Rapid reactions: Cardinals stumble in decisive loss to Seahawks

The Arizona Cardinals (1-1) stumbled on Sunday against the defending champion Seattle Seahawks (2-0) by a convincing 31-7 final score.

The Cardinals fought in the first half before the Seahawks boat raced them in the second, as Arizona’s offense struggled to get anything going after a lone Trey McBride touchdown in the second quarter.

Mike LaFleur suffered his first loss as a head coach after coming off a surprising win in his debut for the Cardinals a week ago.

Arizona Sports hosts react to the Cardinals’ Week 2 loss:

John Gambadoro, co-host of Burns & Gambo: 

Not going to say that was what we expected BUT maybe that is what we should have expected. Seattle’s pure dominance over the Arizona Cardinals continued with a 31-7 pounding at State Farm Stadium.

The last time these teams met in 2025, the Seahawks jumped to a 35-0 lead. This one was more about how Seattle closed, how it wore down the Cardinals with superior line play on both sides of the ball. A 7-7 game at halftime turned into a pure blowout in the second half as Seattle scored three touchdowns and kicked a field goal in outscoring the Cardinals 24-0.

But that is only part of the story — the part that matters is just how far Arizona has to go to play with the big boys. The win over the Chargers was nice and maybe gave us a false sense of hope about the season. Enter Seattle and a reality check. Add in the Chargers lost to the lowly Raiders Sunday and well, it is what it is.

Did the Cardinals even have the ball in the second half? OK, OK, they did — but they didn’t go anywhere with it. First drive: interception by Jacoby Brissett on the third play. Second drive: six plays, then a punt — one first down. Third drive: three-and-out. Fourth drive: end of game, two runs by Bam Knight for 24 yards.

Those two runs by Knight yielded more yards than Arizona had in the entire second half up until that point — 20 yards. Drew Lock went 19-for-26 passing with 235 yards, three touchdowns, zero INTs and a 139.1 passer rating. He barely needed to throw the ball in the second half as Seattle’s ground-and-pound game dominated.

And in the battle of Ohio State wideouts, this one was a first-round knockout as Jaxon Smith-Njigba torched the Cardinals secondary for nine receptions, 155 yards and three touchdowns. His counterpart in Arizona — Marvin Harrison Jr. — finished with zero catches and one target.

Unfortunately, the bust label is out, and soon it will be time for a change of scenery for MHJ. Arizona will need to recoup what they can from some team that feels it can turn around his stalled career.

In the meantime, Mike LaFleur learned what Jonathan Gannon and Kliff Kingsbury have endured — losing to Seattle, as that is the 10^th straight win for the Seahawks versus Arizona. Kingsbury lost his last three, Gannon went 0-6 and now LaFleur is 0-1.

Arizona was a fun little story after Week 1 and I still believe they will be better than most predicted, but this was a good wake-up call for how far they need to go to truly be competitive with the elite.

Tyler Drake, Arizona Sports Cardinals reporter and Cardinals Corner co-host:

Just when we were all settling in for an epic finish at State Farm Stadium, the Seahawks said, “sike!”

It truly was a tale of two halves for the Cardinals, who withstood the early onslaught from the Seahawks only to lie down in the second half.

The final two quarters were a flashback to last year, when the Cardinals were forced to throw the rock more and the defense gave up yards and points on the regular.

Then there’s Marvin Harrison Jr., who was an absolute nonfactor in the home loss. He had just one poorly thrown target on the day. Just when you thought his Week 1 stat line couldn’t get worse, it does.

Then again, the offense as a whole looked out of sorts for a good portion of the afternoon. Going 3-for-12 on third downs and posting less than half the total yards (151) as Seattle’s 381 only add to that thinking.

Mike LaFleur spoke about flushing this one and not letting it impact next week’s prep for the San Francisco 49ers. As he put it postgame, Arizona can’t afford to lose to Seattle in back-to-back weeks. With the 2-0 49ers next on the docket, that better be the case.

Kellan Olson, co-host of Arizona Sports at Night:

For two weeks that does provide some encouragement and optimism in terms of the Cardinals perhaps not being terrible, a critical weakness on each side of the football could cripple them while they’ve got other stuff to figure out.

