Seattle plays with fire and gets burned badly
The Seahawks have been playing with fire all season. Eventually, they were going to get burned.
There's so, so, so, so much to unpack in this one, but the bottom line is the Seahawks led 34-24 with less than five minutes left in the fourth quarter and should have won this one.
They didn't.
Arizona borrowed some of the Seahawks' fourth-quarter magic dust and erased their 10-point deficit over the final 4 minutes, 16 seconds of the fourth quarter, forcing overtime on Zane Gonzalez's 44-yard field goal as time expired in regulation.
The Seahawks got the ball first in overtime, but Russell Wilson was sacked twice — the last from former Husky standout Byron Murphy on a well-disguised corner blitz to force the Seahawks to punt.
Arizona then marched deep into Seattle territory, then turned to Gonzalez again for the game-winning 41-yard field goal. But Gonzalez — after a timeout by his own team — missed on the second-down try.
The Seahawks got it back and appeared to have the game won on DK Metcalf's catch-and-run touchdown, only to have that negated by a holding penalty on David Moore.
On the next snap, Russell Wilson was intercepted near midfield, and six plays later Gonzalez got one more chance — and he won it with a 48-yard kick with 15 seconds left.
Wow. Just, wow.
WILD NFC WEST
The Seahawks are now 5-1 and just a half-game ahead of the upand-coming Cardinals, who improved to 5-2.
For now, everything is still out there for Seattle, including the all-important No. 1 seed in the NFC, which carries more significance than ever because the top seed is the only team that will earn a bye in the opening game of the playoffs.
But the Seahawks just began their toughest stretch of the season in the most rugged division in the NFL, and nothing will be handed to them.
The Seahawks have three more games against NFC West foes over the next four weeks, including a rematch with Arizona on Thursday-nigh football, Nov. 19.
Kyler Murray is going to be a problem for NFC West teams for a long, long time, and he gave the Seahawks plenty of fits Sunday night. It was a statement win for a young Arizona team.
Russell Wilson threw three touchdown passes to give him 22 this season — tying him with Peyton Manning (2013) for the most-ever in a QB's first six games.
Wilson wasn't perfect. He did throw three interceptions, his first multi-interception game since the opening game of the 2018 season against Denver. Receiving stars
All three of Wilson's touchdown passes went to Tyler Lockett, and each one was more spectacular than the one before it.
You may never see a better first-snap play than Lockett's one-handed, diving catch near midfield in front of Arizona veteran cornerback Patrick Peterson.
Wilson found Lockett a couple minutes later for a 3-yard touchdown. They connected again on a 47-yard touchdown in the final minute of the first half. Wilson's throw travelled 58.8 yards, according to NFL's Next Gen Stats, and Lockett had just 0.7 yards separation from Peterson on the play.
Lockett's final touchdown reception was one of his best ever. Despite getting pushed by cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick, Lockett made the catch and got both feet — toes, actually — in bounds in the back of the end zone, a play that had to be overturned upon review to give the Seahawks the touchdown on the fourth-down play.
Lockett finished with 15 catches for 200 yards and those three touchdowns, all career highs.
And for as great as Lockett was, he didn't even make the best play by a Seattle receiver Sunday.
That play belonged to DK Metcalf, and it'll be talked about for a long time.
Metcalf reached a top speed of 22.64 m.p.h. and travelled 114.8 yards to make a touchdown-saving tackle on Budda Baker in the second quarter. Pete Carroll called it “the play of the century” during a halftime interview with NBC's Michele Tafoya, and you'll get no argument otherwise here.