Seahawks earned 17-3 over Cardinals, then punted on fourth-and-1 anyway

The verdict

The snaps gave the Seahawks a deserved win probability of more than 99% against the Cardinals. Played like that, they win essentially every time. The deserved margin was 15.7 points against a scoreboard margin of 14, so the 17-3 result was earned.

What the score hid

Seattle averaged 0.08 EPA per snap. EPA is expected points added: what each play is worth against what the drive was expected to produce. Arizona averaged -0.29. Success rate was nearly even, 43% for the Seahawks and 41% for the Cardinals, so the gap came from the plays that moved the needle, not from staying on schedule.

Luck ran against the winner. The Seahawks finished at -3.8 luck points for the game and the Cardinals at 3.2. Seattle won with the bounces going the other way.

The swing play was modest. In the first quarter with 3:58 left, D.Lock threw short left to J.Price for 15 yards, pushed out of bounds at the Arizona 41. It was worth 10 percentage points of win probability. The biggest swing of the game was a 15-yard completion, not a shot downfield.

The calls

Three of the five fourth-down decisions went against the model, and Mike Macdonald made all of them.

In the first quarter, on fourth-and-5 from 58 yards out, the Seahawks punted. The model called it a tossup, worth 0.1 expected points. At 6:23 they punted on fourth-and-4 from 49 yards out, a lean toward going that cost 0.6 expected points.

The clearest miss came in the second quarter at 9:40. On fourth-and-1 from 77 yards out, Macdonald punted. The model said go, clearly, and the call cost 1.2 expected points. A punt on fourth-and-6 at 3:22 matched the model, as did the third-quarter field goal on fourth-and-8 from the 27, which was good.

The four heaviest flags mostly helped Seattle. Arizona was flagged for defensive holding in the first quarter at 8:04 (7% swing), intentional grounding at 4:51 (5%), and defensive pass interference for 29 yards in the second quarter at 0:32 (5%). The one against Seattle was offensive holding for 10 yards at 11:52 of the second quarter, also a 7% swing.

The trend

The record is 5-4, and the snaps say 5.5 deserved wins. That makes the luck sheet minus-0.5 wins, 23rd of 32 teams counting luckiest first. The Seahawks are 2-3 in one-score games, with no games robbed and none won while lucky. Total luck is -7.1 points, and fumble recoveries account for -2 of it.

Flags have cost them too. Seattle has been penalized 65 times for 594 yards, a net of -42% in win probability.

The Chicken Index puts Macdonald's timidity at 91%, the most timid of 32 coaches. The model recommended going on fourth down 11 times, and Seattle went once. Across 47 graded fourth downs the Seahawks have given up 6.7 expected points, with 3 clear misses. The team itself is not the problem: net EPA per snap is 0.071, ninth in the league.

The next test is at the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 4:05 PM ET on CBS. The next fourth-and-short will show whether the Chicken Index moves.