The Cardinals cannot run the ball. We’ll see how much of this has to do with a two-game sample size, as the Los Angeles Chargers had another strong day in this department against the Las Vegas Raiders, while the Seattle Seahawks were the best in the league last year at stopping the run.

But Mike LaFleur’s offense is designed around heavy use of the run game, and Jeremiyah Love was a major investment in that. Arizona didn’t have a single carry for double-digit yards until the game was well out of reach, and finished with 17 rushes for 70 yards. Once the analytics refresh on Monday, it’d be surprising if the Cardinals aren’t last in rushing success rate after they were 29^th in Week 1.

Arizona’s defense can’t stop star wideouts. L.A.’s Ladd McConkey was well on his way to a huge day in Week 1 before exiting midgame due to an injury. Jaxon Smith-Njigba, arguably the best in the business, was impactful all day long through nine catches for 155 yards and three scores.

Up next on the slate are the 49ers (Mike Evans), Giants (Malik Nabers), Lions (Amon-Ra St. Brown), Rams (Puka Nacua), Broncos (Jaylen Waddle) and Cowboys (CeeDee Lamb/George Pickens) before Round 2 against the Seahawks and Rams. I imagine you all made the same concerned face at your screen that I did upon seeing that.

Other stuff to figure out: Jacoby Brissett’s major week-to-week regression (along with the offensive line), Marvin Harrison Jr. having one catch in two weeks, multiple injuries for an injury-prone secondary, Michael Wilson having seven catches in two weeks and if the offense turning into throwing it to Trey McBride every play is the best plan going forward.

Dave Burns, co-host of Burns & Gambo:

In the end, the only things that looked good were the field and the cool jerseys. Beyond that, this is almost exactly what you’ve come to expect in this heavily skewed series and a win streak over the Cardinals that has now reached double digits for Seattle.

The Seattle defense squeezed the life out of Mike LaFleur’s offense in the second half. The unrelenting pressure plummeted Jacoby Brissett back to earth. In what is sure to be the story of the week, Marvin Harrison Jr. was — once again — unused, prompting yet another is-it-him-or-is-it-them debate.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba punished and tormented the Cardinals, then frolicked with the Seahawks fans afterward. In some ways it was all quite predictable. But what fun is saying the quiet part out loud after a fun Week 1 win?

So what’s real? Was last week a byproduct of an overrated Chargers team? Typical Week 1 unpredictability? Or were the Cards doomed from the jump against the prohibitive favorite to win another Super Bowl? When the team we root for goes from better-than-we-thought to as-bad-as-we-feared in a matter of a week, it leaves you wondering what reality is and when do we see it.

Probably not next week against the 49ers, but perhaps we’ll get a better feel against the New York Giants or in the following week against the Lions.

Vince Marotta, co-host of Bickley and Marotta:

I didn’t expect the Cardinals to beat the Seahawks, but I did expect some fight.

And the home team actually showed some for 30 minutes. Then the second half happened.

The Super Bowl champions absolutely manhandled the Cardinals in the second half of a convincing 31-7 win at State Farm Stadium.

This loss doesn’t erase all the good stuff the Cardinals showed in Week 1 against the Chargers (although let’s face it — Harbaugh’s team looks pretty terrible through two weeks), but it does raise some questions.

Where was the aggression on offense? Everything in the passing game seemed like it was a checkdown. Jacoby Brissett wasn’t good at all on Sunday. He was inaccurate and skittish, but to his defense, he looked like he was clearly dealing with some type of lower-body injury. The Cardinals didn’t have a play from scrimmage that covered more than nine yards until Bam Knight uncorked an 18-yard garbage time run in the final minute.

Where was the pressure on the QB? The Cardinals’ biggest weakness heading into the season was their lack of pass rush, and Sunday, they barely breathed on Drew Lock. Budda Baker got a sack on a safety blitz on a last-play-of-the-half Hail Mary set. Other than that, Lock had all day to throw, and when he got it to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, very bad things happened for the Cardinals.

Is Marvin Harrison ever going to be a factor? It’s easy to let last week’s one-catch performance slide; the Cardinals won convincingly. Harrison was just out there doing cardio on Sunday. One target? No catches?

Let’s hope this ugliness was mostly a product of playing the best team in the league and not symptomatic of what we’ll see for the rest of 2026.

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