The Seahawks should have beaten Arizona by two touchdowns on Thursday. Instead, they needed Sam Darnold, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and more special teams magic to win 23-20 on the final play and get to 3-1 this season.

That gave the Hawks a pair of crazy 8s: Eight straight wins over Arizona and eight straight road wins.

The Hawks would have won long before the last play — if Tyrice Knight had not knocked the ball loose on Coby Bryant’s interception return, if Kenneth Walker III had not thrown a football at a Cardinal for a 15-yard taunting penalty, if Riq Woolen had not committed three penalties, if the offensive line could have asserted itself for a game-sealing four-minute drill.

The Hawks dominated the Cardinals in almost every phase – yards, third downs, turnovers, sacks, time of possession – yet simply could not put them away until Jason Myers redeemed himself from an earlier miss by hitting a 52-yard field goal as time expired.

The Hawks needed that because Kyler Murray and Marvin Harrison Jr. finally woke up in the fourth quarter, leading the Cardinals to two touchdowns to tie it at 20-20.

The Hawks got another kickoff break though when Chad Ryland’s kick landed a yard short of the 20 – meaning it automatically was placed at the 40. Darnold hit JSN for 22 yards, and the star receiver managed to stretch out of bounds to preserve time (but only after the officials reversed the call that had kept the clock running). After Zach Charbonnet got four tough-fought yards, Myers kicked the winner.

The Hawks have now benefitted from other teams screwing up on kicks twice in the past three weeks (they scored a TD when Steelers rookie Kaleb Johnson failed to field a live ball). Mike Macdonald’s smiling reaction to those helpful screwups? “I love it.”

Let’s take a look at the good, bad and ugly from this game.

THE GOOD

Darnold was again masterful. He hit 18 of 26 passes, threw a beautiful 16-yard TD pass to A.J. Barner and led the Hawks on five scoring drives in 10 possessions. It would have been six if Myers had hit a 53-yard field goal. It could have been seven if Walker had not turned a third-and-3 into a third-and-18 with a dumb taunting penalty that took the Hawks out of field goal range. It could have been eight if the Hawks had blocked on a fourth-and-1 for Charbonnet at midfield.

JSN was not targeted for three quarters, but he caught four balls for 79 yards in the fourth quarter and ended up leading the team in both stats. He also had a 36-yard catch on third-and-6 as the Hawks tried to stretch the lead to 20-13 (the Hawks then gained just three yards on three runs and Myers missed the 53-yard kick). This game was proof that JSN can blow up at any time and help his team win.

Walker ran for 81 yards on 19 carries, and Charbonnet scored when Charles Cross pushed him through three defenders at the goal line. The Hawks ran for 155 yards on 35 attempts, including 120 on 31 attempts by Walker and Charbonnet. But the two backs had to work for a lot of their yards. Charbonnet made two great cuts for an apparent touchdown, which was called back on a holding penalty against JSN.

The defense sacked Murray six times, picked off two passes and held the Cardinals under 200 yards until their last two drives of the game. Uchenna Nwosu got his first two sacks of the season and also had two tackles for loss and two QB hits. Leonard Williams continued to dominate, getting 1.5 sacks, a TFL, a QB hit and a batted pass. Drake Thomas also had a very active game, with a sack, TFL, QB hit and pass defensed.

Elijah Arroyo had his best game. He was key in the second TD drive, catching a 32-yard pass and drawing a PI call to set up Charbonnet’s TD run.

THE BAD

The line gave up a season-high three sacks, and it would have been more if Darnold had not scrambled out of some jams. Abe Lucas and Anthony Bradford (dealing with a back injury) did not play very well. The line also could not sustain a four-minute drill (i.e., run the clock out) to secure the game.

The defense surrendered back-to-back touchdown drives in the fourth quarter and now has surrendered 34 points in the final stanza this season (vs. 33 in all other quarters).  Devon Witherspoon, who played a largely good game in his return after missing two, did not get his hand up in time to knock away a TD pass to Harrison. Witherspoon also was the closest pursuer from zone on a checkdown 7-yard TD pass to Emari Demercado.

THE UGLY

Woolen committed three fouls even as he was displaced in the starting lineup by Josh Jobe. A 15-yard facemask put the Cardinals on Seattle’s 16-yard line – they ended up with a field goal to go up 3-0. He also committed pass interference that turned a potential third down at the Seattle 24 into a first down at the 9; Arizona scored on a TD pass from Murray to Marvin Harrison Jr. to make it 20-13. It would not be a surprise to see Woolen bumped completely out of the lineup by Derion Kendrick in the next game, vs. Tampa Bay in Week 5.