Pete Carroll, Clint Hurtt change defenses and surprise Cardinals in another Seahawks win

Remember that new 3-4 defense Pete Carroll and Clint Hurtt changed to this Seahawks season?

Turns out, Seattle hasn’t been running it all that much. Not in its base form, anyway.

During their first nine games, there have been times when the Seahawks have been in base 3-4 with three true defensive linemen less than a third of defensive snaps. More often, Carroll and Hurtt have opted for more speed and versatility. They’ve employed two linemen, four linebackers with outside pair Uchenna Nwosu and, lately, Bruce Irvin as the edge pass rushers, plus five defensive backs.

Rookie Coby Bryant has been playing three-fourths and as much as 96% of defensive snaps as the fifth, nickel defensive back.

That’s what Arizona coach Kliff Kingsbury saw last month playing the Seahawks in Seattle. Bryant played 53 of 71 snaps in his team’s 19-9 throttling of the Cardinals. And it’s what Kingsbury and the Cardinals saw to begin Sunday’s rematch at State Farm Stadium.

Bryant was on the field for about all of the nine plays of the Seattle’s first defensive series. The Cardinals breezed down the field, 83 yards, with Kyler Murray passing and running, and James Conner running. DeAndre Hopkins caught a 22-yard touchdown pass running away from the Seahawks defense, and the Cardinals led 7-3 after each team’s first offensive possession.

It was alarmingly easy for Arizona. So Carroll and Hurtt changed the chess match.

They took Bryant off the field. They went to a true, base 3-4: three defensive linemen, four linebackers, four defensive backs. No tricks. No nickel. No dime, with six defensive backs. No Bryant up as an outside linebacker, as he’s been at times this season.

Seattle was in base 3-4 for five consecutive plays following Arizona’s opening touchdown, ending only when Bryant came in for nickel on a third and 4. Bryant intercepted the pass Murray threw under pressure from Bruce Irvin, but an illegal-contact penalty on Seattle safety Quandre Diggs negated the turnover.

The change stopped the Cardinals. They didn’t score an offensive touchdown from the time of the switch until 4 minutes left in the game. By then, Seattle was leading 24-14 and in softer, prevent defense with Bryant and more backs in coverage.

The change sent the Seahawks on their way to a 31-21 victory.

Not surprisingly, Carroll was coy and spoke in generalities about the switch after the game.

The 71-year-old coach is too wise to give the first-place Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-5) free information before the first-place Seahawks (6-3) play them in Munich next weekend.

“It was just trying to settle things down,” Carroll said.

Then he cut to the crux of the switch.

“Making sure they weren’t able to apply their plan to exactly what they thought they were getting,” Carroll said.

Exactly. The Seahawks adjusted. The Cardinals (3-6) failed to adjust back.

Decisive change

Arizona gained just 179 yards over its final 52 plays after the Seahawks switched defenses. The Cardinals’ next seven drives following its opening TD march: punt, punt, punt, fumble, punt, punt, punt.

The Seahawks went from down 7-3 to up 24-14 in that span. The Cardinals only points until 4 minutes left in the game came on Geno Smith’s interception Arizona returned for a touchdown in the third quarter.

For the fourth time in their four-game winning streak, the Seahawks took away an opponent’s running game. James Conner, playing for the first time in four after a rib injury, gained just 34 yards on six rushes against more 3-4 after the Cardinals’ opening drive against Seattle’s nickel. Arizona’s running backs gained just 59 yards on 12 carries.

That allowed the Seahawks to again tee off on pressuring a quarterback who had to throw. Seattle had five sacks of Murray, the same amount it had beating Arizona 19-9 last month.

Nwosu continued being the Seahawks’ biggest playmaker in the front seven. He had two more sacks, his sixth and seventh of the season. That’s a new career high for the fifth-year veteran Seattle signed before this season from the Chargers.

Nwosu has four sacks his last two games. Carroll is letting him freelance, picking gaps to shoot and lanes to blitz instead of prescribing to what a given defensive call assigns. That’s the coach’s way of featuring Nwosu’s athleticism.

“He’s the real deal,” fellow Seahawks linebacker Bruce Irvin said.

Irvin had his first sack in three years, on a spin move into Murray in the second half. Defensive end Shelby Harris sacked Murray on the same drive.

Ryan Neal. Again.

Ryan Neal continued making huge plays at opportune times. The strong safety made Murray pay for loosely carrying the ball past the line to gain near the Seahawks 20-yard line late in the first half. Teammate Josh Jones recovered the fumble to deny the Cardinals at least tying the game at 10 before halftime.

Neal replaced Jones as the starting strong safety in week five at New Orleans. Neal has resumed doing what he did as a sixth, dime defensive back in 2021: make sure stops in key situations, often on third downs short of the line to gain.

Jones played sparingly early in Sunday’s game as the dime defensive back, until late when the Cardinals had to throw. By then, another Seahawks party was on, the fourth consecutive one for a defense that was ranked last in the league five games ago.

Now, they are laughing, playing bangin’ bass music in the locker room after games, rolling, heading to Germany to face Tom Brady.

“We’re just having fun, enjoying each other,” Diggs said. “We’re just going to enjoy this - then it’s back to work.

“Everybody doubted us. I think we take that to heart.”