17 Power, A Seattle Seahawks Blog

The Forward Pass Can Bite Me

2012-02-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

I have reached a new phase of fandom, one that concerns me greatly, and makes me wish bad juju on anyone who talks about quarterbacks right now*. I am a thirsty man, parched to the extreme as I trundle the Quarterback Desert, and everybody is talking about water. Cool, refreshing water, the kind that condenses on the outside of a beer bottle on a hot humid day, then runs down the arm of curvaceous bikini bomb as she holds her beverage high, and y'all are making me hate water! I don't want to hate water.

*I'm not talking about quarterbacks.

I'm talking about not talking about quarterbacks.

More commonly known as bitching.

I went to the gym on Super Bowl Sunday when the Hype Machine was churning out ol' number Forty Six, and not because I knew the place would be empty and I wouldn't have to wipe down a single piece of equipment. (It wasn't. It was full of football widows, and having one myself I know the pure power of their dirty looks, so I did clean up. They are awful friendly this time of year to fellas they think don't like football. Judge if you want to.) I put the game to the minion that is my DVR, and kept my buds in my ears just so I could get home without knowing the score.

All so I could fast forward, not through the commercials, but the between-snap commentary. The sound of lips being planted on the respective Brady/Manning posteriors was just too much for my blue and green desert-burnt ears. I spent the whole two weeks avoiding all news football like it was a case of the clap, and I wasn't going to be subjected to more slurping sounds from the NBC crew.

I know most of you are right about the team's need for a franchise tosser. I just didn't need to hear Al Michaels talk about Ely Mandy's inseam to know you are right. Amazingly, the nimble-lipped trifecta NBC had calling the game were adept enough to keep their lips planted on the elite duo's glutei maximi even during plays. (My English teacher just cried a little.) "Effusive in their praise" doesn't even begin to cover the collective drool pool that just had to be humidifying the broadcast booth.

It isn't NBC's fault. They are just doing what Hype Machines do, churning out what the inmates chow on. I found myself cringing every time I mistimed the play button, lest I hear the bobble heads talk tirelessly. And you know what? It was nice. Not as nice as if Super Bowls were played by 19th century rules, but nice nonetheless. The final score was downright Seahawkish, not at all reflective of the more than 10,000 yards of regular season passing on the field. I found myself smiling at the thought that Vegas was going to clean up on all the people who think franchise quarterbacks equal copious touchdowns. Take that, you now penniless paupers!

I am just so sick of hearing about how much the Seahawks need one of these guys. Even though it is pretty much true. Add to that the feeling I am getting that Seattle will not be real players at the QB position on draft day or in free agency, and you begin to understand what a hopeless haze I am in right now.

I'm lost in the desert, peoples. I'm in a bad place. Try to point me to some water, and I'll sit down and mutter mirage. Try to recommend some rookie you fancy, and I will watch him make one simple mistake, hiss out "he reminds me of Tarvaris Jackson", and then my inside voice will chime in with "he is a guaranteed Hall of Famer if he goes anywhere but here." The desert sucks.

I don't want to be this way, folks. I don't want to feel like if my team is behind with 5 minutes left, I might as well get an early jump on kicking the kittens. I don't like wondering if my front office is staffed by idiot savants whose one gift is building teams at 21 starting positions but don't seem to be aware that current rules have made getting very good quarterbacks a vital part of sustained success. I know, deep down that they have not made any huge mistakes at that position, but that knowledge isn't making the desert any wetter.

Help me Pete. Give me some water.

17 Blurbs on Peyton Manning and the Seahawks

2012-01-25T18:31:00.000-08:00

Jason La Canfora of NFL.com has recently opined that the Seattle Seahawks are probably on the short list of suitors for Peyton Manning's post-Colts services.

Imagine this...at the VMAC.

Amongst La Canfora's arguments:

- The regime change in Indianapolis ensures a quarterback change as surely as it did in Carolina a year ago. The availability of Andrew Luck makes it easy for the Colts to move on, and Manning's recent comments, his medical condition, and the team's cap issues only seem to strengthen this likelihood.

- Manning's pay-me-or-cut-me roster bonus is due for a decision before the official start of free agency, effectively eliminating Indy's ability to trade him.

- Peyton has "earned the right to be picky" and will probably be looking for a quieter, lower-pressure division and a young, rising, team with a stable locker room and enough talent to where he won't have to pull his usual elevating-an-entire-team act. That narrows the list of candidates considerably, with Seattle and Arizona standing out.

17 quick blurbs from me on this possibility:

17.     La Canfora's article is mere speculation. Sensible, articulate, and exciting speculation, but nonetheless there's no element of Manning's actual intentions in there. For all we know, the anonymous "general managers and executives" that La Canfora cites could refer to Tim Ruskell and Dan Snyder.

16.     It needs to be noted that Peyton Manning may never play another down in the NFL. And if he does, he may not be very good. Any spinal injury is crucial to one's mobility and arm strength. The team that signs him (including Indy) will be taking a fairly considerable gamble.

15.     It also needs to be noted that Seattle's front office is not stupid. They're going to give Peyton a physical. They're not going to sign a mega-bucks quarterback if they're not convinced he's healthy enough to play like one. If Peyton becomes a Seahawk, that's a vote of confidence from Pete Carroll and John Schneider.

14.     Someone else who isn't stupid is Peyton Manning. If he were one hit away from permanent paralysis, he would probably have retired by now. He certainly wouldn't be fighting this hard to return.

13.     This front office has a track record of betting against injury anyway - Leon Washington, Walter Thurmond, Sidney Rice, and Robert Gallery being prime examples.

11.     A healthy Peyton Manning instantly elevates this team. His accuracy, lightning-quick read, and ability to throw receivers open could transform Mike Williams, Golden Tate, and Zach Miller from sputtering learners into reliable playmakers, and don't even get me started on Sidney Rice and Doug Baldwin. Imagine how much running room (and how much less wear and tear) Marshawn Lynch would enjoy against defenses worried about Manning. Other offenses would have to adjust to our ability to score, allowing our defense more freedom to adapt. Peyton has been doing all this for over a decade, and if he can replicate 80% of it here, he's an upgrade over anyone we have now.

10.     For those worried about our offensive line, keep in mind that Peyton has played behind a mediocre-to-bad offensive line for years. He's not only survived, but flourished. The speed of his game allows him to get rid of the ball before common pass rush can get anywhere near him. He protects himself with his game, as all good quarterbacks do to one degree or another. Besides, we needn't assume that James Carpenter will remain rookie-bad after a full offseason.

9.     I've seen some say that signing older free agents to big contracts is not part of the Pete Carroll and John Schneider blueprint. My opinion is that Carroll and Schneider's blueprint is to do whatever it takes to be competitive in the present, and they're not going to be dogmatic about how (e.g. anointing Tarvaris Jackson before training camp). They're the rare front office that plans to win now while still building for the future, and has a gift for making it happen. The question is whether Manning would benefit the team now without blocking its future. I think he'd fit that bill nicely, certainly taking some of the heat off the front office in their search for a franchise quarterback.

8.     As far as the finances are concerned, another perk regarding Manning - one that made Matt Flynn appealing - is that he wouldn't cost any draft picks. Nor is Seattle hurting for cap room right now, or talent elsewhere on the roster. We're in a stronger position than some realize. And even if sacrifices are necessary, is anyone really that worried about losing Red Bryant or Leroy Hill if it means picking up the greatest quarterback of the last decade and handing him more talent than Indianapolis ever gave him? I'd hope not.

7.     Not worried about OC Darell Bevell ruining Manning. Bevell isn't popular here right now (for good reason), but nobody was complaining about him when he had Brett Favre. Nor did anybody complain about Tom Brady's offensive coordinators in New England, even though none of them have done much since they moved on. I'm of the opinion that it's more about the talent at the OC's disposal then the OC's own talent - you can do more when your offense is better. Manning IS an offensive scheme, in and of himself.

6.     There was no #12 in this list. This is in honor of the 12th Man.

5.     You scrolled back up to see for yourself that there was no #12, didn't you? Haha.

4.     It could be interesting to see Peyton playing with a chip on his shoulder over being ousted from Indy.

3.     It could also be interesting to see him mentor our next quarterback of the future, once he arrives.

2.     Could Manning's ego be an issue? Will we end up with another Favre scenario? It's worth pondering. The front office will need an exit strategy if the QBOTF shows up sooner after Peyton's acquisition rather than later. But I don't see Peyton as another cluelessly over-the-hill QB who holds up his team and the whole national media because he can't make up his mind.

1 1/2.     Seattle may be forced to compete for Manning just by the threat of him going to Arizona. There he would enjoy Larry Fitzgerald, a recovering running game and defense, and warm, dry weather for his spinal cord.

1 1/4. One downside to signing The Peyton would be that it'd be hard to sign Mario Williams too.

1.     ZOMG PEYTON MANNING!!!!! YES PLEASE!!!!!

Alex Smith and the Real Wolf

2012-01-18T17:27:00.000-08:00

People have been hailing Alex Smith's "arrival" for seven years, every time he posts the rare impressive win. It's never stuck. Smith "growing up" as a quarterback is such a common occurrence that I've come to ignore it when I hear it. How long will it be until his next choke? I wonder as I roll my eyes.

Last week's playoff gauntlet was a comforting reaffirmation of the value of defense, but that doesn't take away the influence of clutch QB play. A post by football analyst Greg Cosell highlights three fourth-quarter throws that Smith made to lift the 49ers to the NFC Championship.

Through Cosell's lens, the passes are not just timely, they're outstanding on their own merit. It's funny how everyone's default analysis is to credit the receiver for the big play, because the mechanics and subtleties of QB play are so rarely understood. To many fans, they're usually just the one tossing the ball, the receivers the ones going to get it. Cosell's breakdown reveals just how demanding these passes were and how small the margin of error was.

This redefines "game manager". As Cosell aptly put, every team that wants a Lombardi will eventually require the quarterback to adapt and overcome. Whether that's on the occasional inevitable third-down-and-long, or the fourth quarter with the game on the line, this moment will come. The 49ers have built their scheme around minimizing these moments for Smith, essentially making him a game manager. When he beat the Saints, did he make himself worthy of these moments? Did he rephrase "game manager" to include epic throws, or did he transcend the phrase on his way to a new plateau of play?

Whatever the context, Smith was no doubt enabled by an awesome defense. Without that, Drew Brees is probably up by three touchdowns by the time Smith's epic fourth quarter rolls around. Last weekend demonstrated, with its surprising upset of two high-powered passing attacks, that defense is a necessary element in prolonged playoff runs. Seattle, by searching for a "game manager", is not stating a willingness to settle or succeed cheap at any cost. They're looking to protect their quarterback from playing on such an island as Drew Brees is, and this weekend goes a long ways toward validating their concern.

As a Seahawks fan, I'm continuing to induce vomiting amidst the 12th Man by complimenting Alex Smith. But elite throws deserve recognition, and they solicit thought on what Seattle should be looking for in a quarterback. Do we hold out for the all-time elite QB whose origins remain a seeming mystery, or do we seek, as a baseline, a QB who can come through in the clutch and work from there?

As of today, I'm considerably more comfortable with the latter option. Now on to seeing if these defenses can stop Tom Brady.

Why 2011 Isn't Over for the Seahawks...and Why We Might Cheer for the 49ers

2012-01-14T12:20:00.000-08:00

If you're a fan of the Seattle Seahawks, you should be deeply engrossed in this year's playoffs. The 'Hawks themselves may not be in contention anymore, but the contests between the remaining teams have a lot to say about the current state of the NFL and the vision that Pete Carroll has for this team. Even if the Seahawks aren't auditioning for a Lombardi, the model upon which Carroll is building them is.

So the 12th Man should be paying attention.

More specifically, that blueprint is auditioning in the body of teams that share it, like San Francisco and Baltimore. These are teams built around rock-solid defense, smashmouth running games, and a limited quarterback, much like the direction Seattle is heading. There's obviously talent here; the question is how it's deployed, to what goals. And, of course, whether those teams have the ability to stop or out-race the juggernaut passing offenses of the reigning Super Bowl kings: Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady.

In a way, the NFL playoffs is a showdown, not just between teams, but between team-building philosophies.

Mike Sando, in an earlier piece, named the New York Jets as the pinnacle of the everything-but-the-QB model, and indeed the Jets have gone to two AFC championships in previous years. The Ravens show up in the playoffs regularly. The 49ers have remained grounded for years due to their ability to adapt to their struggles at QB, and now that they have their first head coach in seven years who recognizes that Alex Smith is not Peyton Manning and should not be deployed as such (a recognition for which Jim Harbaugh is receiving Coach of the Year accolades, as if nobody else could ever figure out such a thing), San Francisco is a genuine division boss.

So defense and running games can make some noises without overbearing talent at QB. That needs to be recognized, and it's been an adjustment for me. I've become less dogmatic in the last year about what it takes to build a playoffs team.

But I don't care about playoffs team. I care about being a championship team.
So...which model truly produces championship teams?

(Note: anyone who mentions the words "Dilfer" or "Johnson" during this discussion will be shot, tarred and feathered, dragged through the streets, and then forced to watch the Browns game for 28 hours. Ever seen Clockwork Orange? Yeah. Like that. We're talking about trends here, not exceptions.)

Track Records

The Jets' decline this year could be a temporary thing, more related to character issues than anything else. Or it could be a verdict on the everything-but-the-QB strategy, a commentary on the difficulty of sustaining its winning. Once the run game ground to a halt, Mark Sanchez was quickly exposed as the highly inconsistent player he is, and losses started to crop up. (Reality check for Lynch fans: running games aren't known for their longevity right now.)

The Ravens did well in the playoffs last year but ultimately floundered when they reached a certain point that seems all too common in the NFL: the defense and run game were taken out of the equation and Flacco had to win. And he couldn't. It seems an all too common story with that team, and Flacco is exiting his grace period with the fans. When are they going to take the next step?

The 49ers are being crowned right and left, but couldn't we wait and see if they can survive in the playoffs before we commit our teams' future to the model they're built on? They haven't even started a playoff game yet.

The Falcons, another team Carroll has quoted as his guidepost, aren't going anywhere so far.

If you're looking for a truly complete team, the Steelers seem to closely resemble Carroll's watermark. But their quarterback is a much bigger component of the team's contention than many people give them credit for.

Backing Up or Shoring Up?

The thing I've observed with teams whose quarterbacks rely on surrounding talent to succeed, is that such a setup is more fragile than you'd think. Nobody likes the "eggs in one basket" approach - a team build around the abilities of one player, the quarterback - and advocates a uniformly strong roster to avoid it. Makes sense on the surface.

But when that roster struggles, the limited QB seems awfully quick to follow. It seems sometimes that such a QB needs everything to go right in order to succeed, and when something else breaks down, problems surface quickly. Do limited QB's depend on excellence from some of their surrounding roster, or from all of it? (That is an honest question, by the way, not an intractable belief disguised as a question. I don't have an answer yet.)

And in the modern NFL, you can be sure that things will break down. Age, injury, free agency - they all happen. In many ways, NFL roster construction is a race against attrition. Just look at the 2005 Seahawks, an offense very much reliant on the entire roster (although Matt Hasselbeck's role remains underrated to this day). Everything was clicking as the Seahawks reached XL, everyone was contributing.

Then a wave of attrition hit - not just Hutch, but injury, age-related decline, and it fell apart more quickly than you'd have expected from a team not built around the QB. Matt Hasselbeck was statistically terrible the following year. The Seahawks did experience a taste of being the Colts in 2007 when Hasselbeck peaked as a player and carried the team to the playoffs - and it was all him, as that defense's 2008 collapse retroactively proved. But after that, once he entered his twilight, the only Colts experience Seattle was tasting was the 2011 one.

Meanwhile, the 2000's Patriots and Colts got along just fine for years and years on end, despite very much having all their eggs in one basket. Their counterparts from the NFC have arisen now in the Packers and Saints, teams who have reached passing-enabled stratospheres. Their quarterbacks are good enough to be their identity, no matter what anyone says. They elevate mediocre weapons into stars. They allow their defenses to play differently. They take responsibility for dealing with pressure and make some terrible O-lines look awesome (yes, folks, pass protection is a two-way street and David Carr sucked because he sucked too).

Passing the Buck

As for the losers - are they struggling because their QB's aren't supported well enough, or because they're just not good enough to hack it when the game inevitably demands it?

Seattle's got a lot of talent right now, but if you're looking for the perfect roster that demands nothing from its QB, you'll be looking for a long time. Running games will be shucked aside due to circumstance, Brandon Browner will give up a deep pass or two, and there will be times when the only guy who can win the game is the QB. Blame Browner all you want for the Redskins loss, but elite signal-callers have racked up countless wins in such games, overcoming very flawed rosters in the process (see: Peyton Manning).

There's a difference between backing up a QB and shoring up a QB, because close games, third-quarter deficits, and pass-happy playoff opponents are known for taking away shoring elements like the run and the defense. Who's going to find himself on the hot seat then?

It's not like there's no reasonable explanation for this. The pass averages almost twice as much YPA as the run, is protected by numerous and sometimes maddening contact and interference rules (like dual possession to the receiver), and stops the clock when it fails. It's the weapon of choice when time is short, for good reason. The emerging class of dominant QB is a mobile one, skilled at improvising, dissecting minute windows in coverage, and avoiding even interior pass rush with their legs. They just...make things happen. Defense is becoming marginalized.

Any team talented enough at QB to completely build the offense around the pass is thus automatically placed on an greased upward chute. They're placed there by a league hungry for ratings and the epic slow-motion fade-pass touchdowns that solicit them, and by a game whose nature tends to bring the pass to the forefront on third downs, in the fourth quarter, and any time you're trailing. As much as people talk of football as a "team sport", its nature has an under-recognized way of funneling responsibility to the quarterback, and that has to be accounted for.

Dueling Philosophies

In my eyes, the 2011 playoffs season is a huge chapter in this ongoing debate. The 49ers have as good a chance as anyone of stopping the Saints, but how important is defense anymore? Can Brees be stopped, or can he only be out-raced? That's how we beat him a year ago - not with the Beastquake, really, but with the four touchdowns Matt Hasselbeck threw before it. That's a tall order for Alex Smith.

Does winning still have anything to do with being a complete team, or is it just becoming a quarterback duel at the upper levels?

Seahawks fans hope not. Otherwise, it means Seattle ultimately isn't going anywhere without a Brees of their own, and those are hard to find. And so we set about arguing over the importance of the run game and defense, perusing the statistics for clues as to their significance, sometimes even revising history (James Starks was not the spark behind Green Bay's championship run last year, people).

Because such clues would give us hope. They'd mean that Carroll's vision has some real potential. They'd mean defense and running backs are still relevant in a pass-drunk league in which some of the very worst defenses have cruised right to the top of the pile this year.

We need hope for this whole-roster model of Carroll's.

So I'm gonna say it:

*ahem*

*cough*

*deep breath*

I, for one, would therefore be very happy to see the 49ers beat the Saints.

*grunt*

Yes, they're division rivals. Yes, their coach is a butthead. Yes, I'd hate to see Alex Smith get any kind of "told you so" moment.

BUT.

*gag*

If the 49ers can beat the offensive machine that is Drew Brees, if they can find a way to keep every aspect of football relevant - well, then the Seahawks have hope, too.

Because our teams are being constructed the same way. Smashmouth identity, tough defense, strong running game, and a QB who merely answers the calls that come up instead of being the entire show. And is therefore much more easily obtainable.

This isn't about the 49ers. This is about team-building and balances of power in the modern NFL. It might be time for the 12th Man to live vicariously through the 49ers, because if they can prosper in the shark-infested waters of the NFL playoffs, then so can the Seahawks.

So, as much as I hate to say it...

*gag*

*gasp*

*clench*

GO 49ERS!!!!

Blehhhhhh...*triple projectile vomit*

Ugh...talk about taking one for the team.

17 Blurbs: Wild-Card Round

2012-01-08T17:51:00.000-08:00

Do ALL my posts have to be carefully constructed, heavily researched essays on a single subject? Why no...no, they don't. Yay for random and disjointed! Much faster, much more fun.

17. This weekend was dominated by poor tackling. Detroit looked just as blase on defense as they did against Matt Flynn.

16. Shame, because Matt Stafford looks better every game.

15. That Atlanta-based model that Pete Carroll has in mind for his team? It still isn't getting anywhere in the postseason.

14. Saints analysts: when your team has a pass-run ratio of 65%-35%, passes on first down just as often as they run, and rarely blinks on 3rd-and-long, "balanced offense" is not the phrase that comes to mind.

13. Anyone wanna bet that Josh McDaniels will suddenly become relevant again now that he's coming home to Brady-boy?

12. The rumblings have started: people are starting to tire of the NFL's bias toward the pass.

11. Wow, Ike Taylor. I haven't seen a single defender hand a win to a team so blatantly since...oh wait, a year ago when Roman Harper handed one to the Seahawks.

10. Speaking of which, don't be surprised if this year's divisional round for the Broncos' echoes last year's for the Seahawks. Tebow doesn't do well when the other team has an offense.

9. The Texans and Seahawks are brethren in the circle of ignored teams. Houston moving on to the next round makes me feel good, kinda like seeing the Lions doing well.

8. Still think Andy Dalton is way overrated, already very close to his ceiling, and looks like someone dipped Spock headfirst into a vat of tomato juice.

7. Not excited about the idea of Jeff Fisher coming to St. Louis. He's an underrated coach who will immediately make Sam Bradford better.

6. James Harrison is a disgusting player. So content to watch him struggle with Denver's option scheme. That whole defense, in fact, looks over the hill.

5. There's always been a "Manning to Manningham" joke within me somewhere, but I've never been able to find it.

4. A reminder: the phrases "arm strength" and "deep ball" don't refer to sky-high pretty-pretty rainbow passes that hang up there forever and beg to be picked off by safeties. They refer to this.

3. New England and Green Bay actually look a bit unstable going into the playoffs. They need more defense.

2. Speaking of defense, I hope the 49ers beat New Orleans. Yep, I said it. I'll feel dirty, but at least it will prove that passing offense isn't all that matters.

1. From the 12th Man to Tim Tebow: Thank you.

Is Matt Flynn An Upgrade?

2012-01-07T08:24:00.000-08:00

The short answer is, it all depends on what you want out of a QB.

That was my attempt at being mysterious. I am all about the longer answer anyway, so here goes.

There is some buzz right now that Seattle is interested in Mr. Matt Flynn. Why wouldn't they be? To a front office committed to turning over every rock, and committed to always getting more picks, the idea of getting a free agent QB from Green Bay who upgrades the team has to be attractive. This is one rock that definitely will be turned over.

First off, Flynn should be free to sign as a free agent. The Packers have free agents to retain this year who could absorb the franchise tag, primarily Finley. The new CBA supposedly has some rules to prevent teams from tagging players they don't actually intend to retain, a la Matt Cassel, and the Packers, while not against the cap, are not way below it either. That doesn't mean that Ted Thompson won't test those rules. If Finley is signed during the team's exclusive negotiating window, it would leave Flynn free for that.

Flynn will be a hot commodity. His last performance is still echoing around the league; when you set a team record for touchdown passes in a game, there will be echoes. A closer examination of his passing in that game shows that three of those passes for touchdowns were pretty much all YAC, but the passes that set them up were decent. Watch every pass in that game and it is hard to think of all 480 yards as having been earned the hard way, as Detroit's secondary looked almost disinterested in tackling or covering, but it was accomplished in wind and light snow, which is a scouting consideration. Potentially, Seattle could play critical future playoff games in places like Green Bay, Chicago, and New York, and a quarterback who doesn't shrivel in the winter is important.

Flynn is a fit Seattle's offense in most respects. He fits the bill as a point guard quarterback. Athletic enough and mobile enough, Flynn did an above average job against Detroit of identifying and then exploiting match ups. He is not a laser armed surgeon, and expecting him to dissect a defense by fitting the ball into tight spaces 30 yards down field would be a disaster, but Seattle's offense does not do that much anyway. In fact, in watching Flynn against Detroit, a lot of the playcalls were eerily similar to Seattle OC Darell Bevell's - everything just looked better. Maybe because his targets are better players.

Here are some of the things Flynn does better than Tarvaris Jackson:

- Flynn throws to single coverage even if the player looks covered. Mike Williams languished in Seattle while healthy this year because he simply does not create separation. Tarvaris seems to need to see separation in order to pull the trigger. It was clear against Detroit that Flynn knows where the matchups are, and if a defense single-covers them, he will throw the ball there and let his playmaker make a play.

- Flynn throws with clutter and debris at his back and feet better. TJ tends to react to pressure by relying on his arm strength while falling out of his throw, and that is if he didn't pull the ball (and his eyes) down and ramble into a sack. Flynn steps into his throw properly. He has to - his arm is clearly not as strong as Jackson's. Which is okay, because...

- Flynn has quicker recognition. I think a lot of this is tied to Tarvaris really needing to see separation before he will throw. He ends up needing that superior arm because he waits that extra second for a player to come open. Sometimes I get the impression that Tarvaris actually throws the ball just as the window is closing.

- Flynn uses the entire field better. Jackson is numerically and visually terrible at using the middle of the field, like a point guard who can't throw a post up lob. If Seattle plans on exploiting its tight ends properly in the future, Flynn most definitely is better at this. He threw more touchdowns to tight ends in one game than Jackson did in one season. Yes, there are many good reasons Seattle did not target tight ends as much as Green Bay, but a pass catching position with no touchdowns speaks volumes. Particularly when you consider that Miller did not get his payday to be a 3rd tackle.

Where Flynn really lacks is arm strength. His arm is below average, there is no other way to describe it. He will get picked on occasion just because a pass hung out there too long. Those of you who hated Matt Hasselbeck's rainbows will not find Flynn too much different.

I can't honestly say that Seattle could not do better in the draft, but currently it appears that everything Seattle could get in the draft without trading picks is both developmental and speculative in overall quality. Even the one player Seattle could conceivably trade up for, uber playmaker Robert Griffin III, is an NFL mystery with his spread roots, mechanical shortcomings, and scrambling style that looks custom-made for frequent smashing from NFL defenses.

A player like Flynn creates several questions for the Seahawks to consider. He clearly uses the playmakers in Green Bay better than Jackson is using the playmakers in Seattle, but will the extra touchdowns be enough to offset the probability that he will also have more turnovers? Pete's philosophy includes a view of turnovers that borders on phobic.

Another question to consider: is a possibly incremental upgrade at quarterback really that important, or should Seattle be more focused on developing a more prototypical quarterback who can exploit an ever more pass-oriented league? Can a player like Flynn be signed to a deal that allows the Seahawks to cut ties with him after 2 or 3 years without huge cap implications in the years that follow? Or will a contract with Flynn handcuff Seattle to him in the long term, like Kansas City is handcuffs to Cassell and the Cardinals to Kolb?

