ESPN: Cardinals’ loss at Seahawks one of worst blowouts in sports history

Cardinals fans, avert your eyes. In fact, feel free to stop reading. The rest of this article is going to be rather unpleasant.

Remember the 2012 season, where the Cardinals started 4-0 but finished 5-11? It was the campaign that led to the team dismissing head coach Ken Whisenhunt and GM Rod Graves and it was, for lack of a better word, terrible.

And no game was as bad as the team’s 58-0 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Dec. 9 of that year. That game was so bad, in fact, that the fine folks at ESPN.com ranked it as the 43rd worst blowout in sports history.

Yep.

Dec. 9, 2012: In a contest between teams heading in opposite directions, Seattle fell one point shy of the biggest regular-season shutout in NFL history. The Seahawks forced eight turnovers and scored 10 times — seven touchdowns and three field goals — as the Cardinals suffered their ninth straight loss after a 4-0 start. It was the second of five consecutive wins for playoff-bound Seattle in Russell Wilson’s rookie season.

John Skelton, who quarterbacked the Cardinals that day, said after the game, “For them to come out and dominate the way they did in every phase of the game it’s embarrassing.” He wasn’t wrong.

Skelton and Ryan Lindley combined to complete 19 of 39 passes for just 111 yards with four interceptions (all of which belonged to Skelton). The Cards added just 43 yards on the ground. The Seahawks, on the other hand, tallied 284 rushing yards — 128 on 11 Marshawn Lynch carries and 108 on 20 totes from Robert Turbin. Lynch also scored three times, while Leon Washington also added a TD on the ground.

It was truly an afternoon to forget, though the Cardinals were able to exact some revenge the following season when they went into the very same stadium and knocked off the Seahawks 17-10, putting an end to their opponent’s  14-game home win streak.

So there’s that.

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