Seahawks OT Charles Cross Make Mike Macdonald's 'Favorite Play Of The Year' In Thursday's Win at Arizona

Charles Cross’ effort play on Zach Charbonnet’s touchdown run had Seahawks players and coach Mike Macdonald fired up in Thursday’s win in Arizona.

Sep 25, 2025 at 11:22 PM

John Boyle

Seahawks.com Senior Reporter

GLENDALE—Thursday's game featured a pair of interceptions by the Seahawks defense, as well as six sacks. There were also plenty of big plays on offense, both through the air and on the ground. And of course, there was Jason Myers' game-winning field goal as time expired that allowed the Seahawks to secure a 23-20 win over the Cardinals.

But the best play of the day for Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald? That came on a one-yard run in the second quarter. Specifically, it was a one-yard touchdown run by Zach Charbonnet.

On that play, Charbonnet took a run off the left side, and when he was met at the goal line by Cardinals cornerback Max Melton, he stayed on his feet and kept churning his legs long enough for left tackle Charles Cross to come in and push his teammate over the goal line.

"Just helping the team," Cross said. "As an offense, you want to keep the ball moving forward, and that was part of keeping the ball moving forward. Zach did a great job executing and running the ball, and once he got to where he was at, I just had to help finish it off."

Said Charbonnet, "That's just the way we play. I'm going to do my job to keep my legs churning, but I know my boys are going to come and help push me in."

Since he took over as the Seahawks' head coach Macdonald has preached "shocking effort" to his team, and that play was a great example of it, to the point that Macdonald called it his favorite play of the season, adding that he regretted not giving Cross a game ball during the postgame celebration.

"I screwed it up, I should have gave Charles a game ball," Macdonald said. "That was one of my favorite plays I've ever seen. I'm just so proud of him, man. This guy, he's gone through a lot this year with some personal things going on, and he's such great person and a great leader and a great football player. We could be in a walkthrough, and this guy is just a thousand percent, attention to detail, takes the line, all those things you ask for. He sets such a great example for our team.

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"That was probably my favorite play of the year. He'll be rewarded this week, I promise."

And Cross' play wasn't the only effort play that helped the Seahawks win a close game. On the first play of the second half, Sam Darnold was sacked and fumbled, giving the Cardinals a golden opportunity to seize momentum to start the half, but before one of several Cardinals defenders in the area could get to the ball, Seahawks tight end Eric Saubert was able to dive on the loose ball. The Seahawks went on to get a field goal out of the drive, a big swing from if the Cardinals had recovered in Seahawks territory.

"That was big," Macdonald said. "There's some protection things we've go to get cleaned up, it's been good all year, so we'll go to work on that. But just being heads up and attacking the football, that was a big time play."