And maybe the most unanswerable question, how much ceiling does Flynn have left?

I am not advocating that Seattle sign Matt Flynn. In fact, even though I think he mostly fits what Seattle wants to do, I am not a fan of the major commitment for a moderate upgrade. The part of me that just can't stand the thought of rolling with Tarvaris is yelling at my typing digits as I write this, but Flynn is not the real answer, he is only the easy answer.

Larry Fitzgerald returns home to Krypton after helping the Cards narrowly defeat Seahawks

2012-01-02T04:20:00.000-08:00

Even closer than it felt

I badly wanted Seattle to win today. Had they won, they would have posted their first non-losing season since 2007. Had they won, it would have put a nice 6-2 finish bow on a 2-6 start turd, which would have made for a cool offseason storyline.

In retrospect though, that mentality doomed me for disappointment. Even before the game, I should have realized that Seattle didn't stand a chance. Not because Arizona is a better team. But because since their previous showdown in week 3, the Cardinals have become masters of winning ugly, clutch games. Arizona had won five of their seven previous games, and in all five of those wins, they trailed in the second half. In four of those five wins, they trailed in the 4th quarter. Their biggest margin of victory in those games was six points (and that was in overtime). Clearly, the Cardinals had learned a thing or two about being clutch since the last meeting.

Whereas the Cardinals have been nearly immaculate in close games, the Seahawks have been the opposite, going 1-4 in games decided by a single score since beating the Cardinals 13-10 back in week 3. With the season over, they finished with a 2-5 record in games decided by six points or less. Does this surprise anybody? I didn't think so. I should have seen a 23-20 overtime loss coming.

It also greatly saddened me to see Marshawn Lynch's streak of consecutive games with a touchdown end today, even moreso because Lynch played yet another great game. His lack of scoring had nothing to do with his own failings and everything to do with an inept offensive gameplan and execution in the red zone.

I felt pretty down after this one. And then I realized something. Finishing 8-8 instead of 7-9... it doesn't actually matter. Marshawn Lynch extending his streak... also doesn't actually matter. It doesn't really impact the Seahawks in a tangible bad way at all. You know what actually does impact the Seahawks? The fact that they will pick 11th or 12th instead of 16th in the 2012 draft. The fact that they will play Carolina and Dallas instead of (last year's #1 seed) Atlanta and the (suddenly great again) Eagles. I would have happily traded those for a win today, but there is no reason to sulk over the meaningful consolation prize we've been gifted.

Despite a difference in how the seasons ended, I can't help but feel that the Seahawks 2011 season was 2002 revisited. The 2002 team started 0-3 before eventually having a franchise QB develop out of nowhere and finishing strong with the look of an elite offense. The 2011 team started 0-2 and eventually had a running game and potentially elite defense appear out of nowhere. Both teams finished with 7-9 records and enjoyed a notable hot stretch during the season. The next team that followed 2002 squad won 10 games and began a stretch of 5 straight playoff appearances, including a Superbowl appearance. With a few wise moves this offseason, the next five years for 2011's team could be equally as great.

I've never been a particularly big fan of Matt Flynn, but watching him throw for six touchdowns and almost 500 yards today while watching Tarvaris Jackson struggle with deep accuracy, red zone throws, and a general inability to find consistency, it made a pretty damn compelling case for Flynn as a 2012 Seahawk.

I mean this as no disrespect to Jackson. He's tough, he's a good person, he's a coachable player, and he's played well enough to win 7 of his 14 starts despite playing hurt in many of them. But if I had to lay the blame for today's loss on only one person, there is no doubt that I'd choose #7- and this wasn't even a particularly bad game for him really. Watching a mediocre quarterback like John Skelton improvise and make just enough plays to win was a bit of an eye opener. Seattle can find a quarterback better than Jackson, and it wouldn't even be that hard to do really. Don't just assume that Josh Portis or some late round quarterback this year is only a long term project. If John Skelton- a 5th round pick in only his 11th career start- can outplay Jackson, a lot of guys could.

Larry Fitzgerald is freaking amazing. On a day where Richard Sherman did a terrific job in coverage, Fitzgerald just didn't seem to care as he racked up no less than four highlight worthy catches, the last of which essentially won the game. All those investigators checking Century Link Field for piped in noise should probably check Larry Fitzgerald's gloves for telekinetic technology borrowed from an advanced alien civilization.

We probably just watched Justin Forsett's final game as a Seahawk. Its rather hard to believe that Forsett rushed for 5.4 yards per carry just two years ago. So much for the addition of BFF Marshawn Lynch making Forsett a better back. I hope Forsett, who is a free agent, lands on an NFL team next year. But after posting 3.2 yards per carry and only 145 total rushing yards in 2011, I sincerely doubt that team will be ours.

KJ Wright is a nifty player, but a few times today I noticed that he isn't the hardest linebacker to block out of a running play. If its true that our linebacker corps is at fault for the team's slipping rush defense, Wright wouldn't be a bad place to start the investigation.

Golden Tate made a couple of slightly dumb decisions with the rock in his hands today, but overall I really like the progress he's made in 2011. In particular, his hands have become far more reliable, and his blocking is no longer a joke.

Max Unger was humiliated by Darnell Dockett for a sack early in the game. Unger has come so far, but he still has a ways to go before he can master nasty interior pass rushers like Dockett. Lemuel Jeanpierre also struggled rather notably on outside rush attempts, often getting blown into the backfield. Overall though, the line- particularly Gallery & Unger- once again did a terrific job collapsing the middle on rush attempts all day long.

I don't mean this to pick on anyone, but it blows my mind that there are people out there who really think Marshawn Lynch is the same back now that he was in 2010, and that only the line has improved. On numerous occasions today, Lynch took a minimal hole to run through and produced 4-7 yard gains in impressive fashion. Leon Washington had a great touchdown run today, but I couldn't help but feel that Seattle's coaching staff made a big mistake allowing Jackson to throw 35 times compared to only 19 carries for Lynch on a day where Lynch was clearly bringing it. Its cheesy if not cliche to say a team should have "fed the rock" to its running back more, but at least today, that line of thinking was true. Its no coincidence that Seattle's offense clicked the most when Lynch was carrying up the middle the most. Seattle must make re-signing Lynch a very big priority. Outside of possibly Trent Richardson, I don't think they will find a better short term back in this draft.

There were a lot of annoying things that happened in this game. Chris Clemons had a dumb offsides on 3rd and 8, which helped extend a drive that ultimately ended in a touchdown. Golden Tate failed to cut up field for the first on a critical 3rd down play in the 4th quarter. Red Bryant missed a heroic block on the game winning kick by six inches at most. Seattle scored six combined points on three redzone trips. But for all those annoyances, the ones that bugged me the most were the fraudulent late hit calls on Brandon Browner and later Richard Sherman. I don't have DVR on my PC, but if I did, I could freeze frame the moment Browner's target stepped out of bounds, and you'd see a paused Browner 2 inches shy of delivering his hit at that moment. Sherman's call was even worse, as the player wasn't even officially out of bounds yet when the hit was given. Its not that those calls had huge impacts on the game, but rather that those calls feel so obvious, at least on TV. Being able to sense a "bang/bang play" really shouldn't be that hard to do.

I actually liked how our pass rush performed today. I have to give John Skelton a ton of credit for standing tall in collapsing pockets and escaping to make positive plays on numerous occasions. I certainly hope he loses his starting job to Kevin Kolb next preseason by merit of contract and investment.

Leon Washington finally performed like a dynamic change of pace back, which included a LaMichael James-esque 48 yard score- the longest run of Washington's Seahawks tenure. To put that in perspective, his longest rush attempt last year was only 21 yards.

Finally, a measure of redemption for Jay Feely, who easily nailed all three of his field goal attempts, including the game winner. Feely went 1-3 against Seattle earlier this year, including an inexplicable miss in the 4th quarter. And of course- he missed not one, not two, but three game winners in that epic 2005 Giants game when NFC supremacy itself was on the line. Its a shame Red Bryant just missed a devastating blocked kick on that game winner, but then again, I'd say Feely has suffered enough by this point. He finally gets the monkey off his back. Lord knows, its been there for a while.

Indiana Carroll and the Quarterback Crusade

2011-12-27T12:39:00.000-08:00

For a while, the Seahawks' 2011 campaign was just one long draft discussion. Who are we getting at QB next year - that's all we cared about. Then the running game and defense suddenly emerged and started making a regular season out of it. That was fun, and hugely heartening. 2011 proved more informative and promising than we had expected.

But now, with the 49ers loss, we're swinging back into the holding pattern despite having a little football still left to play. And with that reversion, some shelved concerns are coming back with a vengeance.

A lot of us don't trust Pete Carroll to get our future quarterback right. I confess I don't.

And this despite Pete Carroll and GM John Schneider having done what most of us would have considered impossible: not only dump an entire roster whose financial footprint made it nigh undumpable, but replace most of that roster with talented high-ceiling starters - within two offseasons.

Wait...lockout...one and a half offseasons!

The rational sliver of my mind says, "What more do these guys need to prove to you?" They've validated themselves at virtually every position, spectacularly in some cases (Kam Chancellor! Doug Baldwin! ZOMG RICHARD SHERMAN!!!!!!!1!11). But when it comes to the cornerstone of quarterback, we're tetchy. Anxiously rehashing the debates. Wringing out the talking points without mercy. Flooding Rob Staton with page hits. All the signs of someone who needs a lot more reassurance.

Irrational. "They are really good at evaluation and fit for 235 players, but not good at the QB's?" asks intrepid Seahawks flogger* Davis Hsu. "Let's give them a little more credit."

Maybe it's just the importance of that all-consuming QB position that makes me nervous. It feels a little akin to choosing the right spouse - correcting a bad decision comes only at great, great cost (especially if, like me, one doesn't believe in divorce), so the decision gains that much more weight. A bad QB can be ejected, but as the Jets are about to find out, it ain't pretty.

That, and we're not used to trusting the judgment of a GM after years of Tim Ruskell. We've long since taken the responsibility for scouting into our own hands, without the training or knack for it, as fans of bad teams so often do. So, we worry.

Or...maybe it's just because of Charlie Whitehurst.

If the bust there was that severe (and it WAS severe), what does that say about this front office's QB evaluation skills?

Okay, let's turn this point into material rather than letting it push us around. The front office whiffed on Whitehurst. I called the whiff before it happened, and so did a lot of other folks, so it's easy to fume over why Pete Carroll couldn't see what we all saw (that fan arrogance coming into play here for me). And, of course, we fans never forget a wasted draft pick. Despite Carroll's Midas touch in seemingly every round, that lost third-rounder (who has accrued exactly four tackles for San Diego, by the way) still sticks in our minds like an unwashed doorknob in Adrian Monk's. Throw in the goodwill that hopeful fans invested in him, and the teases that Whitehurst showed along the way, and we're not very happy with Carroll over that particular trade.

But Davis eloquently points out of Carroll and Schneider, "No one bats 1000, these guys are batting like 750-800."

My brain replies, "But they liked Tarvaris Jackson, too." Tarvaris's small contract rolls its eyes and mutters, "Not that much."

The rumor mill chimes in, "They also liked Kevin Kolb and Trent Edwards"; Tarvaris' contract jumps back in, "Not enough to value them more than me, apparently."

I fret over the endless support Jackson has gotten from Carroll, as if it might mean a long future for him under Seattle's center; Matt Hasselbeck calls over from Tennessee, "I got that treatment at first, too." The Seahawks' 2011 draft board pipes up from a landfill somewhere, "They had Blaine Gabbert, Colin Kaepernick, and Andy Dalton ranked as their top QB's"; James Carpenter interjects from his stationary cycle, "But they picked me instead." I'm tempted to pine over Ryan Mallett; the entire 12th Man plugs their ears in haste. My memory dredges up the vague "point guard" comments from Carroll; logic reminds that there's no reason to conclude that we're actively searching for the next Trent Dilfer.

And eventually, I remember that once the irrational thoughts start forming a parade, the definition of "worry" has been officially satisfied.

Kip Earlywine posted from Seahawks Draft Blog a while ago about "Having Faith" and gave us good reasons to do so. Neither financial concerns nor draft position have stopped the Seahawks from stacking on the talent thus far. Pete Carroll has produced a long line of strong quarterbacks at USC and has avoided several traps in the draft (Jimmy Clausen, Tim Tebow) already. They've done their due diligence on many different QB options, signaling their awareness of the position's importance, yet have refused to gamble on a prospect whose cost outweighed the likely benefits. Are not these great positives?

Perhaps even more encouraging is the learning that Pete Carroll has done since arriving in Renton. He's shown growth. When he re-signed Brandon Mebane and returned him to his natural nose tackle spot, I remember him remarking about how he had "more information" on Mebane to make decisions now. Some of us had liked Mebane more at the 1-tech for a while anyway, but that's irrelevant - I sincerely hope that Pete would not be surfing this blogosphere for tips anyway. His own eyes and his own people confirmed the idea, and Pete swallowed the mistake and corrected it.

That's huge. I hate ego. College coaches bust because of that more than any other reason, because they walk into the well-established NFL and think they know best. But the NFL is a petri dish of change, adaptation, innovation, and Carroll has shown himself flexible enough to ride that wave. It's huge to have a head coach whose eyes are fixed outward instead of inward.

Hsu put it eloquently and personally: "In the realm of having two kids, I feel like a more confident and better parent with my second than my first kid. First time, you make more mistakes." So say we all. If Pete was going to screw up at the QB position, it's better to do it early and cheap, as he did with Whitehurst, than with a high draft pick three or more years into the rebuild. Make no mistake - eventually, success will be required. "Failing for cheaper" won't keep him employed after five years. But his failures so far are not damning. They are recoverable, understandable, well-received teachable moments, and most importantly, now in the rear-view mirror.

As we trod once again into the long, dark draft season, with Seahawks Draft Blog as our flashlight, let's at least carry some faith with us. Pete Carroll and John Schneider appear pretty QB-smart to everyone except the worrywarts. They've brought us a long ways in a very short amount of time and put us back on the national radar. Time to shed our PTSD from the Ruskell era and start trusting. It'll do all our stomachs a lot of good.

Later: A similar, more analytical Carroll-and-QB's piece from Scott Williams, the next in a long line of excellent Scottwork that I keep forgetting to post.

*Note: "flogger" was intentional. It's my made-up word for someone who uses his Twitter stream, and occasionally Fieldgulls, for his blog home despite having the smarts and productivity to do well with one of his own. Chalk Adam Wright into this category too. (Better yet - both of you, start a blog already. They're all free and stuff.)

DVR Run Analysis - San Francisco @ Seattle; 24-Dec-2011

2011-12-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

Here's my DVR Run Analysis for the 49ers/Seahawks game...

Note: You can also read the run analysis of the Bears, Rams, Eagles, and Redskins games.

We lost. Dang! But our running game was amazingly good. We had zero plays for a loss. Only five of 25 plays were for less than three yards. We scored a running TD - the first against SF this year. Lynch ran for over 100 yards - the first 100 yard run game allowed by the Niners in the past 36 games. To run this well against the toughest run D in the league is a heck of an accomplishment. Though we lost the game and are eliminated from the playoffs, we've got something to build upon next year.

Overall, our planned runs earned 121 yards on 25 carries for a 4.8 YPC average. Lynch has scored a TD in eleven games in a row, extending his record. Beast Mode accounted for 107 yards on 21 carries for 5.1 YPC and one historic touchdown. This was quite the turnaround after our weak running game in Chicago. That we beat the Bears and lost to the Niners, however, shows that there is more to football than running...

* Q1 - We ran for 3, 3, 18, 5, and 4 yards. That adds up to 33 yards and 6.6 YPC. One first down. Unfortunately, I didn't see any of it as Fox showed the conclusion of the Giants-Jets game to the Portland market.

[14:12] 1st and 10. I was OutFoxed. Lynch to LT for 3.
[1:34] 2nd and 7. OutFoxed. Lynch to RT for 3.
[7:19] 2nd and 20. OutFoxed. Lynch to RT for 18.
[6:52] 3rd and 2. OutFoxed. Lynch to RT for 5. 1st down.
[6:14] 1st and 10. OutFoxed. Washington to LT for 4.

7-0, Seahawks.

* Q2 - Four poor plays, nine successful. 64 yards for 4.9 YPC and four first downs.

[14:23] 1st and 10. Miller lines up outside then motions to the slot position. Zone left. Unger gets good push and Robinson goes up the middle to help. Jeanpierre releases to make a nice block. Giacomini gets pushed aside, but Lynch is able to beat the back side attack, take a step right, and beast for six yards. Obo shielded the corner then went up and hammered the free safety for the heck of it. Ben came to play. (Unfortunately, he would go on to sprain his knee in the 4th quarter.)
[13:46] 2nd and 4. Zone right. Awsome push by everybody except Gallery, who does fine by taking his man across the line. McQuistan releases forward. Lynch cuts left behind Gallery then inside McQuistan and behind Unger for the first down. He tries to get more and Giacomini and Jeanpierre come to help, but that's all there is.
[12:25] 2nd and 4. Zone left with solid push as Unger comes up to demolish the LB. Forsett runs to left guard and powers between two defenders for the extra couple yards and the 1st.
[10:57] 2nd and 4. Receivers on the left. Zone right. Nice push as Miller (on the right) takes it outside and Giacomini seals. Robinson pauses to help then releases to block the strong safety. Lynch follows through the hole and beasts between two defenders, taking them downfield until the free safety stops the momentum. 15 yards. 1st down.
[10:16] 1st and 10. Miller in the slot. Zone right. D-line quick off the ball. McQuistan fails to get the DE. Robinson gets him, but McQuistan turns around, rather than going forward. Lynch is stopped at a one yard gain by Gallery's man and an unblocked LB. McQ should have helped Gallery or gone to get the LB.
[6:39] 1st and 10. Receivers on the right. Zone right. Robinson gets the guy off the edge perfectly. The middle of our line dominates with a nice push. Lynch powers behind Jeanpierre into the scrum for five yards.
[6:05] 2nd and 5. Obo is lined up tight with 2 TEs on the left side. Zone left with little flow as 85 pulls right with a slash block. Our left side gets push, but everything stays tight. McQuistan loses his man to the inside, but Lynch is able to blow by him and avoid the tackle to find a nice seam. Lynch breaks two more tackles, then Unger comes to smash the ultimate tackler and Lynch forward. Ten yards. First down.
[5:26] 1st and 10. Zone left with push, though Jeanpierre misses his cut block. Leon goes left and outruns the backside attack. Leon splits McQuistan, Miller, and their defenders for five yards.
[4:54] 2nd and 5. Miller lines up outside then motions to the slot position. Zone left. Unger gets limited push and Robinson goes to his right. Giacomini is in a stalemate. Jeanpierre releases to make a nice block. Lynch splits Unger and Giacomini, but the hole collapses. One yard.
[3:48] 2nd and 10. 2 receivers right. TE left. Zone left as Robinson leads inside the TE. Lynch follows Robinson but the fullback is outnumbered. Lynch breaks the first tackle as Gallery comes to help, but Lynch is smothered by a second tackler after four yards.
[2:23] 1st and goal at the 7. Giacomini is at left TE and Miller is at RT. We take it straight ahead with Gallery and Miller going to the 2nd level. McQuistan gets a nice 2nd effort push. Lynch follows McQuistan and breaks a tackle, but has his leg trapped by Giacomini's man. Otherwise, a TD. Gain of four.
[2:00] 2nd and goal at the 3. Tate fakes an end around as we take it straight ahead with a solid push. Lynch goes up the gut and is turned backwards as the pile stacks up. He reaches the ball over the goal line, but the refs say that he's down. Gain of two.
[1:41] 3rd and goal at the 1. McQuistan clearly false starts, but it's not called. Robinson doesn't play through. TJ stalls and doesn't give the ball to Lynch, then turns around, sees the play is live, and runs left. Tate doesn't finish his block and his man knocks TJ out of bounds for no gain. We have to settle for a FG.

10-3, Seahawks.

* First half totals: 97 yards on 18 planned runs for a 5.4 ypc average.

* Q3 - 8 yards on 3 carries for 2.7 YPC. 2, 3, and 3 yards. No first downs. Not enough opportunities.

[10:56] 1st and 10. Zone right with Morrah slashing to the left. Good initial push on the right. Lynch runs right, but the D stops his momentum. 2 yards.
[10:27] 2nd and 8. Zone left with excellent push. Robinson fails to cut his man. Lynch tripped by Robinson's man. He tries to keep going forward, but is called down after three yards.
[3:55] 1st and 17 at our own 7. Zone left. Gallery unable to release. Giacomini unable to sustain his block. Lynch follows Unger but is met by two defenders. 3 yards.

13-10, 49ers.

* Q4 - 16 yards on 4 carries for a 4.0 yard average. One TD(!) No poor (<3 yard) plays.

[12:27] 2nd and 10. Zone left with nice push from Unger. Jeanpierre fails to block the LB. Gallery fails to sustain his block. Lynch runs to Unger's right, gets 3 yards, and gets the squeeze from Jeanpierre and Gallery's men.
[6:47] 1st and goal at the 4. Power with Jeanpierre and Miller pulling left. Possible hold by Giacomini, but he's away from the play. Lynch simply outruns the defense. The unblocked ILB cuts off the OLB and fails to make the tackle. The unblocked safety is too late. 1st rushing TD against the Niners this year!
[2:52] 1st and 10. Zone right with Gallery holding back to fake the pass. Nice right side push. Lynch runs to the right, goes inside Miller and powers forward for six. Beast Mode cracks 100 yards against the Niners.
[2:00] 1st and 10. Even the cameraman is thinking pass. Zone right. Lynch cuts back inside, but is caught by the unblocked outside defender.

* Second half totals: 24 yards on 7 runs for a 3.4 ypc average.

49ers win 19-17.

* Overall Blocking - Unger gets the 17 Power Award for the week due to his flawless play, great push, and a complete turnaround compared to the previous week. Against the Bears, Unger was often two steps backward. Against the 49ers, Unger was two steps downfield. (Was he hurting the previous week?) Everybody else had the occasional weak play, but far more great plays with good push than bad. This was an impressive performance by a line with three of five backup players. Okung still owns his spot, but Moffitt and Carpenter had better come to camp next year ready to compete.

* Play calling - This was zone, zone, and zone. The first time I saw a guard pull was on Lynch's TD. (As far as I know. I was Foxed out of the first quarter.) Starting Miller outside and motioning him into the slot was a new wrinkle.

We also ran lighter sets - Of the plays I saw, we only had two plays with a fullback and two TEs. We ran "11" (one running back, one TE) six times, "12" four times, and "21" six times. This was right in line with the play action strategy, not telling the Niners if we planned to run or pass.

* Runners - Lynch ran well and hard as usual, reading our zone scheme beautifully and making defenders pay for their tackles. His most impressive play was the TD. Lynch has more speed than people think. Good yards from Leon and Justin. No fumbles - except when TJ was scrambling, of course.

* Summary - Reviewing our running plays, I was pissed that we had lost. The line and our backs did their jobs. It's a shame that the Niners were able to get the lead and limit our passing game in the second half as that took away our opportunities to keep attacking with the run. PC wanted to close this game out on the ground.

Unfortunately, our D wasn't able to stop the Niners. I counted three holds on Branch in the second half that weren't called. I think that's what PC wasn't willing to talk about in his presser.

I expect us to ram the ball down the Cards throats next week as we compete for second place in our division. We have a sour taste in our mouths. We are tough. And we can run.

Go Hawks!

Seahawks lose most meaningful meaningless game ever

2011-12-24T18:03:00.000-08:00

Before I start- Merry Christmas everyone!

I guess it would be incorrect to say this was a meaningless game, as Seattle still held incredibly slim and convoluted playoff hopes even after the Lions put the finishing touches on their playoff clinching beatdown of the Chargers. For all intents and purposes though, after Detroit jumped out to a huge early lead, it became pretty clear that today's stakes were essentially symbolic.

I know I can't speak for every fan, but given my new found hatred for the 49ers, all I wanted was to see my team spoil the 49ers run at history. They had not allowed a rushing touchdown this season, which has never been done before. They also hadn't allowed a 100 yard rusher all year. Both of those streaks came to an end today. It doesn't make up for losing, but it came surprisingly close for me. Thank goodness for that touchdown too, or else I might have gone mental over that goal line fiasco in the first half.

Seattle was clearly the better team in the first half, limiting Alex Smith to 6-15 passing while Lynch amassed over 80 of his eventual 107 yards rushing. You could tell Smith's only mission today was to avoid throwing a pick at all costs, and while he played better in the second half, his final line boasted a bad 53.8% completion rate and a "meh" 6.88 yards per attempt. Frank Gore was held to only 3.6 yards per carry. Really, the only consistent offensive force all day was Kendall Hunter, who helped remind us all how badly Seattle could use a dynamic change of pace back.

That said, the 49ers, particularly in the 2nd half, had a nose for the first down marker. Time and again, they converted first downs with less than two yards to spare. They only converted 3 of 14 third downs for the day, but they got a huge 4th down conversion when they needed one, and they were money converting on 2nd down. Seattle only ran six plays on offense in the 3rd quarter, and nearly had a third straight three and out early in the 4th if not for an unusual pass interference penalty.

So good for the 49ers. They truly deserved to win this game. They outgained our team and it wasn't really that close. They won time of possession. They dominated Leon Washington. They had the balls to go for it on 4th down at smart times, something Pete had chances to do but didn't. Other than a clutch blocked punt and just a couple penalties, they essentially played a mistake free game. It might have been the best (or at least most disciplined) game they played all season, and Seattle led that team with less than five minutes to go. That's something to be proud of.

I'm only left with one question about this team. Wasn't Tavaris Jackson supposed to be a mobile quarterback? I swear, in recent weeks he's looked about as mobile as Joe Flacco... if that. I always thought T-Jack's mobility was over-rated, but I'm starting to realize that coaching is playing a big part too. On that botched 3rd down run from the 1 yard line, Jackson had the edge and I really think most NFL quarterbacks would have made it with a full sprint. Jackson seemed to be running at 80%, almost as if he wasn't sure if he was allowed to run or not. This is where not having a credible backup is hurting the Seahawks in an invisible but significant way. At no point this season could Seattle afford an injury to Jackson. It really makes you wonder how much that's compromised their play call selection, and how much its impacted Jackson's comfort in the offense since he's a natural tuck-and-run type.

No bullet points today, as I'm tuckered out from writing some 6 hour long posts at Seahawks Draft Blog as of late. Well okay, just one bullet point:

Congratulations Ricardo Lockette on your first NFL catch!

DVR Run Analysis - Seattle @ Chicago; 18-Dec-2011

2011-12-21T19:51:00.000-08:00

Here's my DVR Run Analysis for the Seahawks/Bears game...

