RENTON — The Cardinals are trying to avoid the facts.
“No extra emphasis…Just like any other week,” Arizona coach Jonathan Gannon told reporters in the Phoenix area this week.
Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald has been saying the opposite lately. He’s preaching to his players that all games are not the same. Not this time of year. Inside the division. As its first-place team.
Their franchise quarterback is echoing it.
“Everyone knows what’s at stake,” Geno Smith said Thursday, four days before his Seahawks (7-5) attempt to beat the second-place and NFC West-rival Arizona Cardinals (6-6) Sunday in the desert, for the second time in three weeks.
“We’re fighting to get into the playoffs,” Smith said. “They are, as well.”
But, Smith noted, accurately: “We control our destiny. That’s what’s most important…We know we’ve got to win out, pretty much. We’ve been in playoff mode.”
Coach Mike Macdonald has been putting his Seahawks in playoff mode for almost a full month. That was after four losses in five games ruined Seattle’s 3-0 start and put this season at its brink.
“We’ve been talking about playoff football coming out of the bye,” Macdonald said Wednesday.
The Seahawks returned from that bye week to play at San Francisco Nov. 17. They won that game, holding the 49ers with a healthy Christian McCaffrey to 17 points. That ended a six-game losing streak to the defending division champions, who have since sunk to 5-7.
Seattle continued its resurgence on Macdonald’s defense by beating Arizona, holding the Cardinals to two field goals.
Last weekend the Seahawks beat the Jets 26-21. Seattle’s two fumbles on kickoff returns plus a third-down penalty for a first down handed New York all three of its touchdowns in the first half. So the defense truly gave up only one full touchdown drive to Aaron Rodgers and New York.
The Cardinals are the team more desperate to win Sunday. A loss would drop Arizona to effectively three games behind Seattle in the division with four games remaining in the regular season. The Seahawks would be two games up on the Cardinals — plus Seattle would own the first, head-to-head tiebreaker by winning both games with Arizona this season.
A Seahawks loss would end their three-game winning streak that has moved them from last to first in the division, and would have them and Arizona tied atop the West entering the final four games. The Seahawks then host Green Bay (9-3) and Minnesota (10-2) on consecutive Sundays, while the Cardinals play 3-10 New England Dec. 15 and 3-9 Carolina Dec. 22.
NFL analytics guru Aaron Schatz has quantified how this game is the biggest one of the league’s week 14 in terms of swing in playoff candidacy based on the result. Schatz calculates a Seahawks win gives Seattle a 62% chance to make the playoffs and Arizona just 17%.
A Cardinals win would have Arizona at a 71% chance at the postseason and Seattle just 11%.
“This is obviously a huge week for us,” Macdonald said, opposite of Gannon — and opposite the way his predecessor in Seattle Pete Carroll talked for the 15 previous Seahawks seasons.
“It’s a road playoff game. That’s the type of mentality that we’re having.”
Geno Smith’s training
How’s Smith preparing for this Arizona showdown, and the final five games to the regular season?
The same way he says he’s been preparing for games for his entire NFL career.
Listed at 6 feet 3 and 221 pounds, Smith said he’s gained 10 pounds of lean mass since last season.
How?
“Working out. A lot of working out,” he said.
“Yeah, I’ve been four days a week for about 12, 13 years now, since I’ve been in the league. Four days a week. I just think my diet has gotten better, and then obviously our training staff has done a great job, as well.”
Smith said he does upper-body and leg weight training those four days a week, an hour per session, throughout the season.
“Full body, yes, sir,” he said.
He also says he eats better than he did as a 22-year-old rookie starter for the Jets a dozen seasons ago.
Seahawks in short yardage
The Seahawks have failed most of the season on third and fourth down and 3 or fewer yards to gain. They are at just 57.6% converting on third and 1 to 3 yards to go. The league average is 67%.
They had five tries from the 1-yard line while trailing in the second half against the Jets last week. They failed all five times.
The problem is push and performance on the iffy offensive line.
When the Seahawks have run the ball on third and fourth down and 1 yard to go, they have converted just 12 times in 21 attempts. That’s 57% on something that should be more like 80.
“There’s one guy here, one guy there. As an offense, you’ve got to play all 11,” Smith said. “Every guy’s got to execute for a play to work. If we can just clean up some of our stuff down there, I think we’ll be better.”
Smith blamed himself for throwing inaccurately to tight end Noah Fant, who was open in the end zone outside right on second and goal from the 1 against the Jets.
The fact they called four pass plays in their five attempts from the 1, including a 14-yard sack on fourth and goal, tells you what confidence play caller Ryan Grubb has in the offensive line getting the push needed to gain a yard.
Smith said he can improve on short yardage. By simple means, too.
“Hit Noah on the pass. That’s pretty much simple right there,” Smith said. “(If I hit that) we’re not talking about this right now. But overall if I can improve on something, I’m going to try and do that. And I think there’s a lot of improvement to be had in that area in that situation.
“So, for us, me included, we’ve all got to be better. That’s really it for us, man. We’ve just got to execute better.”
Grubb acknowledges he thought his offense would have nailed this and found its groove by now, 12 games into his first season as an NFL offensive coordinator.
“Of course. That’s fair,” he said Thursday.
“I think that, for us, we just haven’t had the consistent success in those moments. I think the thing you’ve got to do is continue to search and try to find better answers, and for us, that’s what we committed to do.”
None of those five tries from inside the 1 against the Jets were quarterback sneaks by Smith. Smith and Macdonald wouldn’t answer this week, for competitiveness and playbook issues, whether Smith has the freedom to change any play to a sneak if he thinks he can get it that way. But most teams allow their quarterbacks, especially veteran ones, that latitude.
The Seahawks have tried sneaks only four times among their 21 third or fourth and 1s. Three of them got the first downs.
Why not do them more with Smith?
“Without giving anything away, I think there are things. Obviously, defenses (and how they line up),” Grubb said of quarterback sneaks. “Some people are better at it than others.”
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