This is a guest post by Curtis Allen

Life comes at you fast in the NFL.

Last Sunday, the Seahawks’ heads were spinning after a disastrous series of Special Teams bloopers in New York. Halfway through the third quarter, the Jets were driving towards an insurmountable 28-7 lead to pretty well seal a game Seattle will be kicking themselves over for months.

Meanwhile, the Arizona Cardinals lead a tough Vikings team 19-13 entering the fourth quarter, holding the ball at about midfield.

Then Leonard Williams made arguably one of the greatest plays in Seahawks history, a 92-yard pick-6 of Aaron Rodgers to flip the game to 21-13 and start the Seahawks on a comeback trail.

In Minnesota, Kyler Murray throws a sloppy, bad interception and the Vikings start their comeback that will culminate in a late win.

A couple of interceptions flipped the whole division and now we stand at a place where this is true of today’s game:

Yes, your Seattle Seahawks – proud owners of a miserable 1-5 stretch, one of the worst Offensive Lines in the NFL and a team that cannot gain one rushing yard to save their lives – could put a stranglehold on the division with a win today.

I wrote last week that every game is a discovery process. This week’s discovery is: Is this team for real? As in, can they keep their ferocious defensive play while making small but meaningful gains on offense?

Or is this season what it always was going to be, a nice transition to the new regime? A team that made encouraging progress in Mike Macdonald’s first year? Or a team not unlike Pete Carroll’s early teams? One that could win while learning on the job and gain valuable experience and confidence?

We will see. A second crack at the Cardinals in two weeks may provide some valuable insights about this franchise.

As for Arizona, they are heading in the other direction. After winning four in a row, they have dropped their last two games. What happened in the Minnesota game?

Arizona out-rushed the Vikings by almost 90 yards. They ran 26 more plays on offense than the Vikings and won the Time of Possession game by over 11 whole minutes. How did they lose?

They committed ten penalties and turned the ball over twice. The defense allowed a clock-draining eight-play, 70-yard Touchdown drive that included a Fourth and five conversion pass to Justin Jefferson.

Perhaps most damning, they kicked five field goals including four in the Red Zone. Some oddly conservative play-calling at just the wrong time doomed them. An easy two-touchdown win turned into a much closer game than it should have and Minnesota took advantage.

Therefore, both teams are not feeling great about their games last week and are eager to put them in the rearview mirror.

No need to reinvent the wheel. Have a look at Week 12’s post for the main points of focus on beating Arizona.

Keeping James Conner under wraps is critical. Not letting Trey McBride to run free and collect first downs in bunches is important too.

As is putting pressure on Kyler Murray. We talked about brining pressure from the middle and using the edges to contain him, and boy did the Seahawks do that well two weeks ago. Leonard Williams had a tour de force game and disrupted the game like few others.

Some Additional Thoughts

— It is time to fix this offense in short-yardage and Red Zone situations. Mike Macdonald had a very, very direct quote this week:

“We have to have, frankly, a better plan going into it”

That is probably about as damning as you will hear from a Head Coach about his Offensive Coordinator. The Seahawks must show improvement in this area. It could be that they are getting the ‘yips’ – so uncomfortable with recent struggles that they overthink the play calls.

We would all like them to emulate the Detroit Lions with their slick Red Zone plays. Or maybe they should resurrect the ‘Shane Waldron by way of Kyle Shanahan’ triple fake play.

How ever they go about it, they need to show progress on offense. Not just to avoid making games unnecessarily close, but to shake those yips and build some confidence in their processes.

— The Cardinals have gone from bottom-10 in sacks to two weeks later being in the top-10, collecting ten sacks in their last two games. Most impressively, they are not doing it with much blitzing. Jonathan Gannon is making the personnel he has work with creative formations. Still, they are giving up explosive pass plays. Geno Smith and Sam Darnold have had good deeper throws on them in the last two weeks.

With that recent success by the Cardinal pass rush and the Seahawk Offensive Line still in flux, it is a safe bet we will see both sacks and explosive pass plays. Minimizing those losses and accentuating those gains will be critical. Jaxon Smith-Njigba is on a roll. And it is time for Noah Fant and/or Tyler Lockett to have an impactful game.

— Ken Walker is out with a calf strain. I think we can all agree that Seahawks players with potentially troublesome leg and knee injuries should stay as far away from State Farm Stadium as possible.

However, this might prove to be an interesting opportunity for the Seahawks to feature a different side of their offense with Walker out. Zach Charbonnet is a hard-nosed, physical runner. Sataoa Lumea has a long way to go at Right Guard but has made some good blocks in the running game (watch him on a textbook block to open a path to the end zone).

Perhaps a less-nuanced, blunt force type approach might keep Arizona’s pass rush in check and allow for some openings in the passing game, as well as put more pressure on the Cardinal offense to abandon their own plodding ground game. A.J. Barner might be put to good use in this game again as both a blocker and a safety valve option.