Note: You can also read the run analysis of the Rams, Eagles, and Redskins games.

* The Bears may have lost the game, but their run defense is tough. To gain yardage on the ground, we needed a hat on a hat - plus speed, strength, and leverage, if not luck. But credit the Seahawks for continuing to pound the ball. We were able to run the ball into the end zone, and the run game softened the Bear's pass defense.

* Overall, our planned runs earned 60 yards on 32 carries for a 1.9 YPC average. Lynch has now scored a TD in ten games in a row, a new record. He is the first Seahawk RB since Shaun Alexander to earn over 1,000 yards. On Sunday, Beast Mode accounted for 42 yards on 20 carries for 2.1 YPC and two touchdowns. A weak day on the ground, yet a dominant win.

* Q1 - We had only three good runs in nine tries. That added up to just 4 yards and 0.4 YPC. One TD. An additional failed run was negated by a holding call.

[13:57] 1st and 10. Two TEs on the right. Zone right with Morrah slashing left. Jeanpierre gets pushed back, but he turns his man to the outside. Miller and Giacomini combo block the DE. Giacomini releases but is too late to get the LB. Tate makes a nice block outside. Rather than cut back to the slash, Lynch goes right and is able to beat Giacomini's LB for four yards.
[13:17] 2nd and 6. Zone left. Unger and Miller get pushed back. Gallery chips to help Unger and goes forward. Lynch squeezes between Unger and Miller and beasts the pile forward with some help from the linemen. Four yard gain. Not a bad start.
[10:25] 1st and Goal at the 1. McQuistan and Gallery open a nice hole. Robinson leads to smother the LB. Unfortunately, Jackson pitches the ball to Washington who runs to the outside and is met by a wall of unblocked defenders. Should have taken it straight ahead. Loss of two.
[9:57] 2nd and Goal at the 3. Probably a zone right call. Jeanpierre steps too far right and loses the DT. McCoy is slow off the snap and is beaten badly by Peppers. Lynch has no chance. Loss of four.
[8:57] 1st and Goal at the 1. After a Bears' penalty on the field goal attempt, we run a power play with Jeanpierre pulling left. Unger takes his DT right. Morrah stonewalls Peppers. Gallery combos with McQuistan then releases to get in the way of two LBs. Lynch bursts through falling forward, surprised that he didn't get contact. In fact, Conte saved his own skin by jumping out of Lynch's way. TD!
[3:57] 1st and 10. Zone right. Lynch and McQuistan are slow off the snap. McQuistan is then tripped by Morrah. Robinson leads and smashes into Urlacher, but lacks the weight to drive him forward. Lynch gets one yard as he's stopped by McQuistan's man.
[3:05] 2nd and 9 on our own five yard line. Lynch slips and falls in the end zone. TJ keeps his head, keeps the ball, and keeps it out of the end zone, avoiding a safety. Loss of four. This sets up a sack fumble for a Bears TD on the next pass play.
[2:57] 1st and 10. Zone left. Gallery and McQuistan lack push, but are able to turn their men outside. Lynch cuts back right. Unger combos with Jeanpierre, then releases. There is a nice hole near RT, but the DE gets his arms extended on Miller. Lynch sees it and cuts further right, but there is an unblock safety on the prowl. Gain of one.
[1:57] 1st and 10. Zone left with push and a combo block on the right side. Robinson leads inside of RG. Lynch follows, but the Bears converge. Gain of two.
[:57] 2nd and 8. Zone left, but Jeanpierre loses his block badly and holds. Lynch forced left but can't get to the edge. No play.

Tied, 7-7.

* Q2 - Two good runs in six plays, plus a false start. 30 yards for 5 YPC and two first downs.

[15:00] 2nd and 18. False start, Giacomini.
[9:44] 1st and 10 on our one yard line. QB sneak straight ahead for two yards.
[9:11] 2nd and 8 on our three. Zone left with two TEs on the right side. Gallery goes forward for one backer, then turns right to get another. Robinson comes up to block the first backer after Unger and McQuistan open a huge hole. Lynch finds open space, makes the first tackler miss and gets an extra five yards on the second. A perfectly executed play, fifteen yards, and a first down.
[8:27] 1st and 10. Stretch left. Peppers gets push on LT McQuistan as Morrah takes his man outside and back. Lynch sees McQuistan losing ground and cuts left at the last moment. Lynch squeezes between McQuistan and Morrah, but by that time, Gallery had already lost engagement on Urlacher. Gain of two.
[7:47] 2nd and 8. Zone left with Miller slashing right. Gallery gets too tall as he and McQuistan get pushed back. Lynch doesn't cut back with the slash, which is good, because Urlacher stayed home. Lynch makes it through our pushed-back line for no gain
[1:41] 2nd and 10. Inside zone left as Miller takes the DE outside and Giacomini seals. Forsett gets through a clean seam, beats the strong safety, but is met head on by the free safety. Gain of nine.
[1:24] 3rd and 1. Zone left with flow, but little push. Jeanpierre gains a step, but loses his man to the left. Miller, on the right end, is a half step behind his man, flowing left. Forsett barely gets the first down as Miller's man gets his legs and Jeanpierre's man gets his chest. Gain of two from a very optimistic spot by the officials.

14-7, Bears.

* First half totals: 34 yards on 15 runs for a 2.3 ypc average.

* Q3 - 7 yards on 7 carries for 1 YPC. Two good plays: one is a TD. Longest run: three yards.

[13:07] 1st and goal at the 3 yard line. Power. Jeanpierre is hit by a LB coming to the line with momentum. Jeanpierre gives a step, but turns him left. Gallery pulls right, is nearly impeded, but he is able to get outside RT as Giacomini and Miller make nice blocks to open the lane. Gallery helps Miller secure leverage, then goes for a backer. Lynch gets to the hole and powers by Urlacher for the TD.
[10:04] 1st and 10. Zone right. Unger is pushed back and the free safety comes on the right side. Robinson gets the FS, but he and Unger cause a clog. Lynch gets around Robinson. Jeanpierre and Giacomini had combo'd, but Giacomini was delayed too long to get the LB. The LB seals the edge and Lynch caught for a gain of one.
[8:17] 1st and 10. Three receivers in a tight formation. Zone left. Peppers beats McQuistan inside badly. Gallery doesn't offer help yet still can't get to the LB quickly enough. Unger is washed out to the left. Lynch gets to McQuistan, cuts outside, but has no chance. Loss of one.
[6:52] 3rd and 9. Forsett runs an inside zone left. Urlacher stayed home as the D outnumbers the play. No gain.
[4:02] 2nd and 6. Zone right. Unger and Jeanpierre don't team up well on the DT. Jeanpierre goes forward, but Unger can't make the block. Robinson has to block the DT instead, but that leaves an extra man up the field. Lynch makes it around Robinson's nice improv block, but is met by an unblocked safety. Gain of one.
[2:35] 1st and 10. We have two TEs, but Morrah lines up wide. Zone left with Gallery going forward, but Unger gets washed out back and left. McQuistan blocks Peppers left and outside, but Peppers gets his arms extended. Robinson leads to the hole, but Peppers sheds the block and squeezes Lynch with Unger's man. No gain.
[1:57] 2nd and 10. Zone left with Robinson leading left with a nice block. Jeanpierre releases as Unger and Giacomini string their men out. Lynch gets to Unger pushes the center and his man forward, then does the same for Giacomini. Gain of three.

24-14, Seahawks.

* Q4 - 19 yards on 10 carries for a 1.9 yard average. One first down. Only three of the nine plays were successful.

[13:18] 1st and goal at the 3. Zone right. Unger tries to go forward to Urlacher, but is pushed aside. Forsett cuts back along the seam, but meets Urlacher. Gain of one. Had Unger squared up the LB, it would have probably been a Forsett TD. No problem. Two plays later, Robinson receives a TD pass.
[10:24] 1st and 10. Zone left. Gallery unable to get the Will LB. McQuistan and Miller get no push. Robinson unable to cut right to the oncoming LB and goes outside to chop block McQuistan's man instead. (Should have been a penalty.) This just pins Lynch in. Loss of four.
[8:08] 2nd and 6. Chaos on a probable zone left. McQuistan whiffs a block as Robinson leads left. Lynch follows Robinson, sees McQuistan's man and makes a violent cut to the right. Giacomini makes a nice cut block, allowing Lynch to get through. Jeanpierre had gone forward and makes a nice block on the safety. It's not the way we drew it up, but it confuses the Bears' D. Gain of 12. First down.
[7:23] 1st and 10. Two receivers on the right. Lynch runs left. The assignments are poor, so Gallery pulls late to the outside, but fails to get to the defender. (That probably wasn't his responsibility.) The left side gets a small push, but the defender on the edge gets Lynch's legs. Gain of one.
[6:41] 2nd and 9. Zone right, but Unger and Giacomini are pushed back. Robinson makes a decent block, but the LB recovers. Unger's and Giocomini's men converge on Lynch for a loss of one.
[5:57] 3rd and 10. Three receiver set. Power with Gallery pulling past RT. Miller splits his man right to open the hole. Leon gets there quickly for a gain of three.
[4:14] 1st and 10. Zone right with a cutback. Gallery is pushed back a step. McQuistan goes forward but misses with his cut block. Forsett gets to Gallery's back and tries to push him forward, but it's no use. Forsett goes right and is swarmed for a gain of one.
[3:25] 2nd and 9. Zone right. Giacomini splits his man but Jeanpierre whiffs his block. Robinson is able to take up the slack. Unfortunately, Jeanpierre goes back, rather than looking forward and getting the safety. The safety hits Forsett for a loss of one.
[2:00] 4th and 8. Four receivers. Power, with Jeanpierre pulling past LT. Tate and Baldwin make nice blocks on the outside. Leon starts to go to the left edge, but cuts back to a nice hole as McQuistan seals and Jeanpierre pushes Urlacher away from the play.

* Second half totals: 26 yards on 17 runs for a 1.5 ypc average.

Seahawks win 38-14.

* Overall Blocking - The Bears made us look weak at times. Between the DTs, Peppers, Urlacher, and Briggs, these guys are strong, fast, and disciplined. Unger probably had the longest day as he was often outmuscled. Then again, it's hard to call out Unger alone as we rarely got push across the line and everybody had their weak plays. Giacomini might have had the cleanest game, except for his one false start. Then again, we ran left a bit more than to the right.

Probably the most important thing was that our guys kept playing hard and didn't get frustrated. We didn't give up on plays. We didn't lose our heads and had only a few missed assignments. We didn't get drawn into fights or stupid penalties. I also saw some good improvisation by Robinson and Gallery as things broke down around them.

* Play calling - We tended to go with lighter sets this game, rarely going down to a single receiver. We ran inside and out and didn't have much success with either. We ran slash plays with and without cutbacks and both were well defended. We even tried an end around. No matter what we did, the Bears usually had an answer. With the Bears playing hard against the run, this was a day when we needed to burn them with the pass, and TJ was able to do that in the second half. Yet, we never abandoned the run. Our lead and our defense gave us that luxury.

* Runners - Lynch made one or two questionable cuts, but that was about it. The Bears did a nice job of getting push, so Lynch couldn't get many signature extra yards falling forward. He rarely got momentum and leverage going. He also had a couple of slips in the backfield. On the other hand, he got two TDs and totalled 1,011 yards for the season along with a win, so it can't feel too bad. No fumbles (aside from TJ in the passing game.)

* Summary - The Bears are not the Rams. The previous week, we had the speed to run outside. This week, we didn't and the middle was plugged too. But we kept our heads and kept going to the well.

Note that the Bears are a 4-3 team and the Niners play 3-4. They're quick to the outside as well, so don't expect an easy day, but they won't be able to copy the Bears' playbook. To succeed, we will need to do a better job of getting a hat on a hat. Hopefully, we will get another step or two of push as we were consistently outmuscled on the inside in Chicago. Against the Niners, we will have one more day of rest than the competition. Best of all, we will have the 12th man feeding the team Skittles!

Go Hawks!

State of the Seahawks; Forecast, Clear Vision

2011-12-19T09:58:00.000-08:00

At the time of Mr. Carroll's hire, the words "Clear Vision" were thrown around with sustained conviction by Pete and John, met with derision by the media, and met with skepticism by fans inured to front office promises. The cheerleader from USC says anything, because he is so pumped and jacked, said the college coaches never make it in the NFL crowd. He doesn't really want to coach in Seattle, he is just running from the Reggie Bush scandal, sniveled the pundits. Pros do not buy into Rah Rah coaching at this level, said every damn talking head. Seattle was accused of almost racism in the hiring process for a near violation of the Rooney rule, Pete was releasing a poorly timed book that touted his philosophy, and every player who ever played at USC was linked to the Hawks future by every reporter and blogger with a hunch.

Vision is a funny word that must confuse the hell out of people just learning English. Rhymes with fission, while breaking phonetic rules. I have good vision. Awesome. My vision needs correction. Coke bottle correction, or contacts? I just had a vision. Kook. Pete and John share a vision. Bull.

Those were dark days for many Hawk fans. Foggy days. Rainy days with low visibility. Pete's vision was only clear to a few people. His corrective lenses were of a prescription available to few of us. Binocular in one eye, Telescope in the other.

I freely admit to not having a clue about Seattle's direction after Pete was hired. I knew I was glad the Keystone Cops, aka Ruskell and Mora, were gone, but hope is not vision. Sometimes, hope is less transparent than pure misery.

Fast forward to Week 16, 2011. Seattle still could finish with a losing record. Seattle is assured of at least the same record as last year, and if they do finish that way, the superficial will have their say. Pete will be a .500 career coach in their eyes.

Do you care, or will statements like that just be your new filter for separating the ignorant from the informed?

"No one wants to play Seattle right now." 8 words that ultimately are the ultimate gladiatorial respect inside the NFL fraternity aside from the word "Dynasty". Tim Ryan, the play-by-play man for Sunday's telecast and former NFL defensive lineman, spoke those very words about Seattle and their pure physicality. Beast Mode isn't one player in Seattle right now, it is a culture. It is an attitude that can be almost immune to win/loss record. And it was part of Mr. Carroll's vision when he took over. Seattle fans have lamented even during the winning years that a finesse label was unfairly hung on them by both the NFL's elite and the media, but looking back from where we are right now, can you see why that label was applied? Has your vision cleared? Yeah, I know, hindsight is numerically distinct, but still...can you wear those same spectacles looking forward? Because Pete can.

We fans have speculated about the causes of Seattle's poor road record, in particular in the eastern time zones, for the better part of three decades. Even the coaches tried various things, like changing departure dates and altering practice schedules to reflect time change. Winning on the road in the NFL will never be easy, the inherent advantages of playing at home on your field with your fans will always exist. But is the most effective way to exorcise this NFL demon clear to you now? Our finesse team label was a very real handicap on the road, because it wasn't just a label. It was a reality, a reality that is evaporating before our eyes.

Because Pete has a vision that is clear to him, and is rapidly becoming clear to many fans.

Don't feel bad if you are just coming on board with Pete right now. Part of the lack of clarity of Pete's vision hangs on him. He speaks in catchphrases, which in all honesty is full of contradictions. He talks about priorities as absolutes, like last year when he said this was not a rebuild, and Seattle wanted to win right now, with the talent they had. If you still think this is not a complete rebuild, your grasp of English is tenuous at best. He and John have redefined the words roster churn. Carroll promised that the firing of Bates did not mean he was changing offenses, then he brought in Bevell, who brought his old quarterback because Jackson knew his offense. Wait a sec... I thought we were not changing offenses? When he was hired, much was made of Pete being off of the Monte Kiffen cover 2 tree, which was understandable, since Pete mentioned his admiration of those principles repeatedly. Knowing that, did you envision the two tallest corners in the NFL playing this amount of press coverage?

No doubt about it, Pete's words make seeing his vision pretty damn difficult sometimes. By now, you know that if Pete is hopeful an injured player will play this week, doctors are reattaching his limbs at that very moment, and if Pete thinks he might miss a game, a priest is currently performing last rites. If Pete's lips are moving, he is lying. On accident. I think. Because he speaks in ideals and philosophies. It only sounds like English.

According to John Schneider, this thing is only halfway done right now. Last week, he spoke to the aforementioned Tim Ryan and Pat Kirwan on SiriusXM NFL radio and indicated that the rebuild of this team has two more off seasons before it reverts to roster maintenance. Parts of Pete's vision remain unclear right now. What is his real plan for the quarterback position? He said the words Point Guard Qaurterback and confused the hell out of many of us, who wonder what he really means. How will he approach providing even more pass rush? Is this what he wants to happen at the linebacker spot, or will he eventually fill that position with players like he had at USC, where he often had some of his best athletes playing linebacker?

And is there any remaining reason to doubt his vision?

Tyrannical Seahawks torment and terrify adorable baby Bears quarterback, win 38-14

2011-12-18T18:04:00.000-08:00


King Midas II

Oh what a wonderful feeling. This must be what it feels like. Its certainly a new feeling for me, to be on the winning end of a game in which one of the teams made a complete embarrassment of themselves. Although the context is almost completely different, I can imagine a lot of Bears fans reacting to this game the same way the Seahawks fans did after any of their numerous ugly blowout losses to end 2009. This one in particular.

The Bears were a wounded team, and the Seahawks a hot team. Despite this being a 10 am game in December at Soldier field, I think most Seahawks fans expected a win today, and even most Bears fans weren't exactly optimistic. But to lose like this- getting outscored thirty one to nothing in the second half after handily outplaying Seattle in the first half... wow. The Bears could have improved to 8-6 today and could have very much stayed in the hunt for the wildcard. But beyond that, at some point teams just have to play for pride, and the Bears gave their home fans what I can only imagine was one of the most pathetic displays of football all season at the worst possible time. The sense of pained apathy on the fans faces in the second half was palpable. The only smiles in that crowd belonged to people wearing blue jerseys and holding skittles signs. Reading stuff like this after the game was delicious in a Scott Tenorman's tears kind of way.

Seattle had won four out of five entering this game. They did it by averaging over 120 yards rushing each game and rushing the ball close to 60% of their offensive snaps. I'm not a big fan of corny pregame "keys to the game" type analysis, but it was pretty obvious that Seattle's success would hinge on their ability to run the ball effectively. So when Chicago stonewalled Seattle's rushing attack and short passing game almost completely in the first half, it was worrisome. Seattle trailed 14-7 at halftime, and it almost felt like they should have trailed worse. The Bears had a significant edge in yardage and time of possession at halftime, and the only reason their lead wasn't bigger was due to Seattle winning the turnover battle two to one.

But just like every game this year since the Cardinals game, Seattle emerged from halftime empowered and prepared. Seattle received the first possession of the second half, and five plays later, the score was tied 14-14. After a first half in which Tarvaris Jackson seemed too scared to throw a pass further than 15 yards, he would have back to back completions totaling 76 yards on the 3rd and 4th plays, setting up an easy Marshawn Lynch touchdown from three yards out.

Caleb Hanie, who actually had a solid first half, responded by throwing a pick six to none other than Red Bryant on his very first pass of the second half. At the time, Seattle had a 21-14 lead and it still didn't feel like Seattle was a lock to win, but in retrospect, that Bryant pick was the turning point in the game. With 27 minutes still left to play, the Seahawks had already won, we just didn't know it yet.

Perhaps it was destined that the Seahawks win this game. It fits in well with a season long storyline of Seattle winning games everyone expected them to lose in August, and losing many of the games people expected them to win before the season. Wounded Bears team or not, winning at Soldier field at 10 am in December is never easy. And yet the Seahawks just won 38-14. The Bears had lost the previous three straight games, but would have won last week if not for the left hand of God working his miracle Jedi mind tricks on Marion Barber. Their average margin of defeat in those three games was by only five points. This was the Bears biggest defeat of the season, even eclipsing an early season 30-13 beatdown from the Saints. The Bears beat themselves as much as Seattle did, and yet its hard not to look at the defensive dominance and final score and not think "statement win." The Seahawks sure have been making a lot of them lately.

Remember that awesome Baltimore win? Since that time, the Seahawks have averaged 27 points a game, and their opponents have averaged 14.7. If not for a phantom block in the back call that unfairly negated a Leon Washington touchdown against the Browns and a blown coverage by Brandon Browner on 3rd and 19 against the Redskins, the Seahawks could be 9-5 right now. Seattle has lost a few close games, but their wins haven't been that close. That Seattle did this with the NFL's second youngest team and with one of the NFL's higher IR totals. And they did this with Tarvaris Jackson at quarterback! Lets just say you'd need a pretty good pair of shades to gaze upon the Seahawks future outlook right now.

I took a closer look at the Seahawks offensive line today. I'm not sure I can adequately convey how impressive Max Unger has been this year. Tim Ryan is quickly becoming one of my favorite color commentators, and he did an excellent job highlighting some of Unger's better blocks during the day. On one instance, Unger had to make what is perhaps the hardest block in football, reaching and turning a defender going against the grain to your outside shoulder. Or in other words, a player who has the angle on you. Unger did so masterfully, and it proved to be a key block on Lynch's longest run of the day, a 15 yard carry that was snapped from the two yard line on 3rd and 9.

I didn't pay terribly close attention to Robert Gallery, but it didn't seem like he was having an off game.

RG Lemuel Jeanpierre has been doing a very solid job for the Seahawks, and had a nice game today. That said, he did have a few screw ups, including an embarrassing whiffed block that immediately resulted in a three yard loss for Lynch. Jeanpierre has fewer screw ups per game than Moffitt, but I might have been a little hasty in singing his praises. He basically looks like an average right guard. Not that average is a bad thing.

Further DVR analysis could reveal more than I can currently provide, but RT Breno Giacomini displayed several quality blocks today. For a guy that has obvious limitations with lateral agility in pass protection, Giacomini actually moves pretty darn well in a straight line and can clear out a running lane in a hurry. On Lynch's second touchdown, Giacomini blocked down . You can see the play for yourself here. While I don't expect that either Jeanpierre or Giacomini will win jobs as long term starters, its very comforting to know that we have average level starters as backups on the offensive line.

Maybe the biggest surprise of the day was the job Paul McQuistan did at left tackle against Julius Peppers. Even Pepper's strip sack fumble TD was really not McQuistan's fault, but Jackson's for holding onto the ball too long in the endzone. McQuistan had less help blocking than I would have expected, and while I would rate his run blocking on stretch stuff as consistently below average (in fairness, those aren't easy blocks to make), he's far outplaying my expectations as a left tackle.

Despite what might sound like a positive review for the line, in reality they were outplayed all game by a very stout Bears run defense. As supported by Brandon's timely post on why the Bears defense is better than its statistics, they were the first team really since the Bengals way back in week 8 that didn't get pushed around by the Seahawks. Seattle averaged 1.8 yards per carry despite rushing 33 times. And unlike some previous instances, it wasn't because of an indecisive Marshawn Lynch. Lynch played a hell of a game, even making some players miss. The Seahawks offensive line seemed to be making good blocks. But for whatever reason, the Bears easily overcame Seattle's apparent excellence and shut down the run in a big way. Not only that, but they shut down screen passes and short routes. It wasn't until Seattle started attacking middle and deep that they were able to muster any kind of offense at all.

In a way, its fitting that Lynch would hit the 1000 yard mark in a struggling manner. Lynch hadn't posted a 1000 yard season since his pro-bowl 2008 season, in fact he'd only posted 1187 yards in his previous two seasons combined. The Seahawks hadn't posted a 1000 yard rusher since Shaun Alexander won the NFL MVP while helping them to the Superbowl. Its also fitting that on this same day Lynch would break Shaun Alexander's franchise record with 10 consecutive games scoring a touchdown. If you had told me before the season that Lynch would be assaulting any of Shaun Alexander's records, I would have assumed you were on crack.

Unfortunately, the Seahawks playoff odds are on life support. Detroit overcame a 13 point 4th quarter deficit to win by one point, including a 98 yard game winning drive that ended with 37 seconds remaining. Both the Falcons and the Lions are 9-5, meaning that one of those teams would have to lose out and Seattle would of course have to win out with another team also reaching 9-7 in the event that Atlanta is the team that helps us out (they beat us head to head, but would lose the tiebreaker if tied with 3 or more teams. Only the Giants, Bears, and theoretically, the Cowboys, could help us in that regard, so root hard for the Chargers next week). While I think its exceedingly unlikely that Seattle will make the playoffs at this point, I do think its worth rooting for week 17 relevance. A win next week plus a loss by either Detroit or Atlanta would probably ensure that. The Lions host the Chargers and the Falcons travel to the Superdome to face the red hot Saints.

Meanwhile, the Seahawks host the 49ers for what will be the most symbolically relevant Seahawks game in many years. Next week is a chance for the Seahawks to make a statement about the future of the division. I do not confidently expect a Seahawks victory, but regardless, its a game I can't wait to see. It should be a good litmus test for how far the Seahawks have come since week one.

The Bears Defense and the Uselessness of the YPG Stat

2011-12-17T12:21:00.000-08:00

In trying to get a bead on tomorrow's matchup against the Chicago Bears, you might stumble across the fact that Chicago's defense is giving up 358.2 yards per game, ranking them 20th in the league in that particular stat. Which might encourage one to anticipate an easy game tomorrow.

This is why simple cumulative stats like YPG are rather empty. They never tell the whole story. You might say, "Well, surely it at least hints at the reality, right?" No, in this case it pretty much flies in the face of it. And not just because of our lingering awareness that the Bears have talent on their defense.

Did you know that the Bears are the most passed-against defense in the league? They've faced 529 attempts, 40.7 per game. In contrast, only four teams have been rushed on less (303 attempts, 23.3 per game). By nature, pass-heavy offenses average more yardage than rush-heavy offenses, so right away I'm thinking "inflated passing totals".

The reasons vary. This season, Chicago has faced Matt Ryan, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton, Matt Stafford twice, Josh Freeman, Michael Vick, Philip Rivers, and Carson Palmer. Chicago's strength-of-schedule is currently tied for 7th hardest in the league. Those QB's may not all be leading impressive playoff-bound teams, but they are capable of putting up good passing totals regardless. For example, Newton, Freeman, and Palmer all posted good mileage (374, 264, and 301 yards respectively) in competitive games against the Bears.

You can also thank Chicago's own pre-Caleb Hanie scoring ability (on both sides of the ball) for this inflation, as they had Atlanta, Minnesota, Detroit, and San Diego buried and frantically passing to catch up in the second half.

And finally, the offenses of Green Bay, New Orleans, and Carolina really just kinda don't bother running much. Except in the fourth quarter. Then they run. To kill the clock and preserve their enormous lead.

Yet despite being burdened with more passing defense than any other team, the Bears have allowed only 16 touchdowns with 17 interceptions, a Yards Per Attempt (YPA) of 6.7, a 31% 1st-down percentage, 77.3 opposing QB rating, and 19.6 points per game. They're top ten in the league in all those categories.

