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[ Watch The Birdie, Episode IV - A New Hope (Page 9) ] Week 9 - Seattle Seahawks (3-4) @ Arizona Cardinals (8-0) -7 Right. If we're going to get this wrapped up before '05 hits, we're going to need to pick up the pace a bit. So please bear with me. Lawks-a-lordy, it's a team with two decent wide receivers! Burn them! Burn the heretics! But Koren Robinson (who almost single-handedly sank my fantasy team last year) and Darrell Jackson aside, there's plenty of other talent at the skill positions - Matt Hasselbeck, Shaun Alexander, Jerremy Stevens - so perhaps their losing record can be pinned at the door of their dodgy offensive line? It certainly doesn't look to be down to the defence, whose only discernable weakness is a slight lack of speed in the front seven which might prove to be a bit of a problem in games where they're facing a quick halfback and/or a mobile QB. It's probably a bit less vulnerable when they're facing, for example, Marcel Shipp and Jeff Blake, though. Sigh. - Marcel psychically picks up the implied criticism floating through the ether, and naturally responds by making me look a fool with his longest run of the year - lovely blocking on a 3rd-and-inches at the Seahawk 37 seeing him past the line then all the way home to open the scoring. Back come Seattle, though, and their offence looks scary - Shaun Alexander is picking up yards by the bushel against our standard cover-2 set, and the moment we change up to try and contain him, Hasselbeck makes us pay for our temerity. Only the ball bouncing off a wide-open Alexander's hands on 3rd and 3 prevents the Seahawks levelling the score on their opening drive, and only a desperation, shadow-of-our-goalposts all-out blitz that results in a Calvin Pace sack stops them on their second. They make both of the easy field-goals on offer, though, and at the end of the 1st half the score sits at SEA 6-7 ARI, with the Seahawks due to get the ball back on the kickoff. Damn and blast. - Saints be praised, two quarters in we're finally starting to work out the rhythm of the Seahawk offence, and we finally get a proper stop - Larry Dickerson wrapping Alexander up inches shy of the first down marker on 3rd and short. Naturally, Marcel Shipp responds to this momentum swing by dropping the bloody ball and allowing Seattle to recover. Arse. Luckily, replay overturns the fumble and from there the fat-lad doesn't look back, grinding out yard after yard between the tackles. Our passing-game has been borderline useless all day, but with everyone in the free world concentrating on Marcel's efforts, Shaun McDonald sneaks out across the middle for a 21-yard gain. That sets up Shipp to deliver the coup de grace, and we've scored for the first time since the game's opening drive. SEA 6-14 ARI Sensing they need a big play to re-ignite their offence, Seattle come out in a two-tight-end set on 3rd and 2, fake the handoff and have their quarterback roll out on a naked bootleg. This doesn't noticeably work, due in no small part to the fact that Matt Hasselbeck is one of the few players on the planet who makes Jeff Blake look like Michael Vick. On rollerskates. Riding a motorbike.
Once again, Jeff does his best to try and keep things interesting - throwing an extraordinarily silly interception to prevent us putting the game away - but the defence has finally woken up and once again holds Seattle to three-and-out. Anquan Boldin goes up over a defender to hall in a 22-yard pass that's the longest gain through the air for either team, and we add two late passing scores to put a largely-unearned gloss on a tough old game. The afternoon has been carried by a great second-half defensive performance, despite our failure to register a single turnover for the first time this season, and by a vintage performance for Marcel Shipp, who ends the game with 146 yards off 23 carries and a pair of scores. We go into the bye week still unbeaten, then - SEA 6-28 ARI, 9-0. [
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