Seahawks ride Jaxon Smith-Njigba for club-record 12th straight win

GLENDALE, Ariz. — For a split second, the second half appeared to be opening in disaster.

Seahawks returner Rashid Shaheed was hit as he reached the 28-yard line with the opening kickoff to the second half, the ball bouncing behind him to his left in apparent easy reach of a handful of Arizona players.

Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald saw the ball pop loose and reflexively began thinking about getting the defense ready to send on the field.

Then Seahawks backup linebacker Chazz Surratt, a former quarterback at North Carolina where he rushed for 279 yards and six touchdowns, reached down and scooped up the ball just a hair before Arizona’s Jack Gibbens could get to it.

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“Kind of happened so fast,” Surratt said. “I just saw the ball bounce, maybe twice, and just picked the ball up.”

Then, he said, he reverted to his quarterback days, heading to the right sideline in front of the Arizona bench and down the field.

“I thought I was going to score, to be honest,” Surratt said. “Kind of knew it was like disarray out there for the kickoff team. Then I saw the kicker like maybe 30 yards down the field and tried to cut it back and at that point it was just trying to get as many yards as I could.”

He got 35, taking it to the Arizona 37 and leaving the Cardinals — who initially thought they were getting the ball in Seahawks territory — stunned.

“Kind of one of those like turn and walk the other way,” said Seahawks quarterback Drew Lock, meaning he assumed he was going to be sitting back down with the defense taking the field. “And then our sideline gets excited and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, Chazz picked it up.’ Gave us great field position.”

Four plays later, the Seahawks had a touchdown to break a 7-7 halftime tie and begin a second-half onslaught that led to a 31-7 win.

It was their 12^th straight win including the playoffs, setting a franchise record. It was the ninth straight in the regular season, tied for second in franchise history behind the 11 of the 2005 team, and the fifth in a row on the road.

All the streaks date to a 21-19 loss to the Rams on Nov. 16 at SoFi Stadium. It was also the 10^th straight win against the Cardinals and makes the Seahawks 25-5 in their last 30 games.

While this game had its unique qualities — Lock getting the start in place of the injured Sam Darnold and showing again why the Seahawks think he is the best backup QB in the NFL, and the oddity of the Surratt play — much of it followed a familiar script.

A team that likes to rely on explosive plays in the passing game got one on the second snap of the matchup when Jaxon Smith-Njigba used a double move to break easily into the open and caught a pass from Lock for an 82-yard touchdown, tied for the fifth-longest receiving touchdown in franchise history.

“Oh man, that’s my hoopin’ skills right there,” Smith-Njigba said of the move he put on Arizona corner Will Johnson.

A team that also likes to wear opponents down did that by gaining 119 of its 162 rushing yards in the second half, including 76 in the fourth quarter alone.

“We’re a four-quarter team,” Smith-Njigba said. ”That’s who we are. … We know we’re going to play hard for four quarters. A lot of teams don’t want to do that.”

And a defense that gave just a little in the first half — a 61-yard scoring drive aided by a pass-interference penalty on third down and resulted in a 2-yard TD reception by All-Pro tight end Trey McBride on a fourth-and-goal — made some adjustments and gave the Cardinals nothing in the final two quarters.

Arizona had just 43 yards on 14 plays in the second half — 18 on a run with 1:11 remaining and the game long over — and just two first downs as the Seahawks outscored the Cardinals 24-0.

“They got to some things in the first half that we weren’t prepared for,” said Macdonald, who praised his coaches for making great adjustments at halftime. “… We had some uncharacteristic communication, not issues but just we weren’t ahead of plays as much as we should have been. It was just a matter of taking a deep breath and realigning and then just keep playing.”

The Seahawks did the same thing in the opener, falling behind New England 10-0 in the third quarter, then using three interceptions to rally for a 13-10 win.

“I think we did a great job of just locking in the details after halftime,” defensive lineman Leonard Williams said. “There were a few things where they were running the ball into the boundary, getting on the edge and things like that and we switched some things up and were able to stop it.”

Arizona finished with just 151 yards in the first home game under coach Mike LaFleur, the offensive coordinator the last three years with the Rams.

The yards allowed were the second fewest under Macdonald behind the 137 in a win at Carolina in December.

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If the stars were almost everybody, it was hard to ignore the play of Lock — who in his first start since late in the 2024 season as he completed 19 of 26 passes for 235 yards and three TDs while not throwing an interception — and Smith-Njigba, who had nine receptions for 155 yards and a career-high three touchdowns.

Macdonald gave a game ball to Smith-Njigba and said he rattled off six impressive stats that he said he couldn’t remember “but it was all good.”

Smith-Njigba’s two second-half TDs — a 7-yarder that made it 14-7 in the third quarter and a 12-yarder that made it 24-7 in the fourth — came on plays of third-and-seven and third-and-six.

“Talk about high leverage situations,” Macdonald said. “(Those are) four-point plays (meaning, the difference between getting a TD and having to settle for a field goal). Both of those touchdown catches really helped put the game away.”

The game ended, as it so often does here, where the Seahawks have lost just once since 2012, with Seattle fans making all of the noise. Macdonald happily noted that forced Arizona to go to a silent count at home when it was in a shotgun offense.

And the Seahawks will be favored to win each of its next two games — next Sunday at Washington and Oct. 4 at home to the suddenly struggling Chargers — ample opportunity to just keep piling on to its winning streaks.

Williams says those numbers are the last thing on anyone’s mind.

“Honestly, I haven’t thought about it,” he said of the 12-game winning streak. “And I think that’s what is so beautiful about this team. I don’t think anyone is thinking about that. I think we’re so honed in on just being who we are, setting the standard, being the standard, continuing to grow, chasing edges and all of those things, that it’s like we’re never looking behind us at what we’ve accomplished.”