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Week 15 -  Arizona Cardinals (12-1) @ Seattle Seahawks (6-7) +9

This game is all about bouncebackability or lack thereof. And about securing top seed in the NFC for the playoffs. This game is about two things - bouncebackability, playoff seeding... and whether Brian Griese can do enough to caretake this offence through the playoffs. Damn, damn, damn.

Amongst... the things this game is about are... such diverse elements... as bouncebackability, home field advantage, the quarterback... and whether the defence will regress after the bad showing last week following on from terrific performances in the two previous games.

Look, I'll come in again.

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Seattle's balanced offence always gives us problems, seeing as how they're roughly the only team in the league by this stage who think it's important to have more than one useful wide receiver. With Matt "The Potato" Hasselbeck doing the throwing and, particularly, Shaun "The Most Inconsistent Back In The World" Alexander carrying the rock, we've always seemed to have a knack for completely failing to anticipate which play is coming at any given time. And sure enough the game starts in traditional fashion, with them mixing things up and us blundering about chasing shadows. The closer they get to the goal-line, though, the tougher we are to fool, and so at  roughly the twelfth attempt we manage to stop Alexander on a third down and Josh Brown comes in to boot the figgie.

Of course, they've had the exact same problem as us. A few Marcel Shipp plunges encourage them to bring a safety up in run-support. Bryant Johnson posts into the gap he's just vacated, burns off his cornerback, 37 yard touchdown. ARI 7-3 SEA

During the ensuing drive, Matt Hasselbeck shows off one of the moves he learned from Brett Favre while they were both in Green Bay - under pressure, he puts a wild, hopeful ball up for grabs, and Adrian Wilson gets in front of Koren Robinson for the interception. Surely they wouldn't be so stupid as to... oh. A few Marcel Shipp plunges encourage them to bring a safety up in run-support. Bryant Johnson posts into the gap he's just vacated, burns off his cornerback, 34 yard touchdown. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to get their asses handed to them at home. ARI 14-3 SEA

That's roughly the cue for the floodgates to open. Whatchamacallit tacks on a figgie at the end of our next drive, and Seattle's attempt to close the gap to eleven points leads to fat-lad Calvin Pace ripping through the Seahawk blockers, slapping the field-goal attempt down, scooping the ball up on the run (or as close to a run as he can manage) and rumbling 53 yards for a touchdown.

What's killing the Seahawks is that every single time Hasselbeck feels pressure, it looks like a turnover is on the cards. He gets lucky when a pass released just as he's hit turns into a wobbly duck that Shaun Alexander scoops up at bootlace-level for a gain of fifteen yards. He gets less lucky when a collapsing pocket leads him to put on a one-man tribute to the comedy stylings of Jake Plummer, a sort of hopping lob across his body that drifts amiably toward the left side until it meets No-Mark Barrett heading at speed toward the Seattle goal-line. 68 yards later and it's pretty much game over, even after a Jeremy Stevens touchdown on the stroke of halftime.  ARI 31-10 SEA

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Two scores in the third, and this really is done. The first sees Marcel Shipp showing tremendous patience on 3rd and 1, waiting and waiting and waiting for his blocking to develop before bursting through the gap for a 23-yard touchdown. The second is a little fortunate - Brian "Mister Consistency" Griese putting a ball up for grabs and tight end Freddie Jones out-jumping a safety in the endzone. Seattle get a couple of touchdowns back against our second-string in the fourth, but by then the outcome is far beyond doubt. Our regular season is effectively done, with home field advantage secured throughout the playoffs. Final score - ARI 45-24 SEA, we move to 13-1.

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(c) daniel roe 2004