Russell Wilson possibly in his last game as a member of the Seahawks. It seemed to resonate last week with a 4_TD performance from Wilson, including three touchdowns from what had been a nearly-dormant DK Metcalf. It would just be unfortunate for the Cardinals to run into a Seahawks team that is trying to give Wilson a good send-off, especially if Wilson joins in by saving his biggest games to the end of the season.
Lay the Points
I’m not so sure what to expect from the Seahawks this week. Last week at home might have been their final spurt. Doing it against Detroit at home is different from making it work against an Arizona team trying to win its division, improve their playoff standing, and create some momentum for the playoffs. I’d expect a high-energy output from the Cardinals as they cruise home the winners and cover the spread. I’ll take the Cardinals this week.
Prediction to Cover the Point Spread: I’m betting on the Arizona Cardinals minus 5.5 points.
