Cardinals all but end Seattle’s reign as division champs

SEATTLE - The king is dead. Long live the king?

The Cardinals put a lock on their first playoff appearance in 10 years Sunday by nearly blowing out Seattle, then hanging on for a 26-20 win over the Seahawks, the four-time NFC West defending champs.

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The Seahawks, backed by one of the loudest crowds these Cardinals have ever heard, had one last chance with just more than 2 minutes left.

But rookie cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie showed his sprinter’s speed in chasing down and intercepting a Matt Hasselbeck pass to clinch it.

As he slid to the ground, he created the sort of silence known only by astronauts on the moon.

As the jubilant Cardinals left the field, they were greeted by a frustrated Seahawks fan waving a sign that said, “You’ll screw it up, guaranteed!”

“It’s too late!” shouted defensive end Bertrand Berry, one of several Cardinals who have suffered numerous embarrassing losses here. “They were who we thought they were!”

With six games to play, their closest pursuer is San Francisco, four games back.

The Cardinals (7-3) also own the tiebreaker, having swept the 49ers this season.

With the win, the Cardinals now have swept their division rivals on the road — at St. Louis, San Francisco and Seattle — for the first time since 1968.

As for the 2-8 Seahawks, they’re left to play out the string.

Some of the Cardinals had talked themselves into believing — as Darnell Dockett said afterward — that the Seahawks “tried to really embarrass us and run the score up,” in a 42-21 win last year.

“We kept that in our mind every time we lined up. … There were a lot of emotions.”

“Everything is beautiful,” linebacker Chike Okeafor said, “and has turned out the way it was supposed to be.”

Quarterback Kurt Warner, who took the Seahawks apart from the opening drive, said the imp1ortant thing is that the Cardinals now are playing well — even winning — on the road, where they are now 3-3.

“That’s the next step we needed to take. … We’re showing some signs of maturity and coming of age.”

On defense, the Cardinals intercepted three passes in the return of Hasselbeck, who’d been out injured for six weeks.

“Coming back, we knew his arm strength wouldn’t be the same,” linebacker Karlos Dansby said.

So they played his passes toward the middle of the field because they felt he wouldn’t be able to throw outside.

“We knew he would come inside,” Dansby said.

The Cardinals appeared to have the game nearly wrapped up twice, only to turn the ball over and allow the Seahawks back into the game.

They were ahead 13-0 and driving for another score in the final moments of the first half when a Warner pass for Jerheme Urban was picked off by Josh Wilson and returned 58 yards to the Cardinals 18-yard line.

That set up a Seahawks’ touchdown that narrowed the lead to 13-7. The Cards at least partially offset that score with a Neil Rackers’ 54-yard field goal to give them a 16-7 lead as the half ended.

They seemed to surely have the game won when Dansby intercepted a pass in the end zone in the opening moments of the fourth quarter, with the Cardinals leading 26-7.

But Dansby goofed, badly.  

He tried to run the ball out and ended up fumbling the ball back to the Seahawks.

“I should have taken a damn knee,” he said. “I made a bonehead decision. … It was a selfish situation, and I know better.”

The Seahawks scored a touchdown, but their 2-point try failed, narrowing the lead to 26-13.

Warner then fumbled the ball away on a sack by Brandon Mebane, setting up a 2-yard touchdown run by T.J. Duckett.

Suddenly, the Cardinals led only 26-20 with 9:41 left.

From there on, though, the defense held.  The interception by Rodgers-Cromartie with 1:55 left allowed Warner to take a knee on the final three plays.

Warner, though he had two turnovers, hit 32 of 44 passes for 395 yards.