Quiet Seahawks move played role in shutting down Kyler Murray

The Seattle Seahawks had an answer for dual-threat Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray in Sunday’s 16-6 win at Lumen Field, and it may have all started in practice last week.

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Murray was sacked five times, limited to just 9 rushing yards on two attempts, and had his third-lowest QB rating of the season (50.1) while the Hawks held his Cardinals offense completely out of the end zone.

What was the secret? Seattle head coach Mike Macdonald may have actually tipped his hand two days prior to the game in his weekly conversation with Seahawks Radio Network broadcaster Steve Raible, which airs each Friday during Seattle’s Morning News on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM. When asked by Raible about the difficulty in trying to defend against Murray, Macdonald mentioned general manager John Schneider’s transactional activity.

“It’s tough. I think he’s the fastest quarterback in the league by the actual number metrics,” Macdonald said about planning against Murray, “but you kind of understand how he wants to get out and when the ball’s leaving based off of different things you’re gonna rep. We have a couple of guys on scout team that John brought in… We have them running around and stuff so our guys could work on all the read zone stuff, but it’s very hard. It’s very hard to replicate in person until you see it in in real speed.”

It seems pretty easy to figure out which practice squad players Macdonald was referring to. Seattle announced the addition of quarterback John Rhys Plumlee last Wednesday, making him the second QB on the practice squad along with former BYU standout Jaren Hall.

Plumlee, an undrafted rookie, has spent time with the Steelers and Jaguars this year, and like Hall has interesting similarities to Murray as a dual-threat QBs who were outfielders on college baseball teams. The 5-foot-10, 207-pound Murray played baseball at Oklahoma and was even taken in the first round of the 2018 MLB Draft by the Oakland Athletics, while the 6-foot, 200-pound Plumlee played baseball at both UCF and Mississippi, and the 6-foot, 207-pound Hall spent two seasons on BYU’s baseball squad.

The duo of Plumlee and Hall could stick around for a few weeks on Seattle’s practice squad with another matchup against the Cardinals coming up in Arizona on Dec. 8.

After hearing what Macdonald told Raible about defending Murray – “you kind of understand how he wants to get out and when the ball’s leaving based off of different things you’re gonna rep” – one play in particular from Sunday stands out: a pick-six by safety Coby Bryant. That came as a result of Devon Witherspoon’s defense, as the second-year cornerback spun around from the line of scrimmage to get in front of Murray, who had rolled out toward the sideline after faking a handoff.

HOUSE CALL FOR COBY 🎱 pic.twitter.com/hiQNjq1uzw

— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) November 24, 2024

Whatever the Seahawks did in preparation for Murray and the Cardinals, it worked better than anyone could have expected. Arizona entered Sunday on a four-game winning streak, averaging 29.3 points over their past three contests and 149.4 rushing yards per game for the season.

In addition to mustering just two field goals against Seattle, the Cardinals finished with only 49 rushing yards on 14 carries, including 8 yards on seven carries by feature back James Conner. That left Murray even more susceptible to the pressure from Seahawks defensive end Leonard Williams, who had a monster game with 2.5 sacks, three quarterback hits, four tackles for loss and a pass deflection.

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Murray finished 24 of 37 for 285 yards, but the interception by Bryant overshadowed those numbers.

“I feel like if I don’t do that, then we’re in the game four quarters. Because that’s the way it was trending,” Murray said. “The defense is battling their (butt) off, did everything that we needed for them to do to win the game. Offensively, we got to be better. We didn’t hold up our end of the bargain.”

A second-quarter touchdown reception by Arizona’s Michael Wilson was nullified by a holding penalty on left tackle Paris Johnson Jr.

“There’s a lot of things that feel like the flow of the game just wasn’t our favor,” Wilson said. “And some games go like that, and then we didn’t execute enough to make up for the game sort of not going our way.”

The Associated Press contributed to this post.

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