By Bob Condotta

The Seattle Times

SEATTLE —It’s a good thing Sunday’s debacle against Arizona wasn’t the game that really matters.

Nothing about the way Seattle played against Arizona makes you feel good about beating the 49ers next week in a game that will decide the NFC West. Not after the team was beaten 27-13 Sunday at CenturyLink Field by a 5-9-1 Cardinals team.

The Seahawks will hope that getting a number of players healthy and maybe the mojo that has carried Seattle so often this season can revive them.

Most significantly may be the health of tailback Chris Carson, who departed with a hip injury in the second quarter. Coach Pete Carroll said after the game Carson is out for the season. Seattle also lost backup C.J. Prosise for the season with a broken arm. He had to play the rest of the way with rookie Travis Homer at tailback.

Seattle began the game short-handed with four starters out —defensive Jadeveon Clowney (core), cornerback Shaquill Griffin (hamstring), free safety Quandre Diggs (ankle) and left tackle Duane Brown (knee/biceps).

How many of those players can return for the 49ers game may well determine how good of a shot Seattle has next week.

Certainly, how they played Sunday won’t get it done as the Seahawks allowed the Cardinals to gain 412 yards —despite playing much of the second half with backup QB Brett Hundley after Kyler Murray left with a hamstring injury —while gaining just 224 yards of their own.

By the time the game ended with the stands half empty, it was almost hard to remember that the Seahawks drove 89 yards for a touchdown the first time they had the ball to take a 7-0 lead.

But Kenyan Drake ran 80 yards for a TD on the next play to tie it up and Arizona dominated from there.

Arizona Cardinals running back Kenyan Drake (41) pushes off Seattle Seahawks cornerback Tre Flowers (21) on his way to gaining 15 yards during the third quarter on Sunday, Dec. 22, 2019 at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, Wash. (Amanda Snyder/Seattle Times/TNS)

The loss means Seattle drops a game behind the 49ers in the NFC West and to the fifth spot in the NFC playoff standings.

But because the Seahawks beat the 49ers last month, Seattle can win the division by beating San Francisco next Sunday at CenturyLink Field, a game that will kick off at 5:20 p.m.

But while the loss does not derail Seattle’s hopes of winning the NFC West, it puts a sharp dent into their chances of being the number one seed and also puts them at risk of falling to the number three seed even if the Seahawks were to beat the 49ers.

Seattle only needed to win both of its remaining games to be assured a top-two seed and a bye into the divisional round.

But that is out the window now.

New Orleans rallied to win at Tennessee earlier in the day, which moved the Saints ahead of the Seahawks and means that if the Saints win at Carolina next week they cannot finish with a worse record than Seattle. Seattle would lose a two-team tiebreaker with the Saints.

The loss also means Seattle is rooting for Green Bay to lose to Minnesota on Monday night.

If both the Saints and Packers win out, then the Seahawks would be the number three seed even if they beat the 49ers.

Seattle, though, wins any tiebreakers with Green Bay.

Seemingly dead late in the third quarter, trailing 20-7, Seattle found life when Rasheem Green blocked a 45-yard field goal attempt by Zane Gonzalez and Marquise Blair scooped up the ball and began running down the sideline.

But typifying the kind of day it was, Arizona tight end Maxx Williams was able to track down Blair at the 16. Seattle then could not move it and was forced to settle for a 30-yard field goal by Jason Myers on the first play of the fourth quarter.

That cut the lead to 20-10.

Another field goal by Myers, from 51 yards out, cut the lead to 20-13 with 10:02 left.

But an Arizona offense that stalled for a while after Murray left with a hamstring injury in the third quarter put together a drive to end it, Drake scoring from 3 yards to make it 27-13 with 4:18 remaining.

It looked good early as the Seahawks held Arizona to a three-and-out to start the game and then drove 89 yards in nine plays to take a 7-0 lead on a three-yard pass from Wilson to fullback Nick Bellore.

It was Seattle’s longest drive of the season in terms of yards.

But the rest of the first half was a disaster.

On the next play, Seattle allowed Drake —who was acquired by the Cardinals shortly after the first meeting between the teams in September —to go 80 yards almost untouched for a touchdown to tie the score.

It got worse from there, even excluding the potential impact of the injuries.

Seattle punted on its next five possessions, beginning with a curious decision not to either go for it on fourth-and-one at the Arizona 33 or try a field goal. Seattle instead intentionally took a delay before punting to try and pin the Cardinals deep.

That worked —the punt was downed at the 1.

But Seattle never got another first down the rest of the half, going three-and-out on the next four possessions with the half running out on its fifth.

Arizona took a 14-7 lead on a rather amazing play when Murray scrambled and then tossed it in traffic to ageless wonder Larry Fitzgerald, who plowed ahead for a 21-yard TD, diving past K.J. Wright to extend the ball into the end zone.

Fitzgerald appeared to have another TD on the next series when he made a bobbling, diving catch in the end zone.

But the play was overturned and Arizona had to settle for a field goal and a 17-7 halftime lead.

Still, it was total domination by Arizona, which outgained Seattle 238-40 after the first series and 131 to minus-6 in the second quarter.