Arizona Cardinals on playing in Seattle: ‘There’s our playoff game’

The Cardinals were eliminated from the postseason a week ago, but their final game of the season in Seattle on Sunday does have playoff implications.

The Seahawks need a victory and a loss by the Falcons against Carolina to earn the sixth seed in the NFC. If both things don’t happen, the Seahawks stay home in the postseason for the first time since 2011.

The Cardinals don’t particularly care for the Seahawks and are proud of winning three of their past four games at CenturyLink Field. The Cardinals would like nothing better than to end their season by ending the Seahawks’.

“They’re still fighting to get in,” defensive tackle Frostee Rucker said after the Cardinals’ 23-0 victory over the Giants on Sunday. “There’s our playoff game.”

The NFL added a bit of drama to the day by moving the kickoff time of the Atlanta-Panthers game from 11 a.m. to 2:25 p.m. That’s the same time the Cardinals and Seahawks game is scheduled to start.

“We felt that both from a competitive standpoint and from a fan perspective, the most fair thing to do is to schedule all Week 17 games in either the 1 p.m. or 4:25 p.m. ET windows,” NFL Senior Vice President of Broadcasting Howard Katz said in a news release. “This ensures that we do not have a matchup on Sunday Night Football on New Year’s Eve that because of earlier results has no playoff implications for one or both of the competing teams.”

The Cardinals are more confident about winning in Seattle than most teams, but they face special challenges this season.

All three of their latest victories there came with Carson Palmer starting at quarterback. Their only loss there under Bruce Arians came in 2014 with Drew Stanton starting.

Stanton is expected to start Sunday with Palmer remaining on injured reserve.

The Cardinals also have played poorly on the road this season, losing five of seven games. Only one of those losses was by fewer than 10 points and the average margin was 19.

They did, however, emerge from their offensive doldrums on Sunday, ending a streak of 10 quarters without an offensive touchdown. The shutout was the Cardinals’ first in 25 years.

They started the season with the oldest roster in the NFL, and one of the few advantages of that has been on display in recent weeks. While the Cardinals often don’t play well, they have been playing hard.

“I’ve been in this league for a while, coming here with this team and a veteran locker room,” said safety Antoine Bethea, in his 12th season. “This team is about business and that’s what I’m about.”

Stanton is 0-2 as a starter against the Seahawks, including a 22-16 loss at University of Phoenix Stadium on Nov. 9. He played most of that game with a knee injury and spent the next five weeks as Blaine Gabbert’s backup.

Arians reinstated Stanton as the starter last week, and as is Stanton’s custom, he didn’t post eye-popping stats (20 of 34, 209 yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions). But he was effective at critical times and his touchdown passes were the Cardinals’ first in three weeks.

“It’s nice to just be back out here,” Stanton said on Sunday. “When you get the taste of this, especially for someone like me who is a career backup, you get these opportunities to play you cherish them.”

Stanton, 33, is in the final year of his contract, but he insisted proving something to potential 2018 employers is not on his mind.

“Again, that’s the way I was brought up,” he said. “It’s a team game, and we need to carry our weight offensively. We did a little bit (on Sunday), but we can always be better. That’s a momentum thing that we hope to get rolling.”

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