Big plays do us in again.
Running game shut down as teams now have film on the young linemen.
Leinart plays worse than Navarre causing major concern for coaches and fans.
Seattle 32
Cards 13
This is what I am thinking also, but I didn't have the courage to post it.
I differ with you on the running game being shut down. But I do see the running game becoming irrelevant when we fall too far behind. The Seattle DC should be watching the film from Monday night and will see the same thing that worried me in the San Fransisco prediction thread, that if you can take away the passing game, we cannot win a game on the ground.
Once again the game will come down to which Leinart shows up. My only hope is that Whis is giving Matt some of the "tough love" that he gave him after the Oakland pre-season game. A Leinart that plays like the one who played in the Houston game can keep us even and perhaps eek out a win in a "sprint/last team to have a possession wins the game" type scenario.
On Defense, I think that we will contain Alexander, as we did Gore, but we can't count on Hasselback pulling an Alex Smith on us. Our deficiencies in the secondary will come home to roost in this game, and a good QB will exploit that.
As usual, I can see several ways that we could win this game, but if I was forced to bet:
hawks - 23
Cards - 9
JTS