Rashaad Penny romps to win at Arizona, Quandre Diggs injured on Seahawks field of horrors

Even meaningless season finales are bonkers with these Seahawks.

Previously injured, endangered Rashaad Penny just ran into the starting running-back job for Seattle in 2022, on the day his contract expired.

And it seemingly wouldn’t be a Seahawks game in Arizona without a serious incident or injury. Pro Bowl safety Quandre Diggs got carted off in the fourth quarter of the final game of his contract.

Penny beat his career high set the previous week with 190 yards on 23 carries. And the Cardinals. His startling, 62-yard burst up the middle was the game-clinching touchdown with 5 minutes left Sunday at State Farm Stadium.

“They can’t tackle him,” coach Pete Carroll said of Penny right now.

Russell Wilson overcame two mistakes that gave the Cardinals two touchdowns with three, exquisite touchdown passes plus a decisive touchdown scramble run past Arizona’s Budda Baker.

Wilson looked more like his 2013-18 prime than his 2021 disaster for much of the home-bound Seahawks’ 38-30 upset of the playoff-bound Cardinals.

It was a wild, and serious, finale to Seattle’s mostly lost, 7-10 season.

“It’s a great way to go out,” Tyler Lockett said after his eighth touchdown catch of the season in which he finished with 1,175 yards receiving.

“For the most part, it brought us together. You hear about teams in this situation, and it falls apart.”

The Seahawks won four of their final six games. Why?

“Running the football,” Carroll said.

“You don’t have to throw for 400 yards to win games.”

Arizona scored twice in 5 minutes after halftime to turn Seattle’s seven-point lead into a seven-point hole. Then the Cardinals’ punter dropped a snap, seeing a swarm of Seahawks rushing free at him. A practice-squad COVID-19 replacement for Seattle, former Ohio high school quarterback Cody Thompson, recovered at the 10-yard line to end the wild third quarter.

Then Wilson looked like his 2012, rookie version on another of his third-down conversions. He tried to throw, then scrambled and ran past Arizona’s elite safety Budda Baker for a 4-yard touchdown run and 31-24 Seahawks lead.

Then Diggs, beloved by his Seahawks teammates, sustained an apparently serious leg injury while trying to change directions and getting hit by a Cardinals offensive linemen midway through the final quarter. As medical personnel applied what appeared to be an inflatable cast and help him onto the back of a motorized cart, Seattle’s D.J. Reed threw his helmet in anger. Fellow cornerback Sidney Jones stomped the turf and screamed.

Carroll said Diggs dislocated his ankle and right fibula. Diggs was to stay in Phoenix for surgery through Monday morning while the Seahawks flew home Sunday night to begin their offseason.

Carroll said Diggs will make it back for the start of the 2022 season next summer into fall. But he currently isn’t under contract with a team.

“It sucks,” Lockett said.

Veteran Carlos Dunlap said of Diggs getting seriously injured in the final quarter of the final game of his deal: “I have no words.”

The stunned Seahawks bowed up and turned away the Cardinals in the red zone on a tackle by previously victimized Jordyn Brooks for a 4-yard loss on second down. Kyler Murray threw incomplete while pressured on third down. Arizona settled for a field goal to make it 31-27 with 6 minutes left.

Then Penny — Seattle’s first-round draft choice in 2018 who this time last month was coming off his sixth injury in four seasons — ran behind left tackle Duane Brown (also in the field year of his deal). Penny then cut sharply right and at 236 pounds outran every Cardinal to the end zone for a 62-yard touchdown and his career high in rushing for a game.

That put the Seahawks ahead 38-27 and essentially won the game — remarkably, given how stunned the entire team was watching Diggs get carted off.

It was on this same field that Earl Thomas broke his leg and got carted off while throwing his middle finger in 2018, at the end of his Seattle contract. This is where Kam Chancellor sustained a career-ending neck injury in a Seahawks-Cardinals game. It’s where Richard Sherman tore his Achilles to end his and the Legion of Boom’s days.

