Seahawks sweep Cardinals behind defense and A.J. Barner as Drew Lock's status clouds Raiders trip
Seattle held Arizona to three points to finish a season sweep, but Drew Lock's oblique injury makes him uncertain for the Las Vegas game.
The Seattle Seahawks got back to .500-plus football on Sunday, beating the Arizona Cardinals 17-3 to sweep the season series and climb to 5-4. They did it short-handed. As ESPN's recap noted, Seattle won without its starting quarterback, and A.J. Barner scored twice, once on a catch and once on a run.
The defense did most of the heavy lifting. Writing for SB Nation, Mookie Alexander pointed out that Seattle allowed an 89-yard drive on Arizona's opening possession and then shut the Cardinals down. Arizona finished under 200 total yards and below four yards per play. Dante Fowler had his first sack as a Seahawk, Byron Murphy II and DeMarcus Lawrence also got to Gardner Minshew, and Derick Hall had three tackles for loss. Alexander also argued the officials took away two Seattle takeaways, a Trey McBride fumble ruled dead on forward progress and a pass interference call on Josh Jobe. The red zone finally went Seattle's way at both ends of the field, and that came a week after Chicago put 34 points on this defense.
On offense, Drew Lock went 19 of 28 for 175 yards and a touchdown. He played through elbow and oblique injuries, took no sacks and didn't turn the ball over. Alexander called it "a high-end backup quarterback performance." Zach Charbonnet ran for 77 yards on 16 carries and put the game away with a 17-yard run late. Rookie Jadarian Price led the team with 54 receiving yards on four catches, one of the rare games this season in which Jaxon Smith-Njigba didn't lead Seattle in receiving.
The cost is Lock's oblique. The National Football Post reports that his status for Week 10 is uncertain. That leaves Seattle unsure who will start at quarterback heading into the last game before its bye.
What it means for Las Vegas
Seattle visits the Raiders on Sunday, Nov. 15, on CBS. The Seahawks have alternated wins and losses for six straight games, and the most recent three-game stretch included a 20-3 win over Kansas City, a 34-17 loss to Chicago and this win over Arizona. Seattle is 1-2 on the road, and both losses came by three points or fewer, at Washington and Denver. The Cardinals were the easiest matchup on the schedule. Seattle beat them by a combined 48-10 across the two games.
Alexander's view of Las Vegas is that the Raiders under Klint Kubiak look more competitive than in recent years but still struggle to run the ball and field one of the league's weakest defenses. A win would send Seattle into the bye at 6-4.
The market agrees, even with Lock's status unresolved. Seattle is favored at -170 on the moneyline at Novig, and theScore Bet has the best Seattle price on the board at -155. Novig lists Las Vegas at +156. On the spread, Novig has the Seahawks at -3.5 (-102), while theScore Bet offers -3 at -110. The total is 43.5 at Novig, and BetMGM has the low number at 43. Across the 10 venues on our odds page, sportsbook hold on the moneyline runs from 3.3% to 6.4%, so the gap between venues is wide enough to matter. If Seattle confirms its starting quarterback this week, expect these numbers to move.