Thursday Night Football features an interesting NFC West matchup between the Seattle Seahawks (5-3) and the Arizona Cardinals (4-4).
This showdown in the desert is a huge game for both teams because if the Cardinals beat the Seahawks they could improve to 5-4 and move in front of Seattle for second place in the division behind the leading Los Angeles Rams (6-2).
After their huge 17-14 loss on the road to the Washington Redskins, the Seahawks can’t afford to lose to their division rival if they want to stay in the race to make the playoffs as a wild card.
If the Arizona Cardinals want to win this game, they probably will have to feed running back Adrian Peterson the ball and hope he can steamroll the Seahawks defensive line to replicate the kind of numbers he had in last week’s 20-10 win over the San Francisco 49ers.
Since week 6 Peterson has rejuvenated himself as he’s carried the ball 24.7 times per game (ranked 4th in the league) and averaged 104.7 rushing yards per game (which ranks 5th best in the league).
But repeating his performance against the Niners will be tough because although the Seahawks defense is definitely not what it used to be during their Super Bowl years their defensive line is quite good to stop or at least contain the rushing attack of the Arizona Cardinals.
One concern for the Seahawks this years is the lack of a dominant running back. So far, this season Wilson is leading the team in rushing with 271 yards. In fact, in their loss to the Redskins Wilson rushed for 77 yards while their three running backs combined for 71 rushing yards.
Seattle needs to start providing Russell Wilson with more help on offense and better protection from his offensive line because if the Seahawks want to win this game he will need to at least pass for 300 yards and score a pair of touchdowns.