And it’s where Wilson threw the most infamous pass in Super Bowl history, from the 1-yard line in the final seconds to New England’s Malcolm Butler to deny the Seahawks a second consecutive NFL championship at the end of the 2014 season.

Penny joined former NFL most valuable player Shaun Alexander as the only Seahawks to rush for 130 or more yards in three consecutive games.

Is any part of Penny tempted to say “See!” and “Look at me now!” at his many detractors, after all his injuries for four Seahawks years until his revival this last month?

”That’s not me.”

As for Carroll’s future, the 70-year-old coach was asked if had any concern whether he’ll be back coaching Seattle in 2022.

“No,” the Seahawks’ coach since 2010 said. “I’m in great shape.”

What a start

Sunday’s game began as an exquisite, 2013-18 performance by Wilson — minus his second-play sack-fumble for a Cardinals touchdown.

His third-down conversions and pinpoint passes were playoff-quality play, against a playoff-bound squad. Not a team on planet Earth — or Neptune, or Mars — would trade him, the Seahawks included.

Wilson then threw his first truly bad pass, overthrowing Travis Homer while pressured in the third quarter. Arizona intercepted and returned the ball to the 1-yard line to set up the go-ahead touchdown. In 5 1/2 minutes, Seattle went from up 17-10 after a wondrous first half to down 24-17.

The start, though, was so familiar, after a long, lost season of anything but.

General manager John Schneider said on the Seahawks radio network’s pregame show Sunday he talked to Carroll in the visitors’ locker room before this finale.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t see this coming this year, you know. And so it’s been a hard one,” Schneider said. “We’re not — we’re not used to this. Pete and I were just talking in the locker room (Sunday): We are playing a game then going home, instead of, like, watching the scoreboard and wondering where we are going to be playing or who we are going to be hosting (in the playoffs next week).

“It’s just different. This is, obviously, we feel this is the toughest division in football. The other three teams have picked in the top 10 and been able to load up (their rosters) a couple times, had some rough years during Pete and myself’s tenure here. Now we are in that boat.

“We need to plan, have our vision, stick to it and get this thing turned around.”

Yet these Seahawks aren’t exactly in that “same boat” as the Cardinals, Rams and 49ers have been over the last decade.

The kick in the pants for Seattle is the team doesn’t have the top-10 pick in this spring’s draft that Schneider talked about his rivals having had, to stockpile talent for their current rises. Schneider traded the Seahawks’ first-rounder to the New York Jets in the summer of 2020 to get All-Pro safety Jamal Adams.

Entering Sunday, the Jets have what would have been the Seahawks’ seventh-overall choice in the 2022 draft.

When Schneider did that, the Seahawks were habitually picking in the 20s of the first rounds of drafts, because those Seattle teams were winning.

Not this season.

Until these last two games.

One week after rolling over Detroit for 51 points, Seattle’s most in 10 seasons, Wilson threw passes that were the best, prettiest of his season — certainly since his too-soon return in mid-November from finger surgery.

And many of them came when the Seahawks had malfunctioned too often over 10 losses in 16 games: third downs.

His first of two touchdown passes in the first half to Lockett came on third down.

In the second quarter, Arizona took a 10-7 lead with a short field goal to end an epic, 19-play drive of almost 11 minutes.

Wilson responded with his best drive of the season. On his first third down of the possession he twirled away from Cardinals pass rushers. Running back Travis Homer alertly went from blocker to late safety-valve receiver in the right flat, in front of where Wilson had scrambled. That became a 23-yard catch and run to midfield.

On a third and 8, Wilson lofted a top-quality pass onto the hands of DK Metcalf in stride past coverage for a 31-yard gain to Arizona 17.

On third and 10 from there, Wilson fired a dart into the chest of tight end Colby Parkinson at the sideline and line to gain for a first down.

