The Cardinals’ offense hit a wall in Seattle, and the numbers told the whole story. Arizona finished with 151 total yards in a 31-7 loss to the Seahawks - fewer than Seattle wideout Jaxon Smith-Njigba piled up on his own, as the Cardinals watched a promising start to the season crash into a rough Sunday afternoon.
After putting up nearly 400 yards in their Week 1 upset of the Chargers, this was a sharp step backward. Against a defense as difficult as Seattle’s, the drop-off wasn’t shocking. But for head coach Mike LaFleur, who has brought a more inventive, McVay-and-Shanahan-like approach to an offense that had felt stagnant under Drew Petzing, moving the ball against top defenses is supposed to be part of the plan, not the exception.
That never really materialized. Arizona threw for only 95 yards and ran for just 70.
Trey McBride led the receivers with 41 yards, and no other pass-catcher got to 20. Outside of Bam Knight’s 18-yard garbage-time run, the Cardinals never produced a play longer than nine yards.
LaFleur said Monday that Arizona “left yards out there,” even though the team was trying to push the ball more aggressively.
“You can’t dink and dunk [the Seahawks]. Like, that’s proven,” LaFleur said.
“All you have to do is watch some of the best offenses in football last year go against them. Trying to do that, it doesn’t work.
“We called four [play-action] passes in the first 23 plays. None of them were able to get up.
Had an opportunity on the second play of the game… that if we execute, I do believe that’s a touchdown. And that ball is going to have to travel about 50 yards.
We had two other ones where we were trying to take shots down the field.”
Seattle’s coverage structure helped shut those chances down. LaFleur pointed to the way the Seahawks lined up defensively, with head coach Mike Macdonald leaning on heavy doses of Cover 2 and Cover 3 to remove explosive plays while relying on a strong front and active linebackers to handle the rest.
That left Arizona with underneath throws and short gains, but even those were hard to come by.
“They were playing in a ton of shell, and they were giving us the checkdowns,” LaFleur said. “Some of it is the timing of when they’re called.
I got to call them at the right times. … And then the other part is we got to execute.
We got to block a little bit better. We got to strain a little bit better.
And when we have the opportunities, take the chance.
“I thought we were excellent against the Chargers. We had to even be better against this team because of their team speed and how well they closed underneath.”
The biggest issue, LaFleur said, came on third down. Arizona converted just three of 12 attempts, and even though the Cardinals spent much of the day in manageable situations, they couldn’t cash them in.
“I thought in the first half we did play efficient football on first and second down,” LaFleur said. “When we’re in third and five and manageable against one of the better defenses, we’ve got to execute in those situations, and that’s where the game-changer was for us on offense.
“The second half is what it is. We had no rhythm.
It was crap across the board, starting with me. But the third downs where we have the pen on the third and four and we’re not converting, that’s the problem.
That was the game from our perspective on offense.”
There was plenty of blame to spread around. The players didn’t execute cleanly.
Some of the play calls didn’t help. The pass protection and run blocking both struggled.
And Brissett looked like a less accurate version of himself.
Still, one bad afternoon against an elite defense doesn’t erase what the Cardinals showed in Week 1. The real test now is how LaFleur and his offense respond.
A defense like Seattle’s can expose every weak spot, and sometimes even make the rest of the league copy the formula. Arizona has the talent.
Sunday was about execution, and that can’t become a habit.
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