Seahawks storm into playoffs with rout of Arizona

In a game that was never close, the Seattle Seahawks concluded the regular season with a 36-6 beatdown of the Arizona Cardinals.

The Seattle Seahawks will visit the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC Wild Card playoff round next Sunday at 10:05 a.m. on KING 5.

Arizona Cardinals running back David Johnson (31) is stopped by Seattle Seahawks outside linebacker K.J. Wright (50), free safety Earl Thomas (29), defensive tackle Ahtyba Rubin (77), defensive tackle Brandon Mebane (92) and middle linebacker Bobby Wagner (54) during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016, in Glendale, Ariz.

As he has over the past couple of months, Russell Wilson was once again impressive as a passer, throwing three touchdowns with zero interceptions. He has covered a Super Bowl, college bowl games, MLB, NBA and more. The only team to play next weekend and not have a chance to come to Arizona? The loser hits the road for its playoff opener.

Wilson also threw for TDs in the flat to Chase Coffman – who’d been signed, cut and re-signed this season, and was playing in his first Seahawks game – and to fullback Will Tukuafu. And the Seahawks led, 30-6. A Vikings victory would mean the Seahawks would be the 6-seed and face the Vikings in Minnesota.

-QB Russell Wilson, on becoming the first Seahawks quarterback to pass for 4,000 yards: “It’s obviously a good thing”.

Here’s a question: If you could, would you trade the Seahawks straight up for any other team in the playoffs, AFC or NFC?

The Seattle defense ranks No. 2 in yards allowed (295.7) but the Cardinals racked up 451 yards of total offense in the Week 10 win. Mission accomplished, as Carson Palmer sat out the second half and, unlike a year ago, will be healthy for this season’s playoff run. It put a 36-6 demolition on the NFC West-champion Arizona Cardinals in a stunning regular-season finale at University of Phoenix Stadium on Sunday.

Arizona (13-3) already had locked up the NFC’s No. 2 seed and a first-round bye.

All-Pro Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, after the win over Arizona, said that “people sometimes forget who we are”. Christine Michael and Bryce Brown have done decently in Rawls’s stead, but head coach Pete Carroll has said that he expects Marshawn Lynch to return to the team on Monday, and that his recovery from an abdominal issue is going well.

Lockett had four punt returns for 139 yards in the first half, and that didn’t include a 22-yard return negated by a penalty.

“We’re not in any way panicking or freaking out”, Palmer said. Arizona owns the best scoring differential in the league at plus-206 points, they’ve also won nine games in a row dating back to a road loss at Pittsburgh in October. “Throwing the ball a lot more”, he said. He missed the first two months of this season recovering from those injuries.

With so much attention being placed on the Cardinals’ offense and defense, the special teams have slipped through the cracks despite having the league’s second-worst punter, Drew Butler according to net average punts.

Sherman said, no, his act was to demonstrate to Palmer that Brown was sitting on the bench as a nonfactor.