YPG stats will tell you none of this. They don't take into account the effects of game situation (opposing teams rushing more to kill the clock or passing more to beat it) or opponent quality (beating the league's worst QB's in 2007 didn't make the Ruskell Seahawks defense good). For a more comprehensive stat, try Football Outsiders' DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average), which has Chicago as the #7 pass defense (and the #3 run defense).

So...YPG, pretty much telling you the opposite of reality. The Bears can stop the pass better than the two teams we faced last, against whom Tarvaris Jackson was able to game-manage.

Tomorrow's game should be a messy defensive slugfest along the lines of the Browns game, except interesting (and with bigger ramifications). Lynch has already broken 100 yards against an even better run defense than Chicago (that'd be the Ravens), and he has an offensive scheme that has exceeded expectations in opening lanes for him while still protecting the passing game. But factor in the mounting injuries on this O-line and the harshness of Soldier Field in December, and this remains a tough matchup.

The Seahawks' key to victory is really our secondary, who should be on the lookout for any wild passes on the part of Caleb Hanie.

A defeat at Chicago's hands all but washes away our playoff hopes. I'm not sure we'll be eliminated mathematically (head-to-head tiebreakers aren't considered in a three-way Wild Card tie), but the Seahawks' control of their own destiny will shift almost entirely to other teams' hands.

DVR Run Analysis - St Louis @ Seattle; 12-Dec-2011

2011-12-15T12:52:00.001-08:00

Note: You can also read the run analysis of the Eagles and Redskins games.

Here's my DVR Run Analysis for the Rams/Seahawks game...

* The first play of the game was great, but for most of the first half, the blocking was tentative. No surprise as this is McQuistan's first game at LT. It's also Jeanpierre's first start at RG and his first game playing next to Giacomini. In the second half, the line gained confidence, speed, and more yards per carry.

* Overall, our planned runs earned 140 yards on 26 carries for a 5.4 YPC average - the same average as last week. Lynch topped 100 yards for the fifth time in six weeks. Beast Mode accounted for 119 yards on 22 carries for 5.0 YPC and one touchdown. He really came alive in the second half with 5.6 YPC.

* Q1 - We had one bad play in six tries, netting 29 yards for 4.8 YPC. Two first downs.

[14:50] 1st and 10. Perfect blocking on a stretch left play. Gallery and Morrah go for LBs. Morrah nicked the DL to help McQuistan gain leverage. Robinson goes to the safety on the edge. Tate rides his CB downfield. Lynch follows Robinson, reads his block, and cuts inside for a gain of 13 and a 1st down. Beauty in action.

[14:17] 2nd and 10. Inside zone right. Miller at left tackle(!) Unger chops his LB. Miller chips the DE then gets to an LB. Gallery loses his man inside, but Lynch clears him. Miller's DE is now unblocked and gets Lynch from behind. Miller made the right move - the DE was coming from the side, while the LB would have hit Lynch head on. Gain of four.
[8:23] 2nd and 6. Zone right. Miller is again at LT. The right side gets very little push. Jeanpierre loses his man to the right. The D swarms. There's no hole for Lynch who is held to no gain.
[6:43] 2nd and 10. Stretch left with awesome push. Unger goes forward but loses his LB. Robinson owns the strong safety. Morrah stays with his man, but can't quite seal the edge. Lynch races to the outside for four yards.
[5:35] 1st and 10. Zone right. Jeanpierre helps Unger with the DT too long before releasing for the LB. The LB forces Lynch to cut inside. Lynch avoids the quick tackle, but McQuistan and Gallery aren't able to sustain their blocks quite long enough and Lynch meets a crowd. Still, Lynch's quick cut buys him five yards.
[3:43] 2nd and 2 at the Rams' 26. Zone right with the left side pushing and cutting. Unger releases to the 2nd level. Jeanpierre not able to get push. Leon aims to the inside of Unger, gets three yards, and the 1st. Credit the left side of the line.

Seahawks 10, Rams 0.

* Q2 - Our weak quarter. Two good runs, four bad. One of those is really bad: a fumble. Ten yards, five runs and 2 YPC.

[10:59] 1st and 10. Zone left. McQuistan probably made a mistake here by releasing to the second level. Morrah gets the same man. Gallery and Unger have to go too far left to make their blocks. That allows the DE to get in the way of Robinson, delaying his block on the strong safety. The backside blocking was weak. Lynch goes left, but Robinson's delay slows down Lynch who meets a lot of traffic. The dominoes collide. Loss of two.
[10:22] 2nd and 12. Stretch right, but the right side isn't quick or clean in passing off blocks. Morrah loses his man inside. Giacomini isn't able to get the safety. Robinson makes a nice lead block, but it's not enough. Lynch is corralled before he can get to the edge.
[4:40] 1st and 10 at mid field. Power. Miller is playing off the line and cuts inside RG to get the middle linebacker. Unfortunately, the unblocked strong safety on the weak side is quick enough to get Lynch's legs. Gain of two.
[2:36] 1st and 5. The D is stacked against our '22' personnel. Zone right without much push. Robinson makes a clean lead block. Lynch hits a crowd, but is able to fall forward for four yards.
[2:04] 3rd and 1 on the Rams' 27. Zone left with '22' personnel. Robinson and Lynch are in a straight line behind TJ. Both backs run lockstep at the snap. TJ seemed to forget Robinson was there, running too far left. TJ delayed and fumbles the handoff. Either Robinson lined up too far to the right or TJ got confused. Worst play of the game.
[0:29] 3rd and 20. Pass formation. Most of the line gives a pass block look while Gallery and Morrah release. The Rams play conservatively, stopping Forsett after an 8 yard gain. Bring on the punting team.

Seahawks 10, Rams 3.

* First half totals: 39 yards on 11 runs for a 3.5 ypc average.

* Q3 - 53 yards on 8 carries for 6.6 YPC. Only one poor play. Three first downs.

[14:46] 1st and 10. Morrah and Jeanpierre pull left. Gallery takes one DT while Unger and Giacomini take the other. Morrah misses his LB. Miller misses his too and goes downfield. Lynch accelerates to the hole and beats Morrah's LB. Miller's LB shadows Lynch and gets him from the side. Gain of five. Had Miller made that block, it was off to the races.
[13:39] 1st and 10 at the Rams' 22. Zone right with the guards releasing. Unger gets pushed back. Gallery misses his man, but cut blocks him with his legs. Jeanpierre rides his man. Lynch cuts inside Unger and starts breaking tackles. Gallery gets up off the ground to make a nice 2nd level block. When the dust settles, Lynch broke about six tackles, gained 12 yards, and earned a first down.
[13:01] 1st and 10 at the Rams' 10. Zone left. Giacomini pulls around Jeanpierre to make a cut block. Gallery and Miller go forward. Lynch bursts to the left edge. Miller sustains his block, but Gallery loses his man. Lynch tries to stay in bounds to look for more yards, but Gallery's LB ends the play. Five yards.
[9:41] 1st and 10. Same exact play as at 14:46. Morrah and Jeanpierre pull left. This time Morrah gets his man. Miller still can't get to his LB quickly enough, but this time Unger gets more push and the DT gets in the way of Miller's man. Lynch accelerates to the hole and this time he beats the LB and is able to stay on his feet as the hole collapses around him. Lynch pushes, falls forward, and gets nine yards. Yeah. That's how we drew it up!
[9:11] 2nd and 1. Zone right. Unger gets pushed back. Gallery beat to his right. Robinson leads but doesn't square his block. Lynch gets by Unger and makes a quick cut inside of Gallery to get two tough yards and the first down. Credit Lynch's instinctive running.
[8:32] 1st and 10. Zone left. Jeanpierre spins counterclockwise out of his block to go right and knock out the Sam LB. Tate comes across from the left side and Robinson and Lynch fake the run to the left. Some defenders are unblocked, but Tate shows his speed and blows by them. Tate is barely tripped by the free safety or he would have had more than his 14 yards. First down.
[6:55] 2nd and 6. Gallery and Miller pull left. Gallery's lineman is too far to Unger's left for our center to block him. That foils the play. Lynch is limited to two yards.
[5:21] 2nd and 7. Zone left. Jeanpierre loses his man who nearly trips Lynch. Lynch is smashed head on for a gain of four. Ouch!

Seahawks 20, Rams 6.

* Q4 - 48 yards on 7 carries for a 6.9 yard average. One TD. Two first downs. Three of seven bum plays, but the Rams knew we were running.

[12:20] 1st and 10. Giacomini moves to the left TE spot. Miller at RT. Jeanpierre pulls left and makes a nice slash block. The play is zone right, but it's weak. Lynch hits the hole on a cutback, but there's nothing there. Gain of two.
[11:41] 2nd and 8. Zone left with the guards going forward. Robinson to the left edge for a killer block that seals off two defenders. Gallery rides his man for 12 yards. Lynch is able to turn the corner and power up the sideline for ten yards and a first.
[10:27] 1st and 10. Zone left with Robinson leading. Things get sloppy. Lynch threads the needle and then beasts for six.
[4:39] 1st and 10. Jarriel King is in for Gallery. Zone left with a good push. Robinson to the left edge. ~~Gallery~~ King and Unger eventually cut their men and Lynch's momentum knocks everybody to the ground. Lynch aims for the first down marker, gaining 11 yards and the first.
[4:33] 1st and 10. Jarriel King is in for Gallery. Same play, except ~~Gallery~~ Unger loses his man and McQuistan gets taken too far outside, getting in the way of Robinson's path to the safety. ~~Gallery~~ Unger's man is able to grab Lynch's jersey and spin him to the ground. Gain of two.
[3:52] 2nd and 8. Jarriel King is in for Gallery. Zone right with the guards going forward. King makes the block, but he's not able to turn his man. Robinson doesn't square his block either. Lynch's balance is upset by Robinson's man. He recovers, but King's man is in position for the tackle. Gain of 1.
[3:03] 1st and 10 at the Rams' 16. King still at LG. Zone left. Jeanpierre goes forward, can't quite cut his man, but delays him slightly. Unger seals as King waits for the LB to come to him. The LB overpursues to the outside and King opens the hole. Lynch hits the hole clean, beats Jenpierre's LB, and races to the end zone as Obomanu gets in the CB's way. 16 yards and a TD!

* Second half totals: 101 yards on 15 runs for a 6.7 YPC average.

Seahawks win 30-13.

* Overall Blocking - Tentative early, but the confidence and quickness off the ball improved in the second half. As usual, the LT isn't core to our run game, so McQuistan was effective though not flashy. He made one judgement error that dominoed the play. Gallery continues with some great veteran play mixed with some losses. Unger lost his leverage and got pushed back at times, but played solid football. Jeanpierre didn't have as good a game as he did against the Ravens. He improved in the second half. Giacomini was mostly solid, as were our tight ends. Robinson continues to impress. His agility, compared to a heavier, power FB, works very well in our scheme. We made a few mistakes and only rarely had perfect play as a unit.

* Play calling - Even with our changes in personnel, we mixed things up. I counted 17 plays with the FB vs. 9 without. 14 of our plays used two TEs while 12 used one. We didn't run slash cutback plays as much as in some previous games. We ran a lot to the edges, showing that we didn't respect the Rams' speed. Our blockers are agile enough that anybody can get the call to release forward. Cable had some fun this game.

We also had a number of trick plays, including an end around and two(!) passes from Lynch. I get the feeling that the coaches were confident enough in our ability to beat the Rams that they were willing to have some fun.

* Runners - As usual, Lynch gets everything available to him. His instincts in making the right cut quickly never cease to amaze me. I can barely see where the hole will be in slow motion replay, yet he finds it in a split second. Lynch's balance is strong. Not only does he fight for yards, he stays upright in chaos. Lynch deserves the lion's share of credit as he makes our blockers look better than they really were in this game.

* Summary - I see this as a tuneup game before going to Chicago. We ran trick plays. We ran to the outside. We ran a wide variety of plays to see how our latest personnel performs. In Chicago, I expect us to narrow the play selection and to run more inside zone cutbacks and slash plays as Chicago is too fast for us to get to the edge. Watch Robinson for your cues. Does he lead to the outside, or does he take it to the LB like he did against the Ravens?

But for now, this was an important win - it would have been an embarrassing loss. The running game wasn't as finely tuned as I would have liked, but it gave us the yards, 1st downs, points, and time of possession we needed in order to get the win.

Go Hawks!

Mario Williams and Other Good Free Agents for Seattle

2011-12-14T10:08:00.000-08:00

Is it wrong to be dreaming of improving the roster with 3 games still left to play? If it is, why does it feel so right? Is that why it is called rosterbating? Moral dilemmas aside, let's dig into the Hawks' defensive roster needs in free agency. There is one player that is obviously the focus of this article, but while on the subject, why don't we look at a few other names for just a moment. (Your moment, not mine. This stuff takes way longer to type than to read.)

First off, in two free agent periods, Mr. Pete Carroll and Mr. John Schneider have established that they are not as free-agent phobic as Schneider's roots in Green Bay, and even his words during his first offseason, may have suggested. I expect that John and Pete are also not going to make as many free agent acquisitions in the future as they did in the truncated 2011 free agency period. However, they have cap space, and they have chutzpah, so I do expect to hear some names. Maybe just from rumor-mongers like Incarcerated Bob, but heard nonetheless. Keep in mind that so far, they only break the bank for youngish free agents.

Such as...

Terrell Thomas, New York Giants
6' 0", 199 lbs; Current age: 26

Terrell will be mentioned for four reasons: he is a physical press corner who accumulates tackles on running backs, he gets interceptions, he played for Pete at USC, and he is only 26. Oh, a 5th reason: the departure of Marcus Trufant is more than likely. Thomas is coming off an ACL injury in training camp, so his recovery should be well along by March's free agency start. They weren't afraid to draft another player of this profile, Walter Thurmond, so I wouldn't expect any squeamishness over Thomas if his recovery looks good.

Adam Carriker, Washington Redskins
6' 6", 315 lbs; Current age: 27

Carriker is first of all a Kennewick native, and second, would fit in Carroll's non traditional 4-3 role that Red Bryant has thrived in. Think about what you know of Pete's ultra physical scheme, and read the following words from Jim Haslet, who coached Carriker both in his less than successful stint in St Louis and his current role in Washington. Haslet said, about why Carriker did not make it as a traditional 4-3 three technique scheme fit,

"For a guy who ran the 40 in 4.7 and was 6-6, 315 pounds, you'd think he could do that. But that's not what he wants to do. He wants to play with strength and power, and he does a pretty good job of it. He feels so much more comfortable in this."

Strength and power? How is that not a scheme fit for Pete?

Carriker is a signing I would be very excited about.   He would not so much be depth for Red's position as he would be a rotational starter with Red. He is a better pass rusher than Bryant, and would ease the minds of fans and coaches alike about what happens if Red is unable to play.

Cliff Avril, Detroit Lions
6' 3", 260 lbs; Current age: 25

Finally, we would get a player back from the Seatroit Sea Lions pipeline. If you're not familiar with Cliff, think Chris Clemons but 5 years younger. He isn't better than Clemons, just younger. His growth curve is just taking off, while Clemons is fighting the undefeated Father Time. In fact, he shows somewhat less commitment to run stopping than Clemons but has some college background as a linebacker, possibly a result of the get-after-the-QB scheme Jim Schwartz is running in Detroit.  He is getting sacks, forcing fumbles, and racking up personal fouls in Detroit at a prodigious rate. The latter skill might make him fit in Seattle as much as anything, right?

Detroit will not let him go easily, though. If Avril makes it through the team re-signing period, I expect interest for him from a lot of teams. Seattle included.

Mario Williams, Houston Texans
6' 6", 283 lbs; Current age: 26

Initial response of all sane people: "You, sir, have apparently misplaced your sanity. Clearly, Houston will not be letting this guy get away at any cost."

I understand your initial response. I had trouble believing he was not even under contract past this year. Before you holler "Franchise tag, dummy," know this: (from David Dalati at FoxSports Houston)

Williams is now a linebacker, meaning he would be categorized among linebackers when it comes to salary calculation. Franchising a player means you are guaranteeing that player at least the average of the top five salaries at his position and the average salary of the top five linebackers is roughly $10 million. Problem: Williams' current cap number is $18 million. Since Williams' cap number is greater than $10 million, franchising Williams means the Texans must guarantee him 120 percent of his current salary next season. It's the way the rule works, either the average of the top five salaries or a 120 percent of the player's salary, whichever is greater. In short, franchising Mario would commit the Texans to paying him over $21 million for the 2012 season alone.

From a mathematical standpoint, the Texans can't commit $21 million for a linebacker for one season, regardless of his impact. From a practical view, there is no way the Texans would pay that amount for a player coming off consecutive seasons in which he has been seriously injured. It's not happening and anyone discussing the franchise tag in Williams' case simply doesn't know what he or she is talking about."

I know, that is a mouthful, possibly even a brain full, but think about what that means for the Hawks.

3-4 teams will not be going after Mario Williams. Simple economics dictate that he will make more as a 4-3 defensive end than he will as a 3-4 linebacker. See Julius Peppers salary vs Jerome Harrison salary. That reduces the list of teams competing for his services by about half. Yes, he could play 3-4 end, but he won't; that is not where the money is either.

Salary cap concerns and current roster considerations further limit some of the 4-3 teams that would compete for Mario Williams, leaving the Seahawks as one of the handful of 4-3 teams that would compete for what undoubtedly will be the star of 2012's free agency. A quick look of 4-3 teams only shows a handful of teams - and by handful I mean three others - that are competitive, cap friendly, and schematic fits while not having huge amounts of capital already tied up at defensive end. Goody, goody, we are one of them! Watch the Giants be our main rivals for Mario's services when they let Osi walk.

If that one player is Mario, I can honestly say that this defense is one player away from dominance. Sure, there are other positions to address in Seattle on defense, but this is the one addition that would improve the secondary and linebacking corps immediately. The injuries would be a legitimate concern, but it is a surgically repaired pectoral, not his knees or ankles, so I can't see what would stop Seattle from pursuing Mario except price. Which will be steep.

Make it happen, John.

Cloudy with a chance of Skittles

2011-12-13T03:44:00.000-08:00

Even when running Marshawn Lynch is celebrating his next touchdown

The Seahawks avoided the unthinkable Monday night. Its not very often fans of a 5-7 team feel that victory is all but guaranteed, but these 2011 Rams are a special case. For the season they are averaging just over 11 points a game. Its stunning to me that essentially the same group of personnel very nearly won the NFC West last year. Perhaps even more mind-blowing is that one of their two wins this year was by 10 points over the currently 10-3 New Orleans Saints, who have scored nearly triple as many points for the season. That was 6 weeks ago. The Saints haven't lost since.

If the Saints could do the unthinkable, so could Seattle. And through the first two quarters, Seattle may have held a 10-3 lead, but they were actually losing in terms of yardage and time of possession despite the fact that Sam Bradford was having an incredibly bad night. To the Rams credit, I thought their defense did an excellent job taking away any outside plays, whether run or pass. For whatever reason, Seattle kept dialing up plays outside, despite having two backups at the tackle spots, and the Rams kept dominating on them.

That changed in the 2nd half, when the Seahawks suddenly remembered that Robert Gallery and Max Unger still existed and were, you know, pretty good at run blocking. For what seems like almost every game since Dallas in week nine, Seattle once again won the battle of the interior, which is extra nice since Lynch is pretty much the very definition of a north/south runner anyway. Lynch dominated the second half, which caused the Rams to dial back the pass rush, which in turn helped Tarvaris Jackson to overcome a terrible first half and finish with a good 96.4 passer rating, a good 65.6% completion rate and a solid 7.0 yards per attempt. While its easy to be negative about Jackson, one can only imagine the excitement that a high first round quarterback would generate with numbers like those in a 30-13 win. Of course, all of that production was made possible by an effective 2nd half running game. Normally in the NFL, its the pass that sets up the run, but for a team with a mediocre quarterback at the helm, things are reversed. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing when you have the most consistent rushing attack in the league.

Seattle did play an ugly first half, but the second half was nothing short of dominant, at least on offense. Stop me if you've heard this before: the Seahawks played better in the second half than in the first half. I've been watching the Seahawks for 21 years, and I'm not sure I've ever looked forward to halftime as much as I have watching the 2011 team.

As always, here are some of my random observations from the game:

I'm not a fantasy football player (or "owner," lol). My brother is, and he takes it very seriously, even putting money on it most years. Last night he was poised to win his first round fantasy playoff game, but his opponent was starting Marshawn Lynch and Doug Baldwin. Needless to say, he got his ass kicked. As an aside, how cool is it that actual Seahawks players, multiple Seahawks even, are making a difference in fantasy leagues? That's not something we've heard much in recent years. Sorry if this comes across as fortune cookie wisdom, but that probably means something. At least I think it does. Maybe.

Throughout the game, I found it almost nauseating how many fans all came up with the same "clever" idea of making Skittles-Lynch fan signs. There was very little variation or originality, as nearly every sign said "feed the beast" or "taste the beast" with drawings of Skittles and Marshawn Lynch. It grew so tiring so fast that I hesitated to mention Skittles in the title, but I can hardly pass up the chance to be a smug hypocrite. The whole skittles quirk Lynch possess is pretty cool/funny, don't get me wrong, but its funny in a rather esoteric manner: which is to say it makes for a funny story but not a funny bumper sticker.

That being said, I nearly had a heart attack from laughing so hard after Lynch scored his record tying touchdown for the 9th straight game. At least two packs of Skittles were thrown on the field, and after some fan had worked up the courage, he/she literally showered a celebrating Lynch with little Skittles candies. The slow-motion replay shows the candy falling slowly from the sky around Lynch in a manner not unlike rose petals descending on a liberating general as he marches his troops through the town plaza.

Another week, another improved performance by Lynch. While I wouldn't call this Lynch's best game of the season, it might have been his most impressive. This same Rams defense held Lynch to only 3.3 yards per carry only 4 weeks ago, and that was when Seattle still had left tackle Russell Okung. Lynch seems to be getting more athletic as the season wears on, and on numerous occasions he made impressively quick backfield cuts and for the second straight week made defenders miss. This was on top of his excellent yards after contact total (over a third of his yards were after contact). When Lynch is running like this, its almost like he's a 25 year old version of Alabama's Trent Richardson- a guy that will almost certainly be a top 10 pick next year. If Carpenter and Moffitt progress next year the way that Unger has this year, and if Lynch continues these performances, the Seahawks could be in for a very exciting 2012.

I loved everything about Doug Baldwin's blocked punt. I loved that Mike Tirico had the timely awareness to note Baldwin's presence on the edge less than 5 seconds before the block. I loved that Baldwin blocked the punt without even touching the punter somehow, which is extremely difficult to do and a big reason blocked punts are rarely attempted. I loved that he could have "intercepted" the punt had he actually tried for it. And of course, I loved that it scored a touchdown in front of thousands of geeked fans.

Baldwin also finished with 93 recieving yards and a touchdown. You know what's neat? He's a free agent after this year. I wonder how James Carpenter, John Moffitt, K.J. Wright and Richard Sherman feel about potentially having a combined salary lower than what Baldwin could be making in 2012? Undrafted free agency folks. Getting drafted is for suckers. (Edit: While Spotrac.com- a site that specializes in contract information- has reported the Baldwin is on a 1 year deal and a RFA next season; other sources have reported that Baldwin is on a 3 year deal since that's what UDFA's are supposed to get with the new CBA. Baldwin's deal was "undisclosed" at the time of its signing, so I'm not 100% which one is right. I'm going with Spotrac for now, since they seem like the most credible source.)

Sam Bradford's 12/29 numbers look ugly already, but consider also that Bradford (by my count) had a whopping six interceptable pass attempts that hit Seahawks defenders on the hands (and that's not counting tip-aways). Only one of those was actually intercepted. Bradford is a talented quarterback, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a quarterback look as out of rhythm as Bradford in 2011. At this point you almost wonder if the Rams are actually hoping Scott Pioli calls up McDaniels for the head coaching vacancy in Kansas City.

Steven Jackson has been a Ram since 2004. He has 8843 career rushing yards. He still hasn't had a 100 yard rushing game against the Seahawks.

Its tempting to look at the stats (2 sacks, 115 rushing yards by Lynch) and assume that the offensive line played well, but that would be inaccurate. All season long, the interior of the Seahawks line has carried the day, and this was more true on Monday night than ever. Giacomini struggled with the edge rush all night. McQuistan predictably struggled even worse with the edge rush at left tackle. On what felt like every pass play, both tackles were 3-5 yards in the backfield within seconds of the snap. I don't know if it was their fault, but the outside running game was mostly terrible last night. Seattle's interior pretty much saved the day with some terrific second half blocking that consistently opened holes and even had relatively strong interior pass blocking compared to the bookends. If Jeanpierre continues his quality play, I think he should be considered as a viable competitor for Moffitt's job next preseason.

I wasn't terribly happy with some of the calls last night. Brandon Browner was the victim of a phantom illegal contact penalty, and I wasn't terribly happy with the endzone interference call on Sherman. Sherman did touch and ever so slightly pull on the receivers shoulder, but immediately let go and I think I'd be generous to say that it might have moved the shoulder an inch or two. It was clearly a case, I thought, of non-intentional, non-significant contact. It wasn't a bad call, but its the kind of call that Mike Pereira secretly hates having to defend on NFL Network every week. Maybe its just me, but Seattle does appear to slowly be cutting back on the penalties. Having refs making chippy calls isn't helping though. I've forgiven Bill Leavy for Superbowl XL, but last night was a reminder of what he's capable of. He's not a terrible official, but it would be nice if his crews were a bit more gun-shy about making fringe calls. Nobody likes a ref who calls a tight game.

Seattle began the year as a team who was the media favorite to win the Andrew Luck sweepstakes, and followed that up by starting 2-6. It just amazes me that after last night's win, the Seahawks were actually shown on the playoff contender shortlist. Coolstandings.com gives Seattle only a 7.8% chance of making the playoffs, but how many teams that start 2-6 have ANY chance to make it with three games to go? That Seattle will be playing meaningful games in the second half of December after the way they started the season is a great testament to the job Pete Carroll, Tom Cable, and John Schneider have done. Monday's game wasn't a masterpiece, but regardless, the future looks bright.

The Ignored Seahawks

2011-12-06T07:17:00.000-08:00

What gesture is he really making?

Alright, this is just getting ridiculous.

I've never been a huge fan of FOXSports' Adam Schein, and this week he has joined the chorus of national writers who are incapable of interpreting a Seahawks' win (over the Eagles, in this case) as anything but the opposition throwing the game:

I took the time to do a video rant on Cosmic SCHEIN this week on FOXSports.com to explain why the Eagles shouldn’t fire Reid. And then his team travels cross country and loses to the Seattle Seahawks. Actually, they didn’t lose. They got manhandled for three quarters by a relative bunch of clowns. Forget the 31-14 score. The effort and execution were pathetic all game.

That's the way this cookie always crumbles for the national media. The Seahawks never win, the other team just loses. No Seahawks victory contains any element of the Seahawks doing anything to actually earn or deserve it. It's always the fault of whatever team went into a Seahawks game cocky and came out clocked. To the national media, the Seahawks are an inert, faceless element with no sentient qualities or nameworthy players except their sucky QB, which other teams just seem to trip over because they weren't looking.

I'm usually one to try and put the shoe on the other foot. I try to see all sides and not let my fandom color things, and sometimes it makes others question that fandom. Let's get the perspective out of the way: The Eagles really did play like they didn't want it. They played like the Seahawks did for Charlie Whitehurst. They were missing three crucial starters, five once Mike Williams was done falling on people's heads, and were playing on the road (big-time) after a short week. Vince Young is just not an NFL quarterback, and three of his four interceptions came on awful throws/decisions. Their LB corps sucks in almost every facet. All things being equal, the Eagles really did make enough independent mistakes to lose the game.

If only things were equal to the pundits. Enough is enough.

The Passing Game

National media: can you name any of the Seahawks players who were also out on Thursday? No, no, besides Sidney Rice, jackasses. That's too easy. Well, actually, come to think of it, why not start there? Rice's absence should have made things worse for Jackson and our receivers, not better. He's been drawing tons of coverage downfield and Jackson has been locking on to him since they took Qwest Field together. There should have been some immediate downward spiral for the Seahawks passing game as coverages zoned in on Mike Williams and Doug Baldwin, undeterred by the threat of Rice. And the loss of two starters on the offensive line should have absolutely doomed Jackson against poor, maligned Jason Babin.

So it's not as if the Seahawks lacked their own key injuries to balance out the playing field.

Instead, Seattle had a bunch of bit players rise to the occasion whose names you're probably only barely aware of. Golden Tate you know from the draft reels, but Zach Miller is an under-the-radar guy and Michael Robinson is completely anonymous outside the NFC West. Crucial third-down completions from Tarvaris Jackson to these guys kept the game alive. With half an O-line and a crippled, second-rate quarterback.

Despite the predictions of some C-list defensive tackle whose name I've already forgotten, I think Jackson acquitted himself just fine. And yet the only story the talking heads can come up with is whether Andy Reid's seat is actually hotter than Pete Carroll's.

The Running Game

What's that you say? Of course Marshawn Lynch bulldozed over the infamously bad Eagles run defense? Easy matchup? Fair enough. But how do you explain the previous four games? Yes, Evan Silva, I know that you think of Lynch as

...mediocre talent...compensating with difference-making volume. He leads the NFL in rushing attempts and touches over the past four weeks, and during that span only Michael Bush has scored more fantasy points among running backs. You can make a case that Lynch is an RB1 until proven otherwise. Just keep in mind that Philadelphia's run defense has stiffened lately.

Lynch is still averaging under four yards per carry on the year.

That run defense has stiffened all right. Like a corpse. Do you know what an 8-man front is, Evan? It's where defenses stack an extra player in the box to prevent the run, something made much easier by the absence of a WR like, oh I dunno, Sidney Rice. So the Eagles did this against Lynch. A lot. Marshawn destroyed them. Just like he's been doing for five straight weeks now.

I forgive you for your facts taking five weeks to catch up to the present - it happens. It's certainly better than people taking two years to notice Chris Spencer's improvements. God, it was like watching Groundhog Day. But I would think you'd have noticed Lynch posting 109 yards against the Ravens' #1 run defense. Yeah, it was only 3.4 YPC, and yeah, he got more opportunities because of David Reed's fumbles. But then how do you explain the 5.9 YPC against the previous two NFC East opponents? You don't get to smirk at Lynch's high November workload while ignoring its YPC, then turn around and cite his year-long YPC as if there hasn't been an earth-shattering trend upwards.

No, Evan, you're just cherry-picking. Defaulting to your default faulty preconceptions. You and Walter Football. Taste the rainbow, gentlemen.

The Line Game

Oh, I love this one. In a desperate but typical attempt to turn all the negative energy over this game inward towards the Eagles, Philly beat writer John Miller offers this up:

Jason Babin is the poster child for these Eagles. He’s going to do what he wants to do, the team be damned. He’s already told us that he wants to get a lot of sacks, so he can make a lot of money. Winning football games is a secondary concern.

Go back and look at Marshawn Lynch’s 40-yard touchdown run, a cutback right through the gaping hole that Babin had created by racing up field at the snap of the ball. That’s part of the Wide-9 technique – getting up field – but Babin was laughably out of position. The defensive end in professional football must – must! – set the edge to contain running backs from getting wide. The next time Babin does this will be the first.

This is just plain bad football understanding, plus questionable vision. Watch the play. No cutback lane wide enough to drive a truck through can be blamed on one player. Babin didn't create that hole, their defensive line did. By getting collapsed to the inside by a mediocre blocking tight end and a couple of second-string offensive linemen. That calls for embarrassment, Philly fans. There was hardly any defensive line left for Babin to set an edge on. He also got jolted so hard by Cameron Morrah that he looked dazed as he whirled around trying to find Lynch.

But no, Jason Babin has gone in one game from a sympathy figure who was mistreated by the evil Seahawks, to the "poster child" for a team of greedy malcontents (wasn't Desean Jackson the poster child?). Yep, twelve sacks on the season is merely another hint of his self-centeredness. Facts changing to fit the agenda. I get that this is less about football and more about feeding the pissy, poisonous atmosphere of the East Coast sports markets - attention-grabbing over analysis and all that - but isn't anyone actually watching the games over there?

And don't forget Miller's mention of the Seahawks going "4-7 against bad competition", blowing right past the part where Seattle had the strongest strength of schedule to start the season.

The Popularity Game

The national media liked Pete Carroll in his first Seattle season. He was good for the occasional punchline and oddball news. Reviving Mike Williams' career, starting the season strong against bad competition, the addition of media-approved Russell Okung and Earl Thomas. Yep, life was good. Especially once we defied the writers' traditional hopes and put an NFC West team in the actual playoffs, holy cow. And then turned around and beat the defending Super Bowl champions. It was quite the opening act for the former USC coach.

But in 2011, something has changed. Shocker of shockers, Pete Carroll actually seems to want to go on winning. They signed what appears to be a universally hated quarterback. They committed to building through the draft - not through the exciting headliner picks, but boring, unheard-of late rounders.

The national media's smiles faded quickly. Now it's a terse, implied "Okay buddy, joke's over. We know what you really are. Go back to the Pac-10."

I used to chalk it up to Tarvaris Jackson hate and Matt Hasselbeck loyalty, but that's no longer a sufficient explanation. This isn't just ignorance and South Alaska Syndrome. It's more like a dogged determination here to marginalize this team. Fingers in the ears. It's echoes of the contempt Carroll often got from the markets he beat at USC.

You've seen the sound bites. Every Seahawks loss brings about some rumor about front-office turmoil, Carroll being on the hot seat or in hot water with John Schneider or whatever. Kam Chancellor gets nothing but condemnation for a couple of big fine-drawing hits and no acknowledgement of the textbook-perfect tackling form he shows the rest of the time. (Eagles fans on Russell Okung right now: "Taste of your own medicine, Seahawks.") Lofa Tatupu should have been kept around for the magical comeback that no other team seems to be expecting. Brandon Browner keeps racking up the interceptions, but CB stays high on pundits' wishlists for Seattle because they assume a former CFL player can do no good. And Carroll seems to be in no hurry to whore himself out in filling that darling position of reporters', the quarterback.

I don't know what it is that's drawing the nation's ire, but it seems to be a combination of things. No doubt the football community is up in arms over the Seahawks' hubris in actually defeating East Coast teams. Their physical, unrelenting style of play contributes. James Carpenter seems to have insulted everyone's mother at some point, so unanimous is the backlash over Carroll drafting him. Maybe it's just that this front office doesn't follow the usual media-approved formula of glittery marquee free-agent signings and endlessly stacking up the dramatic fade passes to the corner of the end zone (like this?) for the league to slo-mo from a low angle and stuff into cell phone commercials. And the media always has the USC sanction mess to fall back on when they run out of criticisms.

And did I mention the QB position remains unaddressed? I guess Pete shoulda signed Vince Young instead.

While the Seahawks have done their darndest to swerve the wheel of their fate, the inertia of national opinion has remained steady and unaltered, oblivious to the fact that things change. Their remarks are out of proportion. I thought everyone loved a rebel. Carroll's certainly a rebel, throwing conventional NFL wisdom to the wind whenever he can. And it's gotten him a scrappy, opportunistic team that's throwing aside Pro Bowl defenders (both past and future) and is arguably only three solid draft picks away from long-term playoff contention.

Perhaps Seattle trouncing the Eagles on a national stage will take the Seahawks' reputation out of the hands of the media and give them some real exposure. This is a very, very interesting football team. The Pete Carroll Seahawks defy analysis, defy extrapolation. They've got that "What's up with these guys" vibe to them. They make plays. They beat the odds. They win, and never at the times you expect. That's worth some respect.

Aaaaaaand now that I've used that fatal word, it's time that I end this article and stop pretending that I care what Adam Schein thinks. I only pretended to care because I write better when I'm pissed.

DVR Run Analysis - Philadelphia @ Seattle; 1-Dec-2011

2011-12-03T19:06:00.002-08:00

Note: Click here to find Jon's previous DVR Analysis of the Redskins game.

Here's my DVR Run Analysis for the Eagles/Seahawks game...

* This was the week of the breakaway run. We lost some consistency this week as we had five runs for loses and twelve of thirty planned runs with gains of less than three yards. Half of our runs were for less than four. I attribute this more to an over-aggressive defense than inconsistent play from the offense. Yeah, they stopped us at times, but they also got burned - badly.

* Overall, we got 162 yards on 30 planned carries for a 5.4 YPC average. Marshawn Lynch topped 100 yards for the fourth time in five weeks. Beast Mode accounted for 148 yards on 22 carries for 6.7 YPC and two touchdowns. Yeah, the Eagles got burned.

* Q1 - After an Illegal shift penalty due to WR Golden Tate watching a late 12th Man ceremony, we had only one bad play in eight runs. We got 51 yards for 6.4 YPC, including a first down and one of the sweetest TDs you'll ever see.

[14:34] 1st and 10. A power run with LG Robert Gallery pulling left and FB Michael Robinson going to a collapsing hole. Lynch met after a two yard gain, but LT Russell Okung and Gallery help Lynch move the pile for three more. Gain of five.
[11:49] 1st and 10. Zone left. Robinson leads to the left of Gallery. RT Breno Giacomini fails to cut his man on the backside. Lynch cuts inside of C Max Unger and gets by Giacomini's man who is able to get a hand on Lynch's ankle to trip him for a nine yard gain, short of the first. Lynch would have had 15+ if not tripped.
[11:14] 2nd and 1. Eight in the box. Zone left. Gallery is beat outside. TE Cameron Morrah and Tate lose their men. Lynch is able to ditch Gallery's man to the sideline, but soon he's surrounded. Loss of four.
[9:28] 1st and goal at the 15. Power run to the strong, right side. Giacomini and LG Paul McQuistan seal left as TE Zach Miller kicks out right. Robinson hits the hole, but is popped by the LB a yard behind the line of scrimmage. Lynch gets to the hole as it closes. Miller comes in to help Lynch push the scrum for three yards. Okung comes in to scrape two defenders off the front. Lynch breaks free and finds the end zone. Our run team plays hard to the whistle!
[6:58] 2nd and 17. Pass formation. Miller kicks his man out to the right, but Giacomini isn't able to lock up the DT. RB Leon Washington sees Giacomini's trouble and cuts back to center. Seahawks push the scrum forward for four yards.
[2:44] 1st and 10. "22" (two backs, two TEs) and 9 in the box. Zone left. Giacomini isn't able to cut his DT. Lynch cuts back to the crease to the right of Unger and barely beats Giacomini's man, then pops a linebacker for a gain of three.
[2:15] 2nd and 7. "22". Lynch goes straight ahead in a power run, but the DE was in the neutral zone. Instead of 2 yards, we get five and replay the down.
[1:55] 2nd and 2. "22" personnel with nine in the box. Robinson runs to LT but Morrah loses his man on the left edge. Lynch goes left, cuts outside of Morrah's man, then inside two other defenders, goes forward to split two defenders and bashes another. In the end, Lynch falls further forward than anybody else on the field for 16 yards and a first down. Lynch earned every inch of this play.
[1:10] 2nd and 10. "22" with nine in the box. Zone left. Gallery goes forward as Okung and Unger open the hole. Robinson cleans up the man in the gap. Unfortunately, McQuistan can't quite get his man. Washington cuts inside of Unger, but McQ's man gets him. Washington stays up and spins, but can't quite get clean of the grasp. Gain of three.

* Q2 - Hit and miss. Only four good runs on nine plays, but one is a 40-yard TD. Three runs are for losses. 49 yards on 8 runs for 6.1 YPC.

[15:00] 1st and 10 on the Eagles' 40. "12" personnel with nine in the box. WR Ben Obomanu is on the right, man on man. Morrah kicks across to the right as Miller seals for a huge hole. Obo runs a slant to lead his man from the play. Giacomini and McQuistan block their men into a scrap heap. Lynch gets a giant hole. Obo obstructs his man as Marshawn lights the afterburners and outraces the last defender to the end zone. Frankly, the defense let their pants fall down on this one, but credit Lynch's speed for turning it into points.
[11:43] 1st and 10. "22" with nine in the box. Okung and Gallery open the B gap. The fast, oncoming LB is able to juke around Robinson's block. Leon tries to cut right, but the LB gets his legs for a loss of two.
[9:39] 1st and 10. "22" nine in the box. Zone right. Robinson goes to the right B-gap and gets his man. Okung and Gallery fold the left side of the line forward and right as Miller kicks out. RB Justin Forsett cuts back to a nice crease for six.
[9:12] 2nd and 4. "22" nine in the box. Straight ahead power as Okung and Gallery open a hole and Robinson goes up to find two LBs. He gets one. The other hits Forsett head on for a loss of one. Too bad Justin cut to the right of Robinson, rather than left. This is probably a case of Forsett not getting enough touches to predict Robinson's blocks.
[6:24] 1st and 10. "12" personnel with eight in the box. Zone right with Unger hunting LBs. Our guards are late and get pushed back. Lynch hits the guards hard at four yards behind the LOS. His hit changes the balance, and the scrum pushes forward five yards for a gain of one.
[5:48] 2nd an 9. Inside zone right with Gallery pulling left. (A new twist.) Robinson and Lynch go straight ahead to the crease for a gain of four.
[2:49] 1st and 10. "22" with 9 in the box. Zone left with Morrah turning back to seal the left edge. Gallery goes forward and owns the LB. Robinson and Lynch go left, then Lynch cuts to the right of Robinson and Gallery for four.
[1:52] 1st and 10. "22" with eight in the box. Zone left with Gallery going forward. Unger gets pushed back and left. Robinson shoulders Unger's man, but it's not enough to restore leverage. Lynch follows Robinson, but is hit full force by Unger's man for a loss of three.

* First half totals: 100 yards on 16 runs for a 6.3 ypc average. Seahawks 17, Eagles 7.

* Q3 - 25 yards on 4 carries for 6.3 YPC. Three of four runs are successful. One first down.

[14:52] 1st and 10 at the Eagles' 30. "21" personnel with eight in the box. Zone left with Okung going forward. Miller, on the left, loses his man. That delays Robinson, who can no longer get his man. Lynch tackled for no gain.
[10:36] 2nd and 10. "22" and nine in the box. Zone right. Robinson and Lynch go outside the RT. Giacomini loses his man, but Lynch reads it perfectly, spins away from the tackle and gains nine yards.
[9:58] 3rd and 1 on the Eagle's 21. "22". Nine in the box. Robinson and Lynch straight ahead to the right of center. Robinson leads well, but Lynch is swallowed at +2 yards. Gallery and Unger help push the scrum three yards forward for a gain a five and a first down.
[8:55] 2nd and 16 at the Eagle's 22. "12" personnel with eight in the box. Slash left with Gallery going forward and Morrah pulling across to the right. Lynch cuts inside at the crease and runs diagonally to the sideline, where he is caught by the legs and springs for a couple more. Eleven yards.

* Q4 - 37 yards on 10 carries for a 3.7 yard average. Two first downs. Aside from the first downs, we get two gains of three and six between -1 and 2 yards. Everyone in the country knew we were running.

[12:51] 1st and 10. Zone right with McQuistan pulling. Robinson hits McQ's void. Lynch thinks about a cutback, then follows Robinson's excellent block. Too bad Williams pulled up and didn't make the block on the safety. That limited Lynch to three yards.
[12:15] 2nd and 7. The o-line is spaced tight and runs a zone left. Giacomini's man breaks through to the inside. Lynch sees it and cuts outside past Morrah's block to daylight. Nine yards and a first down.
[10:53] 2nd and 5. Zone right. Gallery gets ridden back and to the right, trapping Lynch. Lynch bounces, breaks a tackle, and is met by four defenders for a gain of two.
[9:27] 2nd and 4. Zone left. Gallery goes forward, but there's nobody there. Unger is left with a bad angle. Lynch is forced right, but the D set the edge. Lynch is met at the LOS and beasts for three yards. Just shy of the 1st.
[8:47] 3rd and 1 at the Eagles' 47. "22" with nine in the box. The OL is spaced tight. The left side gets a push, but there's a free man on the left edge. The right side gets pushed back. Lynch goes right, but should have cut left. Nearly loses the ball in the chaos, but holds on for a loss of one. Seahawks forced to punt.
[4:01] 1st and 10. "21" with eight in the box. We go straight ahead. Unger doesn't get much push. McQuistan is beat. Gallery goes forward, but loses his man. Robinson tries to block two, but can only get one. Lynch met at the LOS with no forward momentum. No gain.
[3:17] 2nd and 10 at the Eagle's 47. "22" with nine in the box. Zone right. Gallery cuts his LB. Unger seals the crease, but it's borderline holding. Okung loses his man and pushes him to the ground from behind. Should have been a flag. Lynch has easy daylight. Outruns two defenders and hits a third. Pushes three men forward as Unger comes in to keep it going. Gallery, Okung, and Morrah join the party. Gain of 17 and a first down. This shows that when the running game is cooking, you're less likely to be flagged when the RB breaks free.
[2:30] 1st and 10 at the Eagles' 30. Illegal shift.
[2:24] 1st and 15. "22" with eight in the box. Zone left. Gallery forward and Robinson follows. Okung lets his man bounce off the block. Leon forced to bounce to the left edge as he sprints to the LOS for no gain.
[1:57] Zone left. Gallery goes forward, and Morrah pulles right, but the DT rides Unger back and left. Leon forced to cut right, but he's met by two unblocked defenders on the outside for a gain of two. After the whistle and away from the play, the Eagles' Cole is ridden back by Okung, but Cole grabs Okung's arm and does a judo throw over his hip. Torn pec. Okung is out for the season. Crap!
[1:51] 3rd and 8. McQuistan to LT and Jeanpierre to RG. Zone left. Gallery goes forward. Robinson goes left, but Unger and McQuistan are pushed back. Leon cuts right, spins out of a tackle for a two yard loss and turns it into a two yard gain.

Seahawks win 31-14.

* Overall Blocking - Good all around. It seems like everybody had a bad down or two, but nobody had a string of problems. Unlike past years, our linemen aren't ending up on their butts, and I didn't see any obvious busted plays or mental breakdowns. The Eagles played a bit risky, so they outnumbered us on some plays, but we burned them on others. The best thing is that our blockers continue to run to the action and push for yards. The worst thing is the loss of Okung.

* Play calling - We ran lots of heavy sets. From 2:44 in the first to the end of the half, we lined up in "22" ten of twelve times. It's like we were daring them to come to the line. It was a high risk, high reward strategy that paid off. We were out muscling them in the scrums. They got numbers on the runner at times, but we saw a lot of daylight as well.

Cable/Bevell are adding more wrinkles to the blocking schemes week by week. Against the Cowboys, we really went back to the basics. (It would be make a great instructional video.) In this game, we were pulling guards on zone plays, running more power plays with various splits, and sending the fullback all over the place. It's like watching students go from freshman to junior year in five weeks. With Okung out, I expect that we'll simplify things again going forward.

* Runners - Lynch had another masterful game. He's making the right cuts, playing hard, fighting to the end, and making people miss. He's lost weight since he joined the team last year, and he showed it with his speed on that 40 yard dash to the end zone. The guy deserves a shiny, new contract.

* Summary - Our running game is no flash in the pan. We've been able to sustain it against both 3-4 and 4-3 teams, including some squads with well-respected run defenses. This is for real and will only get better next year when our guys are all back after a full offseason and mini camps. Kudos to Schneider and Carroll for not only drafting for the line, but for installing solid depth. One mistake though: we cut Polumbus recently. It looks like we will have yet another first time group of starters a week from Monday.

Go Hawks!

Marshawn Lynch gives "Dream Team" future nightmares, Seahawks crush Eagles 31-14

2011-12-01T23:59:00.000-08:00

Pete on the hot seat? Don't make me laugh.

Has there been a season with more unexpected things than 2011? A lot of fans looked at the schedule before the season began and saw games like Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Washington as near certain wins. The Falcons, Giants, Ravens and Eagles games were near certain losses. Seattle very nearly completed a comeback against the heavily favored Falcons, but otherwise, six games- that's half the season folks- has gone exactly the opposite of preseason expectation.

And sure, the Eagles came into Seattle the NFL's biggest disappointment sporting a 4-7 record, but they also led the entire NFL in offense for much of the year, and even after losing Vick, they still hover just behind the #2 team, the New England Patriots. That's due in large part to LeSean McCoy. As my fantasy oriented brother informed me before the game, McCoy has been the best fantasy running back in all of the NFL this year. McCoy lived up to that repuation and then some, even earning some surprisingly well deserved comparisons to Barry Sanders. Like Sanders, McCoy is the master into turning a minus four yard broken play into a big gain.

Seattle's run defense is big, mean and nasty. And really good, obviously. But its not terribly fast- something both LeSean McCoy and Vince Young capitalized on all night long. Thankfully, the Seahawks really came to play tonight. Marshawn Lynch, Tarvaris Jackson, and Seattle's secondary all played the best games of their young Seahawks careers. If Seattle had played at the same level as they had in any of the previous games (yes, even the Raven's game), I'm not sure it would have been enough tonight. McCoy was ballin', and though Young threw four picks, I'd actually put more credit on the Seahawks defense for making athletic plays on the ball rather than blame Young for making terrible decisions (except for the Hawthorne pick six). The Eagles didn't rack up a ton of yards, but they did lead several sustained, efficient drives. Seattle's ability to kill drives with interceptions proved to be crucial.

Seattle did more than enough when it was on offense, totaling 347 yards of offense despite running the ball twice as many times as they passed. It didn't start that way though, very nearly beginning with a delay of game on the very first play, something I've never seen before. Yet it very nearly did, as a bizarre miscommunication with Golden Tate regarding the raising of the 12th man flag caused Seattle to run up to the line mere seconds before time expired. The rush to snap the ball (with zeros showing) resulted in an illegal shift penalty, a result of not allowing enough time for players to set positions before the snap.

Tarvaris Jackson has made good progress this year regarding pocket presence and extending plays, but today he did a nasty backslide, taking multiple sacks a decent quarterback wouldn't during the first half. Despite those hickups, Jackson finished with 13 completions on only 16 attempts for 190 yards: good for a completion rate of 81% and a YPA of 11.9. He also added a sensational touchdown pass to Golden Tate and avoided an interception for what feels like the first time in an eternity.

It was only the third time all season that Jackson went without a pick, and only the fourth time all season that he finished with a positive TD/INT ratio. His game passer rating was 137, more than 40 points higher than his previous Seahawks high. Rather surprisingly, it was the best passer rating by any Seahawks quarterback going back all the way to the Titans in 2005. I don't want to make too big a deal out of a performance which only had 16 passes, but writing this post, it occurs to me that Jackson played far better than I thought he did while watching the game.

The storyline of the game was the running backs. McCoy is having a pro-bowl season, and he's averaging 94 yards per game this season. Since week nine (Dallas), Lynch has been averaging 118 yards per game. Not that you would expect Lynch to keep this up forever, but that level of production over a full season would equal 1891 rushing yards and 19 total touchdowns. That stat line seem familiar to anyone? I've offered up a full Mea Culpa on Lynch which you can read here, if you haven't already. Its crystal clear that Lynch isn't the same back he used to be. A 4th and 5th for Lynch is beginning to look like one of the best trades in franchise history.

Finally, the secondary was incredible today. Other than a coverage blip by Earl Thomas which helped setup the Eagles first touchdown, they gave Vince Young precious few easy targets, forcing him to dance around and buy time for what felt like forever on many plays. Chancellor's interception was a thing of beauty. Browner's first pick was a lucky repeat of his game sealing pick against the Giants, but his fourth quarter pick on a perfectly thrown deep ball was really a sight to behold. I don't know if Browner could make up for last week's debacle with a single great performance, but I'd say he came pretty darn close tonight. Its hard to believe he's the same guy who was getting us killed just four days ago. David Hawthorne isn't part of the secondary, but he joined the fun with the slowest looking pick six I've seen in a good long while, due in large part to LeSean McCoy only jogging in pursuit, clearly demoralized into apathy by that point. I'm sure he'll be getting an earful from Andy Reid next Monday.

Seattle is now 5-7. Which isn't a great record exactly. The 2009 Seahawks were 5-7 at one point. But its at least respectable, and with two very winnable games remaining on the schedule, Seattle has a real chance to finish 7-9 or better. That's a big accomplishment considering that Seattle's schedule is much harder this time around. Seattle is probably out of the playoff hunt, but this season was never really about the playoffs. It was about building a foundation for the future, namely the running game and the defense. That kind of outlook makes a win like tonight's that much more exciting. Seattle has claimed its third "statement win" of the season, and Jackson's performance tonight showed that Seattle is a very good team when the quarterback position produces its share.

Brad Nessler and Mike Mayock called a great game. If Nessler's voice seems familiar, its because he covers a lot of college football games, particularly in the SEC. Its a very good combo and I look forward to seeing them cover more Seahawks games in the future.

Marshawn Lynch against the NFC East in 2011: 492 yards rushing on 81 carries. 6.1 yards per carry. 5 total touchdowns. That's a good way of getting national attention, I'd say.

I wouldn't fret too much about the Eagles carving up our defense for most of the second half. Seattle was protecting a big lead, and was playing its corners far off the ball to keep DeSean Jackson and Riley Cooper from burning them deep. Seattle's corners are big and relatively fast, but they gain a considerable advantage from getting a shove at the line of scrimmage. Seattle played it safe, but in doing so gave up this considerable advantage which helps corners, especially Brandon Browner, play up to their coverage potential.

I really appreciate the classy gesture by Pete when he opted to kneel the ball inside the one yard line. Going for the extra score might make Lynch and the fans happy, but it would be a very bitter ending which would stick in the Eagle's memory for a long time. Seattle may very well face the Eagles in a pivotal game in the next couple seasons, perhaps even the playoffs. I'd hate for the Eagles to have that extra chip on their shoulder if that happened.

You really have to feel for Vince Young. This game wasn't just a game for him, it was an audition for the rest of the NFL on national television. Young made a few poor throws, but he was dealing with a very under-rated coverage group in Seattle and did a very impressive job extending plays. In the end, he wound up with 4 interceptions which doesn't do his performance any justice at all. After his Heater pick six, Young was visibly fighting back tears as he realized where his NFL career is heading. After his fourth pick (on a great throw no less), I just felt terrible for the guy. Here's hoping he works things out down the road.

Golden Tate continues his impressive progress at receiver. He needs to work on his touchdown dance though.

Today's win was not cheap- Russell Okung left the game late in the 4th quarter with a pectoral injury of all things. Pete Carroll said the injury "doesn't look good," and with only four games remaining, there is a very real chance that Okung could be on the IR tomorrow. If that happens, that would mean 3/5 of our line hit IR this year. In a move which looked stupid at the time and looks even worse in retrospect, the team released Tyler Polumbus a few weeks ago, and he's now a member of the Redskins. Seattle has no real depth at left tackle, so it should be interesting to see how they handle this situation.

DVR Run Analysis - Washington @ Seattle; 27-Nov-2011

2011-11-30T00:20:00.000-08:00

Here's my weekly DVR Run Analysis for the Redskins/Seahawks game...

* The good news is that the consistency was back in the running game. The bad news is that the defense, a weak passing game, and penalties let this game slip through our fingers.

* Overall, we got 121 yards on 29 carries for a 4.2 YPC average. Marshawn Lynch got 100+ yards for the third time in four weeks. Regarding consistency, we were never tackled for a loss and were held to no gain on a single running play. 18 of Lynch's 24 runs (75%) were for three or more yards. (14 were for four or more.)

* Q1 - The quarter was weak, but not due to the running game. 20 yards on three runs and a first down. 6.7 YPC.

[7:05] 1st and 10. Power run, splitting the D at the center. Center Max Unger gets the NT, releases to go upstream, and FB Mike Robinson cuts the NT down. Lynch hits a free ILB for a gain of five.
[6:35] 2nd and 5. Slash right (the line goes right while the TE, Anthony McCoy, pulls to split the left side.) TE Zach Miller and LT Russell Okung seal perfectly. Lynch hits the hole and makes a LB miss, getting ten yards and a 1st down.
[:39] 1st and 10. With 2 backs and 1 TEs, the D loads the box. Zone right. Excellent push by Unger, RG Paul McQuistan, and RT Breno Giacomini. Robinson leads Lynch to the RG but is too late to get the LB at the next level. Lynch gets five and could have had a few more had Robinson made that block, but there was just too much ground for Mike Rob to cover.

* Q2 - 39 yards on 10 carries for a 3.9 yard average. One first down. Six good plays - minus Giacomini's penalty when he hit the pile late.

[15:00] 2nd and 5. With two backs, the D loads the box. Power run with 67 pulling. The line gets some push, but the blockers are outnumbered. Robinson takes the OLB on the left, but Lynch taken down by the free man on the right. Credit the D scheme. Gain of 2.
[14:00] 1st and 10. Zone right with nice push on the right side. McQuistan can't hold his block quite long enough. Lynch tries to help McQ with a stiffarm, but would have been better off cutting outside. Gain of 4.
[12:55] 1st and 10. Eight in the box. Unger releases with Robinson cutting the NT and getting in the way of the CB. Unger ends up trying to block three defenders. Leon Washington makes the right cut but is swarmed for a gain of one.
[5:11] 2nd and 10. This is either a power or a slash right. It gets ugly and crowded as McCoy pulls to the left. Lynch goes inside McCoy hard, but McQuistan loses his block and Lynch is caught from behind for a gain of 3.
[4:30] 1st and 10. Zone left with Robinson leading Lynch to LT. The line moves sideways, but not forward. Good pursuit by the D to hold Lynch to a yard.
[3:57] 2nd and 9. Zone right, but the flow is straight ahead. Miller splits the D on the right side. Robinson goes right, but Lynch cuts back. The defender on the left is free, but Lynch leaves him in the dust and levels the safety for a gain a seven.
[2:36] 1st and 10. Quick snap. The line goes straight ahead with Miller splitting the right side. Lynch hits the hole, but Unger lets his man shed. Lynch springs forward from the tackle for a gain of five.
[2:00] 2nd and 5. Zone right with Robinson going to the right end. Lynch cuts inside and explodes just as he's caught to get siz and the first down.
[1:12] 2nd and 20. Justin Forsett just can't get a break. LG Robert Gallery and Okung pull right but miss their blocks. Unger is beat as well. Forsett outruns the free man only to get swarmed for a gain of one. Worst run blocking of the day. Justin, buy these guys better dinners. You need them on your side!
[1:04] 3rd and 19. Slash left. Lynch cuts right to beat the backside defender. He breaks a tackle, hits a scrum, and pushes for a gain of nine. Giacomini comes in for a late hit into the pile and gives back 15 yards.

* First half totals: 59 yards on 13 runs for a 4.5 ypc average. Redskins 7, Seahawks 7.

* Q3 - 51 yards on 11 carries for a 4.6 yard average. Three first downs. Seven good plays; three with a gain of 2; one gain of 1.

[14:52] 1st and 15. Zone left. Miller splits the left end from Gallery as Okung goes forward. Lynch is quick to the hole, but Miller loses leverage and the hole collapses as a LB arrives. Lynch powers for four yards.
[14:15] 2nd and 11. With 2 backs and 2 TEs ("22"), the D loads nine in the box. Zone right. Miller and Giacomini bend their men to the right. Robinson leads and cuts the inside LB. Lynch hits the hole and muscles for ten yards.
[13:39] 3rd and 1. Another "22". Ten in the box. Zone left. Okung slips, piling things up on his right. Robinson shoulders Okung's man long enough to protect Lynch and then Robinson goes forward to take out the LB. Lynch dives from tight quarters for a gain of three and the first down. Robinson made that possible.
[11:53] 1st and 10. Yet another "22". Yet another 9 in the box. Robinson leads inside of RG and gets to the LB. Lynch makes it to the hole and is swarmed. He gets four yards due to good push from the line.
[7:27] 1st and 10. A "21" (two backs, one TE.) Giacomini is lined up to Okung's left. The D continues with 9 in the box. Zone right. Unger gets beat. There's a nice push, but Giacomini lets his man free to the inside. Lynch cuts inside of Unger's man, but is met by Giacomini's man for a gain of two.
[6:52] 2nd and 8. Zone left. Robinson leads left, but things are tight. Lynch cuts right, but McCoy lets his man escape inside for the tackle.
[3:28] 1st and 10. Zone right. McCoy counters left, but realizes there's nobody to slash, so he helps Miller seal. Obomanu makes the critical block of the CB to the outside. Lynch gets the first five yards free, sheds one tackle, bulls through another, and shoots forward for 12 yards and a first down.
[2:52] 1st and 10. "22". 9 in the box. Zone right with McCoy and Okung cutting the backside pursuit. Lynch cuts to the left of Gallery as he and Unger seal. Gain of seven.
[2:10] 2nd and 3. Zone left. It's ragged, but there is some push as McQuistan releases forward. Leon spurts his way through the chaos for four yards and the 1st.
[1:04] 1st and 10. Zone right. Robinson goes outside right, but there was a better hole inside of RG. Leon cuts to the inside, but without Robinson's help, he's swarmed. This is probably Robinson's only so-so decision of the day.
[:28] 2nd and 8. A weak zone left. Leon cuts back, but is swarmed.

* Q4 - 11 yards on 5 carries for a 2.2 yard average. One first down.

[14:02] 2nd and 3. Slash left with McCoy pulling but missing his man. Lynch starts to cut right but sees McCoy's failing block, he cuts left (nothing there) and then threads the needle forward for a yard.
[13:35] 3rd and 2. With three receivers, the o-line is shoulder to shoulder as the defense shows blitz. Zone right. Miller, on the left, doesn't contain his man, but it's okay. Unger, Gallery, and Okung get excellent push. Lynch hammers the left B-gap (between LG and LT) for three yards and the first down.
[9:51] 1st and 10. Slash left with Miller pulling. Two LBs hit the right B-gap. One blocked; the other gets through. Lynch is met a yard back and tries to break the tackle, but Giacomini comes back to help. Unfortunately, Breno hits Lynch backwards and helps tackle him. Breno will get some salt when the team views that part of the tape.
[9:18] 2nd and 10. Zone left. Robinson and Lynch hit the left A gap (between center and LG) hard for four yards.
[5:47] 1st and 25. Stretch left with McQuistan and Miller pulling left. I haven't seen this from Cable/Bevell before. Lynch hits the scrum and carries it forward for three yards.

Redskins win 23-17, but not for lack of a running game.

* Overall Blocking - Props to Gallery, Robinson, Miller, and Okung. All had excellent run games. Gallery was especially strong and sharp. Robinson is transformed from where he was last year. Unger, McQuistan, Giacomini, and McCoy had good games with some room for improvement.

* Play calling - We ran a lot of heavy sets and Washington countered with lots of men on the line and in the box. Bring it on! We were consistently able to win those battles.

Because the Redskins were able to defend the pass with pressure (and our receivers were dropping balls), they didn't need to drop many into coverage. That forced us to use heavy personel when we wanted to run. We continued to center on our standard zone run plays. We executed without needing any tricks.

* Runners - Lynch had a VERY good game. I saw one play where he could have gone further outside for a bigger game, but he hit the correct hole. I had the feeling that he wasn't 100 percent. His brow was tight. He was getting lower back massages. He even got nailed in the jewels once. But he played with top effort and determination. Respect.

* Summary - Our running game is back. We had no losses, many successful plays, and enough small breakaways to average 4.2 YPC. The longest run was for 12 yards, so this wasn't padded. Most importantly, we were able to run this against a D that was stacked against us. We did it with with push, a flawless left side, excellent fullback play, and our standard set of plays.

Go Hawks!

Deadly secret agent Brandon Browner strikes, kills Seahawks season

2011-11-27T17:29:00.000-08:00

I'll keep this write-up short. This game kind of sucked to watch, and I know if you're like me, you probably aren't exactly digging for Seahawks reading material after a loss like this.

Its not accurate to boil this game down to one player. Rex Grossman had his token interceptions, but other than those two passes, he was killing it today. Grossman is not a good quarterback, but when he's having an "on" day, he's scary good, and today was one of those rare occasions. He extended plays by moving in the pocket. He executed screens and short passes to perfection. He was very accurate on his throws, completing a whopping 74% of his passes for a highly impressive 9.0 yards per attempt. Roy Helu also had a terrific game, totaling 162 yards from scrimmage and a highlight reel touchdown that sparked Washington's impressive comeback.

But I'm guessing people won't remember that. They'll remember Browner for his drive extending hold (which later resulted in a touchdown instead of a punt), his blown coverage/PI that resulted in a game winning hail mary touchdown on 3rd and 19, and last but not least, a boneheaded 15 yard penalty in the game's final minute when Seattle could absolutely not afford it. Its so much self-destruction that I wouldn't blame you if you had forgotten that Browner also had a terrific interception earlier on.

So, Seattle lost. In the end, Washington beat Seattle soundly on the stat page in just about every category. They deserved to win, even if it almost felt like they didn't. Washington is not even close to being as bad a team as people think nationally (just like the Seahawks). They are far and away better than teams like the Cardinals or Rams. They have the best pass rush in the NFL, a very good new running back, and a quarterback who may not be good, but can still be dangerous.

Mike Shanahan drew up the perfect passing attack before the game, finding soft spots in our coverage on almost every snap right from the get-go. By the 3rd drive, Pete Carroll made coverage adjustments which in part helped keep the Redskins scoreless for two full quarters. But in the fourth quarter, Shanahan made a new set of counter adjustments and Grossman became unstoppable once again. The game might have been a brutal snoozer, but its not often you see a chess match like that.

I don't know if teams give out game balls after a loss, but if they did, it should probably go to Marshawn Lynch. Washington entered this game with a slightly above average rushing defense (14th in DVOA) and a top 10 defense overall. Seattle once again had outstanding run blocking, but unlike the previous two weeks, Lynch brought his A-game and wasted no time hitting the holes and maximizing yardage. Sure, his longest run of the day was only 12 yards, but he had multiple runs near 10 yards this time. The result: a much more impressive 4.65 yards per carry. If this is the Marshawn Lynch that shows up every week, Seattle is set at running back. I never thought I'd say this, but fantasy football teams might want to give Marshawn a look on their waiver wires for the rest of this season.

No one is talking about it, but Golden Tate has quietly made huge strides this season. He runs much prettier routes and his hands seem to have improved. In just a couple months, he's gone from, frankly, a terrible player who many wanted to cut during the preseason to a quality #4 who is still trending upward.

Red Bryant has now blocked an incredible four kicks on the season. I could be wrong, but if I recall correctly, Jim Mora was present in the broadcast booth for all four of them.

Speaking of which, I have no fondness for Jim Mora, but he's turned into a surprisingly good commentary man. He was right on top of everything today, including the play in the endzone where he noticed the hat on the chalk.

I'm guessing the laundry guy for visiting NFL teams can't be too happy about the blue endzones coming back. Those things stain white road jerseys like crazy.

Seattle was once again killed by penalties, but so was Washington.

Its hard to judge Jackson's performance. He suffered at least 5 drops by my count in only 30 pass attempts. On the other hand, he also had about 4-5 terrible throws. But then again, he was playing with a very sore throwing arm which is certain to have an impact there. My initial feeling is that Jackson played like usual today, but the drops and the rusty arm caused a lot of noise which made the performance look much worse than it really should have. Regardless, its very hard to watch today's game and somehow still imagine the Seahawks leaving the 2012 draft without a talented quarterback somehow. I can stomach another year of T-Jack just fine, but only if its clear that a sane long-term plan is in place.

If Hawthorne's injury is even semi-serious, might we see the return of Lofa Tatupu? He's still out there, and Seattle does not have any depth at linebacker.

Regarding the secondary, it didn't feel like they had a down performance today, Browner exempted. Further DVR study could prove otherwise, but watching the game, it just felt like Shanahan had an outstanding game plan, and both Grossman and Helu played terrific games. Another huge factor was that despite pre-game reports, Trent Williams was able to play and his presence had a massive impact on Chris Clemons and Seattle's ability to finish the job on its pass rush. Had Sean Locklear started instead, I doubt Washington wins this game.

I've said before that I'm no longer rooting for draft position, and I've made several arguments, including an essay recently at Seahawks Draft Blog, that winning could actually have some hidden benefits come draft day. Losing today, which probably cut our slim playoff chances in half, doesn't change that. However, its worth noting that if Seattle had to lose to a single team in our final six games, Washington would have been the best team to lose to. Unlike the other five teams, Washington is desperate for a quarterback, and is looking for a somewhat similar mold of quarterback as we are. This could very well be a loss that we'll look back on in 5 months and say "thank God we lost to the Redskins." Losing gave us a game up in the draft standings against a prime competitor (meaning we are now "tied" with the Redskins). Idiots note: Please do not construe this comment as me rooting for draft position. I would have much rather won and be on a 3 game winning streak heading into a nationally televised game against the Eagles. The draft position is nothing more than a silver lining to a dark cloud. Its just something to make us feel a little less crappy about a suffering a painful fourth quarter comeback.

The DVR Run Analyst Joins 17 Power

2011-11-25T00:16:00.000-08:00

Since 2007, I've been reviewing almost every Seahawks run play in slow motion on my DVR over at the Northwest Sports Talk Forum under the alias, CamasMan. (I just posted my analysis of the Rams Game there.) Brandon invited me to join this blog and I immediately accepted. Is there a better title than 17 Power for a blog analyzing the Seahawks' running game?

Here some background. I'm the height and weight of a wide receiver, have the hands of a linebacker, the speed of a nose tackle, the tactical savvy of a long snapper, and the toughness of a place kicker. So, in organized sports, I'm a breaststroker. I was never meant to play football.

I first became an obsessed fan back when Bill Walsh first became the 49er's head coach. My best friend's dad had been Walsh's roommate at San Jose State. So here we were, a bunch of young guys in LA, rooting for San Francisco. Hey, timing is everything. A few years later, my young family moved to Grass Valley in Northern California, and the ride continued. In '96, we moved up here to Camas, and watched more High School ball than the pros. I happened to catch Game 5 of Seattle's 2005 season, and quickly became hooked. Again, timing is everything. Screw the '9ers!

In 2007, I was embarrassed that our fans were calling for Alexander's head. Sure, his numbers fell off, but show the man some respect! I wanted to know the cause, and had just gotten an HD DVR, so I started my DVR Running Game Analysis on the NWSportsTalk Forum. It didn't take long before I saw that our line wasn't getting it done. We had busted plays, shedded blocks, no push, defenders in the backfield - and the occasional big run to keep our averages from hitting the basement. Big Walt still played well. Locklear was mixed - he might have a stinker of a game one week, but play perfectly the next. I had a hard time evaluating Spencer. Sims was inconsistent. Gray was clearly weak and soon retired.

Alexander was often criticized for not being a bruiser, but my numbers showed that defenses needed more men to bring him down than they did Mo Morris. Looking back, the problem was that Alexander was a patient, vision kind of back, and the few holes that appeared didn't stay open. We were slow off the ball, and the longer the play clock ticked, the more our line crumbled. Patience was not a virtue for a Seattle running back in 2007.

Lest one think patient backs stink, DeMarco Murray was patient and used vision, and he gouged our normally stout run defense pretty badly. He's a good match in Dallas, but he would have been smothered in Seattle four seasons ago.

Regardless of fault, Alexander wasn't getting any younger and was out of Seattle and soon out of football. But our numbers got even worse as we brought in Julius Jones, a parade of left guards, Mike Solari as line coach, and had to fill the vacancy left by Walter Jones. My DVR analysis continued to show that we were weak between the tackles, and that Locklear had good days and bad. On our "good" days we'd continue to have a string of bad plays and the occasional big play. And long third downs. And three and outs. On "bad" days, it was the same, but without the bursts. Our defense didn't get much rest.

Come 2010 and we drafted a new left tackle, but a long contract negotiation and a teammate falling on his ankle kept Okung from getting up to speed quickly. But Okung clearly had talent. We also had Alex Gibbs as the new line coach, until we didn't. We still had a revolving door at left guard. I liked Hamilton's ability to go after linebackers. Andrews was big, but too big to get to the second level and engage. We had a weapon in Carlson - a tight end who contributed to the running game. He didn't get a reputation as a good blocker, but I found that he was especially effective at slashing behind the line to push out defensive ends. We had a new fullback in Michael Robinson, but he was pretty green at the position and as often as not, our interior linemen would lose their blocks just as Robinson ran by. We continued to have lost blocks, busted plays, and zero push up the middle. Lynch arrived and showed us what a bruising, downhill runner looked like, but his best ability seemed to be improvising in the backfield when the line screwed up. At least we were getting gains of one on plays where we used to suffer three yard losses. Beast Quake (on a play call of 17 Power) was the highlight of the season, but the running game still depended too much on breakaway runs, rather than consistency.

In 2011, we cleaned house and went young on the line. It didn't help right out of the box. We looked terrible in preseason games as well as the first games of the season. Injuries continued to haunt us, and the line looked like the Keystone Cops. We had gone from weak to incompetent over a strike shortened off season. TJ was getting hammered on pass plays. Beast Mode was caged on run plays. Previously elusive Forsett hardly saw the ball and when he did, he was met in the backfield where he couldn't elude anybody. Washington had a bit more success on pitches and screens to the outside. But all the while, things looked different to me. When the linemen weren't looking stupid, they were looking stronger than we had looked before. We had a number of guys who could get to a linebacker, engage, and sustain a block. I was optimistic.

We played well in New York - and the win was great! - but it was still feast or famine. Again, our good yardage and YPC numbers depended on the big play. I missed the "Ohio" games due to international travel and didn't have the heart to go back and analyze those losses. The '9ers were surging, and I figured that we were toast.

Then, in Dallas, something changed. Our linemen stopped making boneheaded mistakes. They were using better technique. You could see exactly how the line play was designed. Right and left zone and slash plays were easy to see. We were executing. And, we were doing it with push. It was clear that our guys were "getting it." And that confident play led to getting off the ball quickly. And that gave us more leverage. That leverage led to push. And all of a sudden, we were getting strings of 3, 4, and 5 yard runs. That led to more runs, and more confidence, rhythm, and speed. This looked nothing like any Seahawks running game I had charted since that first time I opened a football spreadsheet in 2007. Hallelujah! (Too bad our run D and quarterback play didn't match our running quality. That was a game we could have won.)

Surely, we wouldn't continue that against the Ravens. Yet we did. Even with Moffitt out for the year in the first quarter. Yes, their D is great. They limited us to a long of eight yards. But our offensive line was able to deliver consistent three and four yard runs. I was extremely impressed by Jeanpierre as well as the rest of our running game.

As I see it, the line is responsible for plays between -3 and +2 yards. The running back is responsible for everything else. Our backs have been good enough to deliver the occasional break away, but our line wasn't able to deliver those consistent first two yards. Now we are.

Except Jeanpierre won't play as we need to play it safe with our backup center. McQuistan isn't bad, but until the Rams game we had only seen him as part of our "bad" line. Carpenter is out. Can Breno hold down the spot against a strong defense? Personally, I think our running game depends more on our inside three than the tackles, so I expect us to be okay. I just hope he can do his job well enough to keep TJ upright.

We regressed a bit against the Rams, but that's to be expected. We were running behind yet another group of starters who hadn't played before. The inconsistency was back, but not where you would expect it. Giacomini played surprisingly well. McQuistan started out weak, but tightened up his game in the second half. Okung was mostly solid as were our tight ends. If anything, Gallery had the toughest game, and Unger bungled more blocks than is normal for him. They might have still been a bit beat up from the Ravens game.

Now we have the Redskins coming to town. Hopefully, Gallery and Unger get back to recent form. McQuistan should start feeling more comfortable on the right side. Let's hope Giacomini continues his solid play. They'll have the 12th Man on their side. I'm not too worried about yards per carry. I want to see us get that consistent push back - and I want to see it continue.

Go Hawks!

Winning by Reputation vs. Just Beating Bad Gameplans

2011-11-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

It's being said that the Seahawks' defense is now shutting down teams by mere reputation.

In the last two weeks, Seattle has beaten two teams - Baltimore and St. Louis - who abandoned the run very early on after a token showing, then turned around and placed the game on the shoulders of their QB. Word is that their offensive coordinators, aware of Seattle's ability against the run, were planning a pass-heavy attack for that reason even before the game began. If opponents are smart enough to throw out entire facets of the offense before the game even begins, then hey, we must be pretty good.

There's a massive assumption in there: that relying on the passing game made sense for those teams. It's a faulty assumption. It actually made even less sense than trying to run against the brick wall of Seattle's defensive line. If you're going to kill the run, not only do you have to be craftier about it then giving Ray Rice only five carries, but you had better have a quarterback who can carry the team. Otherwise, the results write themselves.

Ravens fans are starting to lose patience with QB Joe "Perpetually One Weapon Away" Flacco. There is obviously still time for the fourth-year QB to improve, and his newest toy, Lee Evans, hasn't been on the field long enough this year to develop chemistry with him. But Flacco looked awful against Seattle, all on his own. His intermediate/deep accuracy is badly wanting. The OC assigned him a playbook similar to the dink-and-dunk checkdown offense that people were hoping Charlie Whitehurst could mince along with ("Hey, it beat the awful 2010 Rams in a game that just happened to be, through no accomplishment of Whitehurst's, a playoff-deciding win! So the Whitehurst Offense must be viable! Right?"). It just didn't have any punch, netting Flacco an appallingly measly 4.9 YPA and bearing a stark resemblance to the same listless offense that pulled Baltimore out of last year's playoffs. Overrated but quality RB Ray Rice was given no chance to help him, limited to five carries.

Speaking of the Rams, their decision to go with a pure passing approach was even more baffling. The Rams have handled Sam Bradford pretty poorly so far. He's stuck with an offensive coordinator who's overloading him just as much as Pat Shurmur underloaded him, and his general manager has only recently become aware of the wide receiver position. Against the Seahawks in particular, St. Louis was starting two backup offensive tackles (which has a ripple effect across an entire offensive line) and had just gotten Brandon Lloyd back on the field. And Bradford, for that matter. This is not a set of circumstances that supports a pure passing approach - at all.

But sure, let's take Pro Bowler Steven Jackson out of the equation entirely and telegraph our intentions all day by emptying the backfield and running spread formations with mediocre weapons, a QB with terrible stats in 4+ WR formations, and a crippled line. (Congratulations, Chris Clemons, you demolished a third-string tackle who'd just been pulled off the practice squad! Here's your national recognition!*)

Abandoning the run game is something you do when your QB is Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers, someone who can shoulder the load. It's not something you do when your QB is Sam Bradford or Joe Flacco. The latter is on a run-first team by design; the former is still very early in his development and is looking more and more like a slow-maturing player. What he needs right now is support, not the Peyton treatment.

As for the reputation of our run defense, teams have flourished against the Pete Carroll Seahawks with a pure-passing approach before, so it's not a death sentence to be forced away from the run. It could be argued that Baltimore's 52 passing attempts was equal parts respect for Seattle's run defense and disrespect for its pass defense, given our struggles against any QB with more in his playbook than "Checkdown" and "Green 25, Screw It Go Deep". You just have to be smart about abandoning the run. Seattle has abandoned the run a lot in the last three seasons, and it hasn't helped.

It's easy and comforting as fans of the winner to jump on the idea that our defense might finally be keeping coaches up at night, but the approaches of Baltimore (only five carries for Ray Rice) and St. Louis (lots of empty backfield) really don't make sense objectively. You don't run schemes that your personnel can't support, and killing the run to that extreme takes away your pre-snap flexibility and play-action, makes you one-dimensional. Even a defense bereft of talent, which Seattle isn't, can scrape by if it knows exactly what's coming. Even if that RB on the field isn't expected to make a play, the defense still has to account for him. Maybe, just maybe, some rookie defender will make a rookie mistake and allow a game-changing long TD (KJ Wright on Jason Witten, anyone?).

This play-calling doesn't feel like adaptation. If the running game had been given at least the occasional chance, maybe it's understandable. But this extreme just feels like imbalance, overreaction, neglect of the team's best personnel. Especially coming right after DeMarco Murray had gotten done proving that good RB's are not necessarily impotent against this team. The most sense I can find in this thought process is the heavy emphasis on running backs as receivers, as Seattle's pass defense is ranked #31 in DVOA against RB's.

If we're going to point out that some of those teams' personnel problems are out of their control, like the Rams' injury issues, then that deserves a place in the discussion. But in that case, we're back to the part where Seattle is just grinding out wins through playing inferior competition, rather than through defensive excellence as is the word on the street now. There's talent on this defense, but defeating a completely unsupported Joe Flacco or Sam Bradford is not a quality test and racking up three sacks on a practice-squad tackle shouldn't really be causing a shift in popular perception towards the entire defense. It's too little too soon. I don't want to see another "pretender" defense like 2007's. We need a real trial here, from a full offense, legitimate QB, and an offensive coordinator who isn't on his third team in four years.

* This is more a diss on the purveyors of national recognition than on Clemons. He's one of the most underrated pass defenders in the NFC and is playing hard and disruptively on an island in Carroll's scheme. Frustrating that only sack numbers get you any kudos in this league.

Seahawks smack hapless Rams, win 24-7

2011-11-20T21:40:00.000-08:00

I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!

Well that was interesting.

Okay, not really. But as Bryce Fisher once said, an ugly win is "like an ugly baby- you never see one." I've seen my fair share of both, but his words are wise in spirit. Seattle did not prove they were a great team today, but they did prove that regardless of what their record says, they are easily a cut above the worst teams in the league. This game was a long overdue reminder that the Seattle Seahawks do indeed still play in the NFC West. Its easy to forget, given that Seattle only played NFC West opponents twice in the first nine games, which non-coincidentally resulted in the Seahawks boasting the toughest strength of schedule ranking in the NFL up to that point (.598 opponent win %).

So it should come as no surprise that today the Seahawks dominated the Rams. Or did they? Honestly I'm not sure. I mean, did they really finish with 5 sacks? Is that a typo? That seems unbelievable given how absent the pass rush felt in the first 3 quarters. The Seahawks had a highly impressive 95 yard touchdown drive in this game, yet only finished with 289 yards of total offense. And the Seahawks averaged 4.2 yards per play! For comparison's sake, they had 3.5 yards per play in a shutout performance at Pittsburgh in week 2. Taken out of context, that number looks pretty pathetic. Put into context, it looks even worse, as the Rams defense (as measured by yards) ranked in the mid-twenties before this game.

But even that seems pretty kick ass compared to the Rams, who had 3.0 yards per play today. And though I'd like to compliment the Seahawks defense here, I think a lot of that was just the Rams being the Rams. It wasn't hard to find insightful analysts who predicted that Sam Bradford would have a sophomore slump while Josh McDaniels installed his notoriously high learning curve offense, but it seems they still stopped well short as doomsayers. Sam Bradford only rarely attempted passes beyond 15 yards, despite having a ton of time to throw for the first three quarters. His performance was lethargic if not pitiful, sort of like Matt Hasselbeck for most of the last 3 years, if Matt actually had time to throw for most of the game.

In fact, it donned on me late in the 4th quarter that we've all seen this game before. We saw it last year, with the 2011 Rams playing the role of the 2010 Seahawks, and the 2011 Seahawks playing the role of the 2010 Raiders. For those who haven't purged the ugly memories of that game, Seattle hung with a tough Oakland Raiders team through the first half, but at some point in the 3rd quarter, something snapped (Red Bryant's knee) and then the Raiders delivered a straight up Chuck Norris ass-kicking the rest of the way. They didn't just crush Seattle on the scoreboard or on the stat page, but on the injury report as well. It was a brutal loss that would have singlehandedly sabotaged Seattle's playoff outlook if not for the fact that they played in the maybe the weakest division in NFL history that year.

The Rams didn't suffer many injuries, but they took their fare share of big shots, particularly from Kam Chancellor and David Hawthorne. I think it says it all that the game ended in the "victory" formation, and I use quotation marks because it wasn't the victorious team doing the kneeling. As Sam Bradford took that final knee, you could just sense that the Rams offense simply wanted nothing more to do with the Seahawks defense. I'm not going to pretend that the Seahawks have an elite defense, or even a true top 10 defense. But a top 5 "nastiest" defense? Yeah, I think its safe to say that.

Its not a perfect analogy statistically, but in terms of personality, the Seahawks have already become the NFC's Raiders en route to becoming the NFC's Ravens. The Raiders haven't won a lot of games lately, but they've been consistently competitive, they dominate in a weak division, and they are not a fun team to play against. They also rack up an unbelievable amount of penalties- somehow even more than the Seahawks have.

Today the Seahawks were the bullies in an elementary school playground who ran across a 3rd grade Stuart Smalley to pick on. That's nothing to brag about, but it all counts in the standings just the same.

My eyes were focused today on McQuistan and Giacomini, the two replacements for Seattle's injured rookies on the right side. I mean this as no slight, but McQuistan and Giacomini are pretty much the definition of "replacement level." Replacement level means a level of play you associate with a street free agent. Both Giacomini and McQuistan were free agents of the unwanted variety when Seattle signed them. Given how those two performed today, I think its safe to say that Moffitt and Carpenter were both roughly replacement level players in their rookie seasons. Perhaps a little less. Which by the way, is exactly the level of performance I'd expect. Its not exactly a well kept secret: rookie lineman are usually pretty terrible, but tend to get much better later. We need look no further than Max Unger to see that.

So how did they play? McQuistan had a few penalties against him, but otherwise I thought he was surprisingly non-terrible. His run blocking was adequate and his pass protection fell short of a disaster (unlike his previous outings). You could say he was kind of like a jittery version of Mike Gibson (whom, it should be noted, isn't here anymore). Giacomini missed a few blocks and has shown himself to be a disappointingly limited athlete at times despite having the look of a rather athletic right tackle. It was probably a step above what Carpenter was giving us, but Carpenter was one of the worst right tackles in the league. I think of Giacomini as being a reverse Polumbus, where Polumbus was an acceptable pass blocker but a poor run blocker. The Seahawks have invested in building a run block oriented line, and even their backups tend to fit that philosophy.

Marshawn Lynch had yet another mixed day. In the last 2 games, Seattle's run blocking has ranged from solid to outstanding, and yet in that span Lynch has only averaged 3.36 yards per carry despite getting a tremendous workload in those games. Those games helped me realize why Marshawn Lynch's yards per carry is low... really why its always been low even in his pro-bowl season. Lynch is a good athlete, but he tends to slow almost to a stop when waiting for blocks, he doesn't explode out of his cuts, he often misses out on huge cutback areas and on the rare occasion he goes untouched through the first level, his top gear isn't very fast, so he can't really take much advantage of it. In the last two games, Lynch has carried the ball 59 times and his longest among them was 12 yards. His second longest was 8 yards. Justin Forsett is hardly a home run threat, nor is he having a very good season, but even he had a 22 yard touchdown today. In other words, Lynch is missing big plays, and leaving yards on the field. Its the absence of the big play that dogs Lynch's average, and even a huge improvement in his run blocking hasn't changed that.

Which isn't to say that Lynch was bad today. He fought for some tough yards and for the second straight week felt reliable. The only thing that separates Lynch from the good backs of the league is that he doesn't have those 20-30 yarders on occasion to pull up his average the rest of the game. Most of the time, Lynch really is a solid back, and today that was true as well. Ultimately though, the conspicuous absence of the big play is making its presence felt. I know some people will want to compare Lynch to late-career Shaun Alexander, but they were fundamentally different in one way. Even crappy-version Shaun Alexander still had big plays, but was stuffed on everything else. Lynch is pretty consistent at gaining 1-3 yards, but lacks the big runs to pull up his average, as any franchise running back would.

Robert Gallery and Max Unger couldn't quite match the ground game dominance they had flashed in the previous two games, but they were still pretty good once again. You really have to like the left side of Seattle's line right now, especially if they can cut down on the penalties a bit.

Sidney Rice throws a great deep ball.

I ragged on Seattle's offense for sucking, but in fairness, a lot of that was from an atrocious dry spell to open the game. The Seahawks very first play went for 55 yards, but the remainder of their first five drives totaled -4 yards of total offense and two interceptions (on the first two passes Jackson threw). After those picks, Jackson finished the rest of the game with a 64% completion rate, a 6.72 YPA and a touchdown. Not a great performance, but after a terrible start, he settled down to be acceptably mediocre. Seattle didn't move the ball like a well oiled machine, but they did do an admirable job from the 6th drive on at converting first downs and grinding out the clock with a lead.

There was at least one area though that you won't find me making excuses for Jackson. While Jackson did flash some good ability to keep plays alive today, he also took several monster sacks. Losing 3 or 4 yards on a sack is bad enough. But multiple times in this game, Jackson took sacks in excess of 10 yard losses, which set up down and distances such as 3rd and 25 and 3rd and 32. When its that bad, you might as well surprise them with a quarterback pooch punt on 3rd down.

Fox broadcast color commentator Tim Ryan has a beard imported straight from 1985. Seriously, look at this magnificent thing. Given that he just arrived here going 88 miles per hour in his DeLorean, he must be rather disappointed that we still don't have flying cars.

Chris Clemons finished with 3 sacks and two forced fumbles. I think its safe to say that Roger Saffold's absence has been felt. Its hard to believe, but thanks to this game Clemons is now only three sacks short of matching the eleven sacks he had last season, with six games left to go, and with a second Rams game among them.

Fans of baseball are probably familiar with pitcher's face. Its the phenomena that occurs to a pitchers face during the considerable full body strain of throwing a major league pitch. For the uninitiated, here's an example. Today we got to see Sam Bradford's pitching face, except instead of being contorted from throwing a pitch, its contorted from getting slammed in the pocket by a surging pass rusher. Quite frankly, I don't know if a more beautiful picture of Sam Bradford has ever been taken.

In what might very well be my favorite play of the 2011 season, Red Bryant recorded his first career interception on a pass tipped by Brandon Mebane, who then lumbered up the field, switched the ball to his left arm, then proceeded to stiff arm the daylights out of an unsuspecting Austin Pettis. After the play ended, you could hear Red Bryant screaming with excitement, on the bottom of a pile consisting of most of Seattle's defense. If a bible software company is ever looking for a sound effect for the story of Jesus casting a legion of demons into a herd of swine, this wouldn't be a bad place to start.

On the Possible Re-Signing of Marshawn Lynch

2011-11-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

TNT reported this week that reps for RB Marshawn Lynch have reached out to the Seahawks for discussions over a multi-year contract. Lynch has accrued enough playing time this year to trigger a contract provision voiding the final year of his contract, making him a free-agent after this season.

So why are we feeling hesitant about this re-signing?

It's been a while since the phrases "Seattle Seahawks", "new contract negotiations", and "running back" were all mentioned in the same sentence. The last time they were, the result wasn't pretty. Shaun Alexander took the money and didn't run. Are we gun-shy over running backs from this?

The debate over the reasons for Alexander's dropoff is irrelevant and tired. It happened. In fact, it may be more instructive to leave that discussion open, because it highlights the fact that player decline can occur for a variety of reasons. Loss of surrounding talent, injury, wearing down, coaching changes, being too happy-go-lucky, New Contract Syndrome - everything under the sun has been named as a cause of Alexander's sputtering out, and every one of them has a legitimate place in the discussion.

When the 2011 season opened, Marshawn Lynch was undoubtedly one of the most popular Seahawks on the roster, courtesy of this. He was also one of the most likely-to-disappoint Seahawks. He was entering 2011 behind a straight-out-of-the-box offensive line, a new coach, and a fresh offensive philosophy that was going to demand a lot from him. Despite his physical, unrelenting, passionate running style, Lynch hadn't shown enough raw production in 2010 to make anyone think he'd transcend the line's growing pains and lack of offseason preparation. The QB situation certainly wasn't going to help. It wasn't a formula for success. Despite "The Run", many saw another frustrating season ahead for Lynch.

The Start

The first half of the season did little to deflect those concerns. Lynch struggled to a 3.5 YPC, inflated in classic Seahawks tradition by the occasional long run sprinkled amongst failed plays. (The long run against the Giants, for example, drops that YPC figure to 3.0 if left out.) The 12th Man, also in classic Seahawks tradition, blamed the offensive line. I was amongst them, because although I'm sick of blaming everything and world hunger on the Seahawks offensive line, this time they truly were awful enough to bury the offense. They resembled the impassable wad of snot I expelled from my nose last weekend while down with the flu (a spectacularly clogging wad, that).

Nor was the rest of the offense helping. Early in the season, Pete Carroll, the great run-first advocate who fired Jeremy Bates for knowing when to abandon an ineffective run game, abandoned the ineffective run game. Seattle could neither contain nor out-shoot dynamic offenses like Pittsburgh and Atlanta (and still can't), so Lynch got tossed aside before reaching double-digit carries. He was sort of the Matt Hasselbeck of the 2011 offense - capable of greatness when the rest of the offense showed up, completely shut down if they didn't. Doubt began to arise amongst more educated fans as to whether Lynch was a good fit for the zone-blocking system that Seattle was committed to.

The Present

Then, two games ago, everything changed. Here's another phrase you haven't heard for a while: "back-to-back 100-yard rushing games". Lynch just pulled it off against two strong, yet very different defenses. At Tom Cable's insistence, the team sacrificed some no-huddle offense and re-drew their game plan around the run, more specifically around Lynch. The offensive line stepped up to the challenge dramatically with a burst of chemistry and cohesion. The result was 109 rushing yards for Lynch against the Baltimore Ravens defense - ranked #2 against the run and against public anonymity.

What's more, these yards were consistent, decisive gains that virtually eliminated tackles for loss - the kind of grinding steadiness that zone-blocking looks for. The offensive line's development and the return of Robert Gallery are by far the biggest factors here. Camas from the NWSportsTalk forum is providing some great weekly run-game breakdowns (read here about the Giants, Dallas and Baltimore games) that keep repeating an extraordinarily welcome and exciting word in association with our line: "push". Suddenly our guys are just getting push, push, push, especially from Gallery. Such a simple concept, so agonizing in its absence all these years. They're also improving in the areas of coordination, quickness off the line, and speed to the second level (especially from pleasant surprise Max Unger). With better rushing lanes to decide from, Lynch's hard-headed style is starting to net him real yards, as well as a rushing TD in each of his last five games.

(Camas' Baltimore breakdown also has some encouraging words on Lemuel Jeanpierre, one of our backup guards, and the underrated fullback Michael Robinson, whose blocking has been key for Lynch and who had a tremendous day against future Hall-of-Famer Ray Lewis. Seriously, read this stuff. It's not complicated or full of big words.)

Too soon to get excited? Maybe. The test is long-term consistency. But it's better than anything offered by the one-two punch of Julius Jones and Justin Forsett. Seattle has been desperate for any kind of identity or reliability on offense, and whether or not you agree with a run-first approach, Tarvaris Jackson (and the QBOTF that Seattle had better draft next April) will be thankful for the reduced pressure. He's also glad for the new weapon; Lynch's 5 catches for 58 yards suggest that Darell Bevell is finding ways to get him involved in developing pass plays, so long as Jackson can stay clean. Far from irrelevant, Lynch is suddenly crucial to this offense.

The Future

The frustrating injury loss of John Moffitt and James Carpenter will have their impact, Moffitt's moreso than Carpenter's. For all his development time, Ben Muth of Football Outsiders has seen Carpenter's run success as pretty limited. Carpenter still seems to be playing close to replacement level in both phases of the game; the improvement in run protection is there, but also appears to be a factor of game-planning and play design. This means there might not be a huge dropoff from him to aggressive-styled backup Brent Giacomini. (None of this is a knock on Carpenter's future, by the way - Max Unger was terrible in his rookie season and sat out his second season on IR, but returned to become a key cog in this newfound running prowess.)

Fortunately for the integration of the new right side, Seattle has a whole 'nuther week before facing a respectable run defense. This week, St. Louis is ranked #31 against the run. There is some sort of airborne virus in the Rams locker room that only infects cornerbacks (nine currently on IR), so their defense will be playing from back on its heels in every department.

That situation, along with Tarvaris Jackson's improvements, make for some interesting possibilities on offense. They will likely drop more linebackers out of the box and dedicate more safety help to the corners; that gives Lynch running room up the middle. We could also see some runs from three-wide receiver sets to test the recognition and tackling ability of those backup corners (as Mike Sando suggests). Whatever the case, I wouldn't expect Bevell to stray from featuring Lynch heavily despite our offense. The run focus has really seemed to stabilize his play-calling, and our line's best run-blockers are still healthy.

After this week, Seattle's remaining six opponents are ranked 13th (WAS), 26th (PHI), 31st (STL), 15th (CHI), 1st (SF), and 30th (ARI) against the run. Out of those, only the Eagles and Bears have enough of a high-powered offense to potentially force Seattle away from the run. This is a decently balanced slate of competition that will give us a good picture of Lynch's potential without taking away the fun.

The Draft

Two weeks ago, the run game was so bad that we were looking at RB's in the first round of next year's draft. It was correct to put a load of the responsibility on Lynch, although I think that some underestimated just how horrifically pathetic our line was to start with. Now that they're reaching competency, does Lynch's status change? Not exactly. He's still largely dependent on the surrounding offense to succeed (although succeed like crazy he can), placing him firmly in "they could theoretically do better" territory.

But drafting a RB in the first round was a tenuous idea even before things started getting better. RB is such a fungible position. Many of the current leaders at that position aren't found in the first round. If you've got a terrible stable of backs and a lack of other pressing needs that demand first-round treatment, AND are looking at a draft prospect that's truly worthy of the label "franchise changer", then first-round running backs are swallowable.

This offense's progression drops the team out of that category in my opinion. To pursue a running back on the draft's first day would ignore other growling needs (like quarterback) and would spend high on a position that, while improveable, isn't terrible either. It's an annoying middle ground that demands attention, but not too much. Seattle should save the running back hunt for the second day of the draft. While I'd prefer emphasis on the pass rush, I wouldn't be shocked if our draft took a long look at guys like Chris Polk or Lamichael James in the second or third round.

I gotta say, I feel vindicated on a number of levels by Lynch's recent success. He can do amazing things when given holes to run through. Like late Hasselbeck, he can take a dose of assistance and run far further with it than you'd expect. Although he's not really enough of a back to overcome poor play elsewhere on the team, he really doesn't have to be. He's playing in a league that ultimately requires success from the passing game, so for me, "productive behind a good enough O-line" is enough.

Lynch is more than that. He's hard-hitting, tackle-breaking, spirited, determined, and best of all young and not yet in his prime (the John Schneider effect again). He exemplifies the desire to win and was running hard before his contract year. Instead of fading into obscurity after "The Run", he may turn out to be a staple of this offense for many years to come.

That's a lot of Beast Mode to enjoy.

And just because I can:

Seahawks out-raven Ravens, win shocker

2011-11-13T19:05:00.000-08:00

The face of a man burned by false praise turned true.

I'm not a big dating expert, but one thing even I've heard is that its best to "just be yourself" when you go on a big date. Well the Seahawks were themselves today in all their goofy, awkward glory, and still scored big. They couldn't finish drives. They had many "almost" touchdowns that weren't. They were penalized. Often. Oh man, so often that it almost certainly will vault them into the #1 spot in the league. They moved the ball well, yet nearly had as many penalties as first downs.

But they won. More importantly, the Hawks actually earned this win. They never trailed today in a season in which they had never previously led at halftime. Seattle won with an emerging run blocking offensive line, a strong run defense, a steadfast if unspectacular quarterback, and a special young secondary. Seattle won despite having almost zero pass rush, and despite killing drives, and extending others, with inexplicable penalties. They beat a 6-2 team, a 6-2 team that most likely would have been in the AFC championship last year if not for some shady officiating. They outplayed a good team, but interestingly enough, they outplayed the very team for which the Seahawks model most closely resembles.

I wrote this article about the Seahawks-Ravens just after the 2011 draft over at Seahawks Draft Blog. Seattle has invested two firsts, a third, traded late round picks for two players, and signed a high profile free agent all on just the offensive line alone in only two years. They have built an elite rush defense out of spare parts, and while they have invested less in the defense than the Ravens did, the almost over-the-top investment in the line is remarkably similar. So what did the Ravens do after that? They traded for a former 1st round running back drafted by the Bills (sound familiar?), then drafted a "reach" quarterback in the middle first, and drafted a 2nd round running back who'd become one of the most productive backs in the NFL. Everyone fretting about the long term quarterback or running back situation, don't be worried. Help is coming.

I did not think Seattle would successfully adopt the Ravens blueprint this quickly. Seattle's interior run blocking has been on a tear for the second game in a row, and Seattle's secondary, particularly Richard Sherman, is possessed. Seattle flat out kicked the Raven's asses today at smash mouth football. Not many teams can do that.

Harbaugh called Marshawn Lynch one of the three best backs in the NFL before the game. Harbaugh is a brilliant coach, but a statement like that can only be one of three things: a ridiculously exaggerated compliment typically used for psychological purposes, a sincere/moronic evaluation, or a subtle-sarcastic dig at a running back who has struggled for most of the past three years. Whatever his intentions were, Seattle's running game strove to make his statement look timely. Was he being sincere? I don't know. I'm betting its sincere now.

Maybe the toughest thing about switching to the NFC is that I only get a maximum of two games a year called by the announcing crews over at CBS. Greg Gumble is a long tenured, quality professional. Dan Dierdorf is a rare dual Hall of Famer: in the Hall as an offensive lineman, and in the Hall for his work behind the mic. He's intelligent enough to avoid cliches and even provide quality insights. When Heath Farwell appeared to do the disastrous by touching the football surrounded by Ravens players, and almost everyone in the building had no idea what was going on, Dierdorf didn't miss a beat, pointing out that a batted ball is no longer live, even if a returning team touches it.

But perhaps Dierdorf's best insight came early, when he pointed out that young teams tend to have especially erratic performances. One of the hallmarks of insightful thinking is that it can point out the unspoken things that should be obvious. And it turned out to be pretty prophetic, as Seattle gave Baltimore a lot more than they thought they'd be getting when they were catching their flight to SeaTac. Last week, Seattle lost by two scores, but they made Dallas (an emerging team) work for every bit of it. Afterwards, Tony Romo publicly breathed a sigh of relief and credited the Seahawks for being a far tougher opponent than the general public thinks. Seahawks opponents have won 6 games in 9 tries, but they have not been an easy win very often. And now two of the Seahawks three victories this year have come against teams that currently have winning records.

The 12th man is the perfect mascot for the Seahawks, and really, the Pacific Northwest as a whole. In relative terms, we are an isolated, shut in, um, unique people who don't get the attention we crave and deserve. We have the dorkiest mascot, and some of the most awesomely dorky fans who are loud and proud. Today I saw a man wearing an that strange 80's bird/rocker get up painted in the colors of the American Flag. Earlier in the year I saw another fan dressed up like Elton John, just because hey, who doesn't like Elton John right? But today took the cake. Easily, the greatest NFL "cosplay" of all time. Predator-Seahawks fan, if you are reading this, thank you. Seahawks logos in the eyeballs? You have my eternal gratitude.

Marshawn Lynch had a mixed performance, but it was far better than his 3.4 yards per carry stat would indicate. Sure- twice he single-handedly lost yards with terrible running decisions, and on a few occasions he missed gaping wide cutback lanes. But those mistakes were exceptions in a day when he was mostly decisive, and with a line that was consistently getting good interior push, he was getting 3-4 yards a crack on the majority of his runs. That isn't sexy, but that's what the zone blocking scheme is meant to do. He also added 58 yards on 5 receptions. It was a very Steven Jackson type of performance. I still think Seattle can do better. But I think we are finally beginning to see the Marshawn Lynch Seattle thought they were trading for. He's not a star, but he can be a useful player when he plays decisively.

My gameball goes to Seattle's interior line. Unger and Gallery were constantly found four yards downfield and even John Moffitt made a few nice plays before leaving with injury. His replacement, Jeanpierre, seemed to do an admirable job under the circumstances, and Seattle's interior push resumed without missing a beat when Moffitt left the game.

Richard Sherman has now had three strong games in the three starts. He has ball skills. He can cover. He can hit. A home run for a 5th round pick.

I hope Kam Chancellor is alright after decapitating himself. Chancellor is my new favorite Seahawk, but he must learn to lead with the shoulder consistently. Not because of ethical reasons. Not because of penalties. But for his own health and career. Hopefully his injury does not linger and color the rest of his playing days, but this needs to be a learning experience.

The penalties became ridiculous near the end, and it was fascinating to watch the 12th man slowly turn on their own team as the infractions became more and more incomprehensible. On one hand, Seattle is a young team that plays with an attitude. Its part of what makes Seattle an exciting team to watch. Curbing those penalties would be great, but they are a bi-product of the things that help make this team exciting. Can Carroll reduce the penalties with having his team lose its aggressive edge? It might be the biggest challenge he'll face with the current roster.

Is the worst "player" on Seattle's offense Darrell Bevell?

2011-11-11T07:14:00.000-08:00

When it comes to NFL playcallers, perception rarely matches reality. Fans are not the only ones bothered by offensive coordinators' tendencies and proclivities; perhaps no other coaching position is as prone to staff turnover as offensive signal caller. Mr. Jeremy Bates to the white courtesy phone...

From the well-publicized snafus in Washington DC when Zorn had his playcalling duties stripped and was effectively both neutered, spayed, and publicly pantsed as a coach, to the well-publicized annual changing of the offensive coordinator that many blame for Alex Smith's woes, to the still-strong hatred of Greg Knapp in all places Seahawk, second-guessing signal callers is a wonderful pastime seemingly enjoyed by all - except of course, signal callers. Mike Holmgren often was praised for his play calling genius, but 3rd and long draw plays still make Seattle fans far and wide reflexively wince while invoking the Walrus' name in vain. Being a play caller ain't no joke.

Offensively, Seattle is struggling. The 'Hawks have wasted two consecutive defensive performances worthy of a win, and Seattle played well enough defensively against the Cowboys to win that game as well. It felt early on that Seattle was dodging bullets Matrix style, but the run defense cleaned up its act well enough to make sure the 'Boys didn't scamper away. 23 points shouldn't feel insurmountable, but it did. There is simply no confidence in an offense that has no trouble racking yards, but seemingly goes cross-eyed nearly every time it nears the opponents 30. The popular theory has been the offensive line, but they had an above average performance on Sunday, and it didn't change much.

Does any, or even most, of the failure hang on Darrell Bevell?

First, credit where credit is due. Bevell has the offense getting out of the huddle much better than early in the season, with Jackson getting between 10 and 15 seconds behind center to look over the defensive set. Jackson, on the other hand, has been rather slow to get to the snap after he gets his linemen set. Part of me wonders if that is contributing to the sheer number of procedure calls.

This kind of shocked me. I was under the impression that Jackson was up against the play clock a bit more that this. Funny how early season perceptions tend to hang on long after they have been corrected.

However, don't call FTD to have your roses sent to Bevell's office just yet. Some of Seattle's most publicized errors rest squarely on him and his passion for multitudes of personnel packages.

Rewind your DVR to just before halftime in the Bengals game. Facing 3rd and goal with 19 seconds left, Seattle has a clock-stopping sideline play that gained most of the yards, leaving 14 seconds and a full play clock for the 4th down play call. The camera pans to Carroll 5 seconds after the player goes out of bounds, likely while the ball is being set so the play clock can be wound, and Carroll distinctly says "go for it" into his com. Chaos ensues as the personnel package going onto the field is lacking the running back desired. The couple of personnel shots of the sideline show Carroll calm as he signals a time out, while his offensive coordinator is doing what can only be called "freaking out." By the time Carroll signals the official for a time out, the quarterback-to-offensive-coordinator communication has been silent for about 10 seconds, making Bevell's panic-driven screaming pointless. The commentators blame Lynch for not being on the field, but the entire team looks confused. The conclusion that Bevell wasn't ready with a play is pretty much inescapable, regardless of the fact that Carroll took the blame after the game for the situation.

Fast forward to the Cowboys game. Late in the 3rd quarter, after a run for 2 yards on 2nd and 9, 5:59 and running is on the clock. The cameras show Lynch going back to the huddle after the play, as he should. Then Fox does their thing, which is show closeups of Dallas players and Rob Ryan, and when they go back to the field at 5:30 Lynch is hustling back onto the field late, and Seattle has to burn a timeout yet again. More personnel and package discombobulation. It had the look and feel of coaching indecision once again. Lynch, get off the field! Wait a sec, get back out there!

Add to that the 3:10 of clock burned to run the final 6 plays on Seattle's lone touchdown drive, when there was only 9 minutes left in the game, and trailing by three scores, and the pace at which Bevell chooses to run his offense is curious to say the least. It has become clear to most that Tarvaris Jackson plays better in a no huddle offense, and yet Seattle ran less than ten plays from the no huddle offense against Dallas. Why? When your quarterback clearly is better with that style, why not embrace it? The reluctance to use a playing style that clearly empowered a player is difficult to comprehend. (EDIT: The lack of no-huddle has since been attributed to Seattle's adjustments against DeMarcus Ware that game.)

When you add those things to the sheer number of personnel packages Bevell is running with one of the most inexperienced teams in recent memory, in a lockout shortened season no less, and it begins to smell like an offensive coordinator making his mark more than an offensive coordinator trying to get the most out of his players. The no-huddle offense is built around not changing your personnel while keeping the defense from doing the same, which seems to fly in the face of what Bevell likes to do, which is have a package for every situation. I would hate to think that a coordinator who expects players to learn his playbook would refuse to learn and use their strengths in the best way possible.

Will Bevell turn it around? Is it even his fault, or is it because Seattle is depending on Cable to call run plays, as has been reported by some? And perhaps most important of all, will Bevell follow Bates as a one season OC in Seattle?

Stay tuned...

Props for Seahawks O-line, Running Game

2011-11-10T14:44:00.000-08:00

The insightful Ben Muth of Football Outsiders has some praise for the Seahawks offensive line. At least, I think it's praise for the Seahawks O-line. I can't be sure. It's been so long since I've seen it, I've forgotten what it looks like.

Additionally, a member of the NWSportsTalk forum recently broke down our running plays against the Cowboys specifically and pointed out some encouraging trends - better zone-blocking coordination, more decisiveness from Lynch, less negative plays, consistent yardage instead of one big run boosting an otherwise bland YPC.

In the wake of what could be a breakthrough performance for this line against Dallas - which is something O-line coach Tom Cable apparently insisted upon, to the point of affecting the game plan - some national recognition for this line is in order. Two rookies, two sophomores, and a 30-year-old all thrown into the same system without a full offseason is not a recipe for success, but Cable has made strides with this line.

Russell Okung's slow start has given way to steadiness and a decent stonewalling of DeMarcus Ware. Robert Gallery, though now jumped upon for one bad play where he was tossed about like a rag doll, contributed heavily to Marshawn Lynch's strong day and gets some technical kudos from Muth for his usage of his hands and feet. Max Unger, while still possessing some lingering strength issues, has shown definite improvement from his awful rookis year - at the very least, he's no longer living in his own backfield. Muth's criticisms of him seem related to his decision-making. John Moffitt is developing. James Carpenter - well, he's a rookie. Seattle is continuing to keep our tight ends home to help block, which would normally be considered a hamstring to our passing game. But with Tarvaris Jackson needing every extra pocket second he can get in order to overthrow people, the current TE policy evens out.

I find it interesting that almost our entire offensive line seems assembled for the run. Unger is much better at moving around and landing blocks than he is holding back the tide on the line. Moffitt comes from a powerhouse running game at Wisconsin. Carpenter, also mainly a road-grader specimen. It means that Carroll isn't kidding when he says he's determined to make the run game a prominent feature of this offense. But if Unger was able to develop from an entirely overmatched rookie to a solid sophomore, Carpenter could pull it off as well.

Enjoy the link. We could use every ounce of positive development news we can get.

Seahawks fall to 2-6, yet still 2nd place in NFC West Dystopia.

2011-11-06T16:28:00.000-08:00

Not satisfied with a mere forced fumble, Sherman adds The People's Elbow

I think its remarkable how predictable and short sighted sports writers can be sometimes. One talking point that is quickly gaining traction is that Pete Carroll doesn't look like he's having fun anymore, or that he's just a college coach. And to be sure, the Seahawks played well below their capabilities today, and losing stings, especially for emotional types like Carroll.

But lost in this dialogue is that Seattle rushed for 162 yards today, only 1 yard less than Dallas, who has emerging phenom DeMarco Murray at running back. Seattle finished with a highly respectable 381 yards of total offense, despite the fact that Tarvaris Jackson was clearly having an off day. Believe it or not, Seattle actually finished with more yards today than they did in the Falcons' game.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I have to take a step back and be honest: this game didn't feel competitive. I acknowledge that. So for many fans reading this, I would understand if your reaction was "Bullshit! The Seahawks sucked today." My counter would be that sometimes games are closer than they feel. For example, The Cowboys game in 2004 when Seattle did nothing for the first 58 minutes yet still won thanks to a late scoring drive and a last second Babineaux interception to set up a Josh Brown 50 yard game winner. I don't want to diminish the fact that the Cowboy's earned this victory, but this game might have been very different if not for a pair of controversial booth replays going against Seattle, or if Seattle hadn't blown coverage on Jason Witten for his easy touchdown. Seattle's two biggest contributors (the defense and Jackson) both had off days, and yet Seattle could have maybe pulled out a cheap one if a few breaks had gone differently. Or to put it differently, this defeat wasn't quite as emphatic as it felt.

Anyway, off to the bullet points!

At the halfway point of the season, the Seahawks are on pace for a 4-12 season, yet are amazingly still in 2nd place. Football outsiders advanced DVOA playoffs oddsmaking currently gives the San Francisco 49ers a 1 in 1000 chance of missing the postseason, and the season is only half over! For a division so bad, you would think it would be more competitive.

This was the worst statistical performance of the season for Tarvaris Jackson, which is even more damning since his line did a better than expected job at protecting him, allowing just 1 sack and relatively few pressures. Jackson has converted me into a defender of his with his recent performances, but games like this, even if only occasional, make doing so difficult. Jackson's TD/INT ratio now sits at 6/9, and even since the Falcon's game when Jackson seemed to click in the offense, he's been running a 4/7 ratio since then.

One of those interceptions was a massive fluke: an intentional incompletion attempt that somehow deflected off of two defensive linemen before being intercepted by a third. Another interception was an underthrown ball when Jackson was being chased out of the pocket. His final interception was the controversial simultaneous catch that went to the defender. Jackson had some excuses today, but this was still a poor performance. Unlike last week, his receivers didn't drop a ton of passes and his line provided protection.

Despite those mistakes, Jackson still managed a 7.4 YPA and was actually adept at moving the ball and engineering long drives. Seattle averaged 6.2 yards per play which is one of their better numbers this season. I think its encouraging that Seattle's quarterback played poorly, and yet the system was still able to shine through that. It makes you wonder just how bad Charlie Whitehurst has really been.

The story of this game, from Seattle's perspective, was the great performance by Marshawn Lynch. I almost wrote an article this week on Lynch, and now I'm kicking myself for not doing it. I took a closer look at Lynch last week, and what I discovered is that Lynch's only real problem is his lack of decisiveness. He's still a great athlete with about as much speed as he's ever had. It helps that Seattle made his job easy today with some great run blocking, but in both the Giants game and today, we've seen that a decisive, aggressive Marshawn Lynch is still a good running back. Lynch managed 5.9 yards per carry and was impressively consistent in going about it.

Despite TV commentators insisting that Dallas had trouble stopping the run this year, the Cowboys actually entered this game with the 10th ranked run defense in the NFL as measured by DVOA. Seattle's offensive line, particularly Max Unger and Robert Gallery, had a terrific day getting inside push. Unger is having a much better season than I expected. Its shocking I know, but it turns out Tom Cable knows a bit more than I do about building an offensive line. Unger's success after being atrocious in his rookie season is yet another reminder of why we should avoid freaking out about the struggles of John Moffitt and James Carpenter.

Russell Okung is quietly having another good season in 2011. I'm glad that the Fox crew showered him and Miller with plenty of attention today for the job they did on Ware.

Miller may not be putting up huge yards, but he's a threat to on every play, and bringing the kind of blocking he does in combination with that threat makes him worth every penny. Rice may not break 1000 yards this year, but similarly he's another guy that's outplaying whatever his statistics say. Alan Branch has been Red Bryant moved inside, which is to say he's been valuable in an unusual manner.

Jason Witten scored an easy touchdown when two Seahawks defenders converged on him and both released, perhaps believing the other would take coverage. I don't know who holds schematic responsibility on that play, but Hawthorne was in excellent position before he suddenly gave up.

Richard Sherman had another nice game, this time forcing a clutch fumble at the goal line to keep Seattle in the game. I missed a good chunk of the first half, but Sherman seemed to play good coverage, and I love the physical presence, almost like that of a strong safety, that both he and Browner bring.

On the Jason Witten catch challenge and Doug Baldwin "simultaneous catch" reviews, it highlighted to me a certain fact. That fact being that while instant replay helps reduce human error, it will never cease to exist.

In the case of the Witten challenge and other blown replay reviews like it, I legitimately wonder if the video the refs are seeing in their replay booths is as extensive as the replays we see on television. If its not, then I (not jokingly) believe that they should replace whatever replay their watching and just sub it for the broadcast feed. Professional broadcasters have a knack for finding the perfect angle on plays like that, and my only explaination for the Witten decision was that the ref was not provided with some of the angles we saw on television.

In the case of the Baldwin decision, A: in isolation, it did not matter as the game was over anyway, and B: while I think the ref technically got the call wrong, I understand his reasoning. Though technically a simultaneous catch, the ball was in the defender's body, not Baldwin's, and it also appeared that Baldwin arrived a split second after the defender had begun to secure the ball. It "felt" like an interception that Baldwin was trying to get cute with, even if the facts suggest a reasonable case for a simultaneous catch, which always goes to the receiver.

Finally, I wouldn't be too upset about how the rush defense played today. DeMarco Murray had 327 yards on only 33 carries in his previous two games: an average YPC nearing 10. To say he's been sensational would be an understatement. Today he averaged 6.3, which very well could end up below his season average.

Ten Quick Thoughts on SEA @ DAL

2011-11-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

Only in Seattle would we be talking about "trap games" right after a two-game losing streak, but I think the phrase is apt as we approach a road contest in Dallas against the Cowboys. Ten quick observations:

1. "America's Team" is sitting at 3-4 and appears to be struggling, but appearances could be deceiving. Dallas opened the season with some close games against a brutal schedule, never losing by more than four points against the Jets, Lions, or Patriots. Last week they were buried to the tune of 34-7 by a Philly offense much more dynamic and interesting than Seattle's. The closest analogy to the Seahawks on Dallas' schedule is the Rams, whom Dallas dismantled 34-7 themselves.

2. Tony Romo is quite the "choker" this year, but it's hard to predict whether that will show up on Sunday. He's got a little bit of Tarvaris in him right now - he's put up multiple 300+ yard games, but it's not translating to wins. This week, however, he faces a defensive line scheme that isn't really interested in getting to the QB and a secondary that, for all the good things they're showing, is both inexperienced and penalty-prone. That's the sort of setup that gives QB's multiple chances and turns chokers into heroes. And now, just when interior DT Alan Branch was starting to get some interior penetration, he may be held out with an injury Sunday and won't be 100% if he does play. This is an experienced QB who knows his receivers and likes to challenge secondaries deep for the big play - expect some fireworks.

3. Has anyone else noticed that it wasn't until we started playing 4-3 defenses that Tarvaris Jackson suddenly seemed to improve? Me neither, until Mark Clagett pointed it out. We haven't seen a 3-4 defense since the first three weeks of the season, and 3-4's are by nature more unpredictable and harder to block. The number of combined sacks/hits conceded by this O-line is already in the double digits per game; this Sunday could give them even more fits than usual. You just know that DeMarcus Ware will line up on James Carpenter alllll daaaaay loooong, and then follow him to the hotel so he can bullrush him into the vending machine.

4. It'll be interesting to see how Tarvaris Jackson handles the pressure. He's been a warrior already, staying in the game and making things happen against Cincinnati despite taking hit after hit. Cincinnati, by the way, was one of the top-ranked pass defenses in the league before it encountered Jackson, so it was a legitimate accomplishment for Jackson to post 300+ yards, especially in 2.5 quarters and with no running game and a ton of drops and penalties to overcome. He's playing unsupported right now. Kudos to him, but whether he can maintain that level of play for another eight quarters (he faces the league's best defense the week after Dallas) is a big whether.

5. Last week, CB Richard Sherman received props for limiting AJ Green, who has since confessed to playing a lazy game. Fieldgulls' Thomas Beekers, in his weekly hunt for cornerback caveats that everyone else has skipped over, observed that Sherman got lucky on a couple of bad throws from Dalton and found his success largely in coverage on a few go routes, which makes up a pretty minor slice of a passing game. He'll be tested much more severely by Tony Romo throwing to Dez Bryant and Miles Austin, who are physical enough to win a slugfest and speedy enough to shake coverage should they be given free releases. Sherman looked alright in his first game, but the ultimate test of an NFL player is consistency and Sherman is far from show enough fundamentals to hold up on his own when the pass rush can't get home against a multi-dimensional QB.

6. Speaking of pass rush, Seattle this week faces another of the questionable O-lines that have given this defense a few breaks this year. The possible absence of Alan Branch could either be a grave liability or a chance for a smaller, more strictly pass-rushing player to make an impact and show Pete Carroll that interior penetration really can be nice. I suspect the former, purely because I don't see anyone on this roster who can slice into backfields. Red Bryant and Brandon Mebane aren't doing it, aren't the right profile for it, shouldn't be expected to do it.

7. From the nail-biting that Sean Lee's absence has induced in a few Dallas fans, his backups have been made to sound like Aaron Currys in coverage. With Lee out, Jackson could have an easy outlet for pressure over the middle to running backs and tight ends. First, however, our tight ends need to stop dropping the ball. I don't expect much from Cameron Morrah and am mildly disappointed by Anthony McCoy's drops, but I expected a lot better from the expensive, consistent-by-reputation Zach Miller. He's had a couple ghastly drops-leading-to-interceptions this year. It's more likely that Jackson will turn instead to a big underneath game with Doug Baldwin.

8. This is all moot if Seattle can't stop handing its opponents five first downs on penalties. Pete Carroll is definitely being watched in terms of his ability to get his team disciplined. Of course, a big chunk of those penalties are false starts from an inexperience offensive line, so that's another problem we're just waiting for time to fix.

9. As always, it would be a tremendous help if Tarvaris Jackson can score early. The last three times Seattle has beaten a decent QB on the road (San Diego, Chicago, and New York), part of the winning formula has been early points on the board followed by a field-position stalemate that kept the opposing offense deep in their own territory. Unfortunately, the Seahawks are amongst the league's worst in both first-half scoring and special teams this year.

10. Jason Witten is the first respectable tight end threat the Seahawks have faced in a while. It'll be a tough test for our linebackers.

Pete Carroll's Seahawks have a way of hanging around in a game they rightfully shouldn't be, but only once this year has Seattle faced a passing offense this good. It could be an unpleasant reminder that the defense isn't built to stop the pass and has a long ways to develop.

Seattle 16 - Dallas 36

Your turn.

Five Things Pete Carroll Still Needs to Prove

2011-11-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Youth is catching up to the Seahawks. Last year's early success, memorable mostly for its improbable defeat of the Chargers and Bears, is not being repeated. The players are visibly upset, Pete Carroll looks mellower each week, and people are starting to wonder just how legitimate last year's underdog excellence was.

A tougher starting schedule is partly responsible for all this. Last year's opening six weeks were downright cotton-candy aside from the Chargers. This year we've faced two quality offenses, the 49ers defense, and two perennial laughingstock teams from Ohio who are actually showing hints of significance(???!?!?!?!).

But although there's enough promise on the team to seriously believe in a bright future, and the gutsy road win over the Giants was delicious, these struggles are on Pete Carroll - and not in a bad way. The lack of discipline, the rawness and inexperience...what we're really seeing here is the short-term penalty of Pete Carroll's early approach with the team. The immediate and almost reckless roster turnover, the concentration of all our youth and inexperience into the offensive line, so many new and unfamiliar players integrating at once...

This is what was always going to happen. The mistakes, frustration, and venting combined with the high-octane style of this coaching staff creating a weird mix of aggressive football and sloppy football. It's the flipside of high turnover, the downside of getting younger. This is exactly what a lot of folks wanted - misguided ideas from the Tim Ruskell era about veteran signings being bad, continuity being mistaken for stagnation, impatient demands for a fresh start. (Ruskell was fired deservedly, but gets a lot of criticism for the wrong reasons.)

Now, after two games of historically inept offense (and refereeing), Pete Carroll is drawing flak. Much of it, including a lively piece from the normally level-headed Mike Sando, revolves around Carroll's QB decisions (specifically not drafting Andy Dalton, which I'll deal with in a moment). I don't have a problem with flak. I think the coaches (and the fans) need to see it after all the un-earned goodwill floating around from last year's fluke, unrepeatable playoff run. But it has to be the right kind of flak.

Earlier this season I quantified what I thought were Carroll's successes as Seahawks head coach. Thus far, he's an effective motivator who gets high effort out of his players; a decent coaching recruiter; a committed developer of players; a financially savvy, future-minded decision-maker; and a never-say-die competitor who was enough of a believer to lead his team to an unforgettable playoff upset of the defending Super Bowl champions. All good things.

But not a single one of them automatically translates to a dynasty. The pessimist points out that in no other division in the history of the NFL would Carroll even have gotten a shot to beat the Saints, that last year's cinderella story was born of lucky bounces and bad competition, and that Carroll has yet to answer a stiff challenge from top-level opponents in the playoffs. Had the Rams finished one game better, would we all still be this gracious to this coaching staff?

This front office's strengths need to be tested in the fire of consistency before they will lead this team to contender status. The good management philosophies and player acquisition strategies need to turn into production and identity on the field. Here are five things I feel that Pete Carroll still needs to prove.

5. He can start late-round picks.

This wouldn't be on the list with most front offices, because most front offices don't make a stated intention of trying to start late-round picks. But Seattle has, even to the point of trading perfectly serviceable starters for far lower draft value.

It baffled me for a long time why a turnover-obsessed head coach would be willing to trade CB Josh Wilson. Scheme and shortness be damned, Wilson was the only defender who stood out in the 2010 preseason and the only guy who provided anything like a turnover stream on the terrible Mora defense. It might also be nice to have his return-man spark right now, since I suspect that the need for Leon's services there might still be restricting his role in the offense. Wilson wasn't a world-beater, but as a second-rounder, he didn't have to be. He got results, and at some point, results become hard to legitimately argue with.

And if Seattle is not only going to trade such benefits away for the level of draft pick that doesn't even always make the team, but make it a pattern across the board (Rob Sims, Seneca Wallace, Darryl Tapp, Lawrence Jackson, and they tendered Brandon Mebane with a third-rounder before coming to their senses and just re-signing him), then I am going to hold them to their intention of making starters out of those late picks. Otherwise, Seattle's drafts are beholden to a terrible notion of value.

However...Carroll is well on his way to proving just this. The fifth-round pick netted us by the Wilson trade has now given us Richard Sherman, who got off to a surprisingly strong start against Cincinnati last Sunday. Rob Sims turned into Kam Chancellor. The Tapp trade was a hands-down winner in Chris Clemons even though the other half of the deal, an extra fourth-round pick, was promptly cut. Jackson and Wallace only got us a couple of fringe players, but that doesn't erase the other wins. It's huge defiance of the odds to commit bad-value trades and come away with not just three starters, but two defensive linchpins and a promising #2 corner candidate.

See, some people talk about value in a vacuum, but can we really judge these moves based strictly on theory, methodology, abstract definitions of value, or what-have-you? This is the NFL, where complexity and luck are king. (Yes, yes, I made a luck pun. Get it out of your system.) Players get injured, scheme elevates or diminishes others, crazy things happen to disrupt the logical connection of process to result. There has to be a certain degree of "all's well that ends well" to our judgments. In other words, this favorite tool of armchair GM's just doesn't cover enough of the NFL's randomness to be applicable that simply.

So I don't know whether Seattle has just gotten extraordinary lucky with these deals or whether there's some moneyball formula they're not telling us about. But they've proven a lot of us fans wrong when it came to those terrible trades, and the consistency tells me there's something behind it. If they can maintain this odds-defying success with low draft picks, this issue won't be part of this list for long.

4. He emphasizes the right qualities in players.

I'm still trying to figure out why we drafted Golden Tate. It sure wasn't because of an abundance of NFL attributes. The guy was a hybrid running back in college, known for poor routes and lazy blocking downfield. He was the product of a high-percentage Notre Dame passing system and got by with the "playmaker" label, both of which evaporate quickly against the superior playing field of the NFL. There's still plenty of hope for his pro development, but his curve is longer than Adam Jones' rap sheet.

It's not to the Al Davis extreme yet, but Pete Carroll has an unmistakeable lean towards physical qualities and vague "playmaker" labels. Scott earlier called this a hunt for matchups. But I think it's a little ironic that for all the hubbub over height in receivers, Seattle's receivers are currently led in receptions, yards, and yards per reception by the smallest of them all (Doug Baldwin, so slight that Kip doesn't expect him to last in this physical league). It's his technique that's ultimately opening things up on offense, his awareness and route-running.

Or the fact that Seattle's all-world free safety, Earl Thomas, is shorter than almost any other defensive back on the roster. Yeah, Kam Chancellor is tearing it up as well, but it's not his linebacker size that's doing it or even his physicality. Aaron Curry had all the measurables and intensity too, he just couldn't complete an open field tackle to save his life. Nor was he ever in the right position to MAKE the tackle in the first place, whereas Kam is wonderfully assignment-correct so far.

One thing everyone got excited when Jim Mora came along was the size of the revamped defensive line. Way too much attention had been paid to the overhyped "smallness" of Rocky Bernard, and people thought that was the problem. Red Bryant, Brandon Mebane, and now Alan Branch are (by different standards) amongst the top three defensive tackles in the league - in run-stopping. But the tradeoff of their size is that they can't hustle to the quarterback or make a lot of plays in space. Stacy Andrews and Colin Cole were huge too, but that's about all they had to offer - no technique or quickness (and they haven't been picked up by anyone else). Size? Far from an automatic enabler, at almost any position.

But it's not as if Carroll is dwelling on measurables. I was concerned at first when it jumped out as a throughline in Carroll's early transactions at WR and CB. But since then, Seattle has found itself with a ton of the "right stuff" anyway. As long as the team is on the market for the right attributes - technique, discipline, awareness - we're in business. They've certainly gotten the attitude they're looking for.

3. He can hit in the first round of the draft.

Sorry, is this a bit of a "duh" moment? Not for any Seahawks fan who watched Tim Ruskell flail and ultimately die a slow death in the first round. Many franchises are anchored by first-round talent (oftentimes because those picks are franchise QB's, but not always), and Ruskell just didn't get it done there. Part of the problem, as Rob Staton points out, he thought he could coast along on an aging Matt Hasselbeck and thus lacked the urgency. But his misses in the first round are a simpler and greater factor in the collapse of the team than is commonly acknowledged. I doubt that his policy of signing free-agent stopgaps would be getting nearly as much heat had Patrick Kerney and Julian Peterson been replaced successfully by Lawrence Jackson and Aaron Curry.

(Interesting note: for some reason, those picks had a pattern of struggling to mentally adapt to the pros. Spencer allegedly muffed his line calls. Kelly Jennings had a well-documented confidence problem. Lawrence Jackson didn't give a damn. And Aaron Curry - well, that horse is mummifying.)

So far Carroll isn't doing too badly in this department, but it's still early. Russell Okung has struggled to stay healthy and seemed to hit a bit of a sophomore wall early in the season, penalties and allowed sacks peeping through the cracks. He's settled down a bit since. Earl Thomas is a stud, next. James Carpenter - eurgh. He's made strides but still has a long ways to go, and I still hate the pick positionally. I understand the offered reasoning, but I don't agree with it (and I still suspect that Schneider just got caught with his trading pants down a little bit). A right tackle in the first round? That's the kind of "maintenance pick" that a fully established contender makes. Yeah, Pittsburgh and Green Bay wanted him, but they're contenders with fewer holes. Seattle had far worse needs than the average mid-20's teams.

It's also worth mentioning that despite the overall venom towards Tim Ruskell, Carroll has not outperformed him in the second and third round of the draft. Golden Tate is useless with our current QB arsenal, John Moffitt is ordinary, and Charlie Whitehurst (via trade) we now know all too well. And only in Thomas has there been any attempt to find true premiere talent for the defense, despite severe needs there.

It's a worthy debate as to which positions deserve attention in the top 100. As the league shifts towards dominance of the pass, positions connected to the pass are gaining value. Defensive linemen, cornerbacks, and of course quarterbacks should get looks there, while running backs and linebackers are fading towards the middle rounds. But what this team really needs is an infusion of premiere talent at cornerstone positions, rather than every extra fourth-rounder it can scrounge up. Carroll is a little behind the curve in the first three rounds and could use a strong draft next year (containing a franchise quarterback) to make up some ground.