Biggest winners and losers from Seahawks win over the Cardinals

Injuries for both the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals took center stage on Thursday night. It wasn’t the prettiest NFL game to ever be played. That’s for sure. But at the end of the night, Seattle came out on top with a much-needed 22-16 win. It is now just a half game behind the Rams in the NFC West.

From Russell Wilson’s gutsy overall performance to the quarterback finding a connection with Jimmy Graham, there were several winners from this Thursday Night Football bout. On the other hand, the likes of Adrian Peterson failed to impress.

Here are your biggest winners and losers from Seattle’s win over the Cardinals on Thursday night.

Winner: Russell Wilson 

We’ll get to the joke of NFL’s concussion protocol a bit later, but we also have to give Wilson a ton of credit for hanging in there. The Super Bowl-winning quarterback was sacked five times and hit a grand total of 12 times in Seattle’s win over Arizona on Thursday night.

Some figured that Seattle’s pass protection issues would be solved by the acquisition of four-time Pro Bowl left tackle Duane Brown. While this seemed to be the case last week against Washington, this problem came to the forefront again Thursday night. Obviously, the injury Brown himself suffered (more on that later) didn’t help here.

Though, Wilson did whatever he could do in order to hang tough in the pocket and deliver a solid performance. The signal caller completed 22-of-32 passes for 238 yards with two touchdowns and zero picks in the victory. He also proved himself to be a wizard of sorts.

Loser: NFL concussion protocol 

In the third quarter of Thursday’s game, Cardinals linebacker Karlos Dansby committed a 15-yard personal foul penalty after a hard blow to Wilson’s face mask. You can watch it here. After about 15 seconds in the tent to be checked for a concussion, Wilson returned to the field.

Obviously, this was met by a ton of criticism from those watching the game.

And for good reason. The point of NFL’s concussion protocol is to actually make sure a player didn’t suffer a concussion. Wilson returned to the field before it was humanly possible for anyone to draw a final conclusion about his status. That’s just a bad look for the league.

Winner: Seahawks defensive line

Fresh off a 159-yard performance against San Francisco last week, future Hall of Fame running back Adrian Peterson was absolutely bottled up in this one. Whether it was the Legion of Boom not respecting the Drew Stanton-led passing game or something completely else, it was all over AD throughout the game.

When all was said and done Thursday night, Peterson put up 29 yards on 21 rush attempts. Seattle entered Week 10 ranked in the middle of the pack against the run and yielding an average of 4.3 yards per attempt. One game doesn’t change this mediocrity, but it could be a big deal considering the injuries Seattle’s secondary is dealing with right now.

Loser: Adrian Peterson

On the other side of the coin, Peterson didn’t necessarily do himself any favors here. The veteran put up a career-high 37 rush attempts in his previous outing Sunday against San Francisco. If he thought it would be the same type of competition Thursday night, Peterson was definitely caught off guard. He looked slow through whatever holes were available to him and coughed up two points to Seattle on a safety.

We’re not going to really dig into AD too much here. He’s working with a backup quarterback under center. Seattle stacked the box in a big way on Thursday. It also didn’t help that an already weak Cardinals offensive line has been ravaged by injury. But Peterson’s performance on a short week left a lot to be desired.

Winner: Jimmy Graham 

Remember when there were questions about Graham’s fit in Seattle? It might have taken a couple seasons for him to answer said questions, but the Pro Bowler is now playing at the level we saw when he was with the Saints. Graham recorded six catches for just 27 yards on Thursday, but two of them went for scores. He’s obviously become Russell Wilson’s favorite target in the red zone, having scored six touchdowns over the past five games.

This could loom large for Seattle as it attempts to catch Los Angeles in the NFC West moving forward. Graham provides a tremendous mismatch for Wilson in the red zone. And now that the two have found a connection, it’s a scary proposition for the rest of the league — the Rams themselves included.

Loser: Injuries

This one is obviously headlined by the potential torn Achilles that Seahawks All Pro corner Richard Sherman suffered in the third quarter. Sherman was seen on the sideline after leaving the field telling teammate Bobby Wagner that it’s torn (more on that here).

If that’s the case, it’s going to be a major blow for Seattle’s Super Bowl and playoff aspirations. Remember, Earl Thomas is already sidelined with a hamstring injury. These are two of the team’s best players. It also doesn’t help for Seattle that left tackle Duane Brown, running back C.J. Prosise, defensive tackle Jarran Reed and rookie corner Shaquill Griffin all also went down to injury.

For a Cardinals team that’s already without both Carson Palmer and David Johnson, Thursday didn’t end without them being impacted either. Starting left tackle D.J. Humphries went down early in the game with a knee injury and did not return. He suffered a sprained MCL and will surely miss some time. Arizona also lost starting strong safety Tyvon Branch to a knee injury.

We’re entering the dog days of the football season, where it’s nothing less than a battle of attrition. Every player around the NFL has bumps and bruises. That’s by now well known. But what we saw Thursday night in Arizona could have wide-ranging ramifications for the remainder of the regular season and into the playoffs. It was just horrendous.