Pete Carroll: It would really be OK if we could win by a lot sometimes

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The Seahawks play the Cardinals this weekend and a look back at the film of the first game the two teams played this season would show Seattle beating Arizona 27-10 in Week Four.

That final score is an outlier for the Seahawks this season. They’ve won 11 games, but the victory over the Cardinals is the only time that they’ve won a game by more than one score. That makes them the first team since the 1978 Oilers with 10 wins in one-score games in a single season.

Last weekend’s win over the Panthers, which saw Carolina close a 30-10 deficit to six points, is indicative of how their season has played out. Head coach Pete Carroll said this week that the Seahawks are “certainly not trying to let them back into it,” but added that he doesn’t mind games coming down to the wire even if he might prefer a little more breathing room from time to time.

“I love close games,” Carroll said, via the team’s website. “I think they help you. They make you stronger. They keep you in the game longer. They make you have to focus farther, and it prepares you for more kinds of things that can happen that you need background and experience in. It would really be OK if we could win by a lot sometimes. That’d be fun.”

Carroll added that “these seasons write a story” and the next few weeks will show whether the Seahawks’ penchant for surviving by a narrow margin can translate into a happy ending.