Russell Wilson has more touchdowns against Cardinals than he has against any other team

It would be unfair to say that Russell Wilson has “dominated” the Arizona Cardinals in his five NFL seasons. If the Cardinals beat the Seattle Seahawks in their Thursday night matchup, Wilson will be just 5-5-1 against Arizona in his career. His passer rating of 95.8 against the Cards is also below his career rate, though it is higher than his rating against the LA Rams or San Francisco 49ers.

But Wilson has excelled in perhaps the most important stat when playing against AZ: Scoring touchdowns.

In spite of the 6-6 tie against the Cardinals in Arizona last season, Wilson has actually thrown 17 touchdowns against only four interceptions in 10 games. That’s two more passing touchdowns than he has against the 49ers, which is over 11 games. Wilson has also rushed for a touchdown against the Cards, giving him 18 total, while being sacked 29 times; conversely, the Rams have sacked Wilson 42 times in 11 games.

Wilson’s 7.4 Y/A against the Cardinals is also lower than his Y/A against LA (7.65) and San Fran (7.94).

Wilson’s NFL debut came in Week 1, 2012, against Arizona. He had one touchdown and one interception. In Week 13, he matched that mediocre total, even though Seattle won the game 58-0. The following season, Wilson had three touchdowns against the Cardinals, the fifth such game of his career at that point. He had another 1:1 game against them in the second meeting of 2013. He had three touchdowns and zero picks in two games against Arizona in 2014, and four touchdowns, one interception against them in 2015. Wilson was actually held scoreless in the first 2016 meeting, but had four touchdowns, no interceptions in the 34-31 loss to the Cardinals in Week 16 of last season.

For most of his career, Bruce Arians has had Arizona as one of the top pass defenses in the NFL, but they are just 18th against the pass this season by DVOA. They’ve allowed 14 touchdowns in eight games, but if the offense stalls behind Drew Stanton, or gives the ball away more often than they would with Carson Palmer, it could lead to shorter fields and more scoring opportunities over the second half of the season. Two of their remaining games are against the Seahawks, which hopefully leads to more scoring opportunities for Wilson.

So no, it’s not as though he has dominated the Cardinals, but he’s been consistently good. That may be all Seattle needs on Thursday.