Tougher test tonight

Arizona is undefeated at home this year. Bruce Arians has clearly earned coach of the year honors for consistently fielding a competitive team despite a crippling epidemic of injuries to key players.

Yet, Vegas and most analysts give the Cardinals little chance of winning tonight. They fixate on Arizona's dire quarterback situation while ignoring the team's relentlessly excellent defense and increasingly credible run game.

Seattle's defense can probably handle Arizona. The Sea-fence has rounded into championship form in recent weeks, and should be able to stack the box to stymie Cardinal run efforts and dare Ryan Lindley to throw at the Legion of Boom.

It would be lazy to label Lindley as untested; the fact is that he has faced few tests and flunked most of them. His stat line is truly dreadful: one win vs. five losses as a starter, zero touchdowns and seven interceptions.

But all of that happened when injuries pressed him prematurely into service as a rookie 6th-round draft pick back in 2012. Presumably, two years of work as an understudy have yielded some improvement. Arians knows how to coach quarterbacks and how to get the most out of his offense. 

Last week, in the first half, Colin Kaepernick had some limited success throwing against Seattle, completing several crossing routes against Richard Sherman and other defenders. It will be interesting to see if Arizona is bold enough to try to exploit the same apparent weakness, and equally interesting to see how the Seahawks react. Against the 49ers, our defense responded primarily by intensifying the pass rush.

Winning tonight will require another superhuman performance from the Sea-fence to compensate for Seattle's faltering offense. The team's defensive resurgence has helped to mask a dramatic decline in offensive production. After averaging 28 points per game through week 10, the Seahawks have posted just 20 points per contest since then.

Optimists characterize this as Seattle reverting to its roots as a run-first offense paired with a solid defense, an old-school team playing smash-mouth football on both sides of the ball. There is some truth to that, but I would be more comfortable with the small ball approach if it were built on a more solid foundation.

Unfortunately, our offensive line is still a wreck, the team's undisputed Achilles heel. When healthy, they are a serviceable crew, but they are rarely healthy. The chief cornerstones--center Max Unger and left tackle Russell Okung--will not play tonight. Guards Richard Carpenter and JR Sweezy are banged-up and underperforming. Rookie second-round pick Justin Britt is one of the worst right tackles in the league. Alvin Bailey looked bad in relief of Okung last week. The return of backup center Lemuel Jeanpierre is the sole bright spot in this picture.

With the O-line in shambles, Seattle's offense continues to rely on the superhuman talents of Beast Mode and DangeRuss. The offensive line provides sporadically decent run blocking, but Marshawn Lynch can always grind out a few yards by making his own holes.

The greatest concern is the O-line's inept pass protection. Every week, Russell Wilson faces more pressure than any other quarterback in the league. As the 21st century's answer to Harry Houdini, DangeRuss eludes most pass rushers and takes relatively few big hits, but it is only a matter of time before he takes an unlucky shot and we get to see what our offense looks like with a mere mortal under center. Tarvaris Jackson is serviceable backup, but anyone other than Wilson would get sacked twice or thrice as often under the pressure our offensive line permits.

Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and O-line coach Tom Cable have their work cut out for them.

Go, Hawks!