The Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks were always rivals but became heated ones during the Legion of Boom era for the Seahawks. Bruce Arians and the Cardinals were always taking games down to the wire and they were some of the most anticipated games of the season.
The two teams have played each other very evenly historically.
The Seahawks lead the all-time series 23-22-1, with that one tie being the infamous 6-6 game back in 2016. Since 2013, the Cardinals are 6-3 in their matchups played in Seattle.
Under Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray, these two teams are an even 3-3. They’ve split in each of the past three seasons, so no team appears to have an advantage to this point.
Let’s look at their last few matchups.
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2021: Seahawks 38, Cardinals 30
This game was incredibly disappointing for the Cardinals Had they won this game, they’d have won the NFC West with the Los Angeles Rams also losing that week.
The Seahawks had nothing to play for but pride and absolutely decimated the Cardinals defense. Russell Wilson had three passing touchdowns on 238 yards and running back Rashaad Penny iced the game with a 62-yard rushing score.
Kyler Murray was solid on the day with 240 passing yards and a touchdown pass. The offense stalled at times as their 30 points scored is misleading. 14 of those points were basically scored solely by the defense.
OLB Chandler Jones had a strip sack of Russell Wilson on the first drive of the game and Zach Allen returned it for a score. Safety Jalen Thompson had a near pick-six in the third quarter but was stopped just shy of the endzone.
While the defense did give up 38 points, they also did their fair share of scoring. The offense needed to be better in this one.
2021: Cardinals 23, Seahawks 13
This game was Colt McCoy’s last as the starting quarterback for the Cardinals. He admirably won two games against division rivals during his three-game stretch as the starter.
Russell Wilson was clearly not ready to return from a serious thumb injury. He was very bad the week prior and did not look good in this one. While the Seahawks had a small comeback chance late, it was too late.
Colt McCoy and the Cardinals had a game-sealing 10-play touchdown drive. McCoy was very good on the day, passing for 328 yards and two touchdowns.
This was the first true breakout game for the newly acquired Zach Ertz. Ertz had 88 receiving yards and two touchdowns. WR A.J. Green also had a nice outing with 78 receiving yards.
The Cardinals advanced to 9-2 after this game. It truly felt as if the Cardinals were a bonafide Super Bowl contender.
2020: Seahawks 28, Cardinals 2021
This game was just four days removed from the ‘Hail Murray’ win over the Buffalo Bills. The Cardinals had to go on the road in Seattle with a chance to take first place in the NFC West.
The Cardinals looked flat and not ready to play in this one. They had finally stopped Wilson and the Seahawks offense when cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick started a fight with DK Metcalf, resulting in a free first down for Seattle.
The Cardinals also had a holding call in the endzone for a safety. The game ultimately ended on a fourth-down sack of Kyler Murray by Carlos Dunlap.
Murray was solid on the day with 269 pass yards and two touchdowns. He had one to tight end Dan Arnold and the other went to Chase Edmonds. His counterpart, Russell Wilson, had just 197 passing yards and two touchdown passes.
The leading receiver on the day was not Hopkins, but rather Larry Fitzgerald with 8 receptions for 62 yards. Hopkins did have a solid outing with 51 yards on five receptions.