The next play, from the 5, Wilson threw another line drive inside the goal line. Lockett leaned away from his defender to catch the ball while toeing the right sideline of the end zone for the touchdown. Seattle led 14-7.

That drive had Wilson join Hall of Famer Peyton Manning as the only NFL quarterbacks to throw for 3,000 yards and at least 20 touchdowns in each of their first 10 seasons.

Wilson finished Sunday 15 for 26 passing for 238 yards, three touchdowns passes, one running and the interception plus a lost fumble.

The 33-year-old QB finished this season with 3,113 yards passing, and 25 touchdown throws.

Wilson’s two touchdown throws to Lockett moved Wilson past Hall of Famer Dan Marino for the second-most passing TDs in the first 10 seasons of an NFL career. Wilson has 292 TD passes.

Manning had the most over the first 10 years, 306.

Wilson should have had three scoring throws in the opening half, and at least a 21-10 lead into the third quarter. But tight end Gerald Everett dropped a sure touchdown pass Wilson perfectly dropped onto his hands in the end zone on another third down late in the second quarter.

Jason Myers kicked a field goal and Seattle led 17-10 instead of by two scores.

Bolstered by Wilson’s 3 for 3 for 66 yards on that second touchdown drive, the Seahawks converted six of their first seven third downs Sunday.

They went weeks without that many conversions on third downs this season. Carroll has said that was the primary reason for the offense’s issues in going 6-10 entering Sunday. Seattle spent most of the season last in the league at or below 33% conversions on third down.

Rough start

The Seahawks gained 94 of the game’s first 98 yards, but the scored was tied at 7.

That’s because on the game’s second play Chandler Jones burst through the right side of Seattle’s patchwork offensive line and sacked Wilson. What else is new? It was the 16th sack by Jones of Wilson in their careers, the most of Wilson by any NFL defender.

But this time Sunday, Jones also knocked the ball from Wilson’s hand while sacking him. Cardinals teammate Zach Allen picked up the fumble and jogged 16 yards to the end zone for the touchdown 10 seconds into the game.

Penny and Wilson responded.

Penny burst through the left side behind 36-year-old tackle Duane Brown for 20 yards. On third down, Wilson lofted a pass exquisitely before he was about to get hit, onto the hands of Lockett who was running an outside flag route to the goal line.

Lockett was behind every defender when he caught the ball for a 43-yard touchdown.

The game stayed tied at 7 into the second quarter.

Wagner, Jackson missing

Bobby Wagner’s streak of 66 consecutive regular-season and playoff starts dating to September 2018 ended. The 31-year-old All-Pro linebacker missed the game with a sprained knee that he and Carroll said does not require surgery.

Cody Barton, a Seahawks third-round draft choice in 2019, made the first middle-linebacker start of his career.

Gabe Jackson missed his first start of the season. His knee that’s been sore for a while got worse this week. Phil Haynes started at right guard. Haynes, a fourth-round pick in 2019, had started the previous week against Detroit at left guard. That was when Damien Lewis was on the reserve/COVID-19 list.

Lewis was back Sunday at left guard.

With Jamal Adams’ season-ending shoulder surgery last month, his fill-in Ryan Neal missed Sunday while on the COVID list. That meant usual nickel defensive back Ugo Amadi was starting at strong safety with Neal out.

Josh Jones, a 27-year-old practice-squad call-up formerly of the Packers, Cowboys and Jaguars, was the nickel back Sunday. Jones broke up a third-down pass in the first quarter when Murray targeted A.J. Green against him. Jones didn’t turn his head to the ball and almost accidentally broke up the pass that would have given Arizona a first down well into Seattle territory.

Instead, the Cardinals punted and the game remained tied.

“Poor guy was just really, really upset. Didn’t feel good the first day. Is feeling better now,” Schneider said of Neal on the team’s radio pregame show.

The Seahawks’ other inactive players Sunday: tight end WIll Dissly because of his heel injury from the previous game, backup cornerback John Reid (concussion) and third quarterback Jacob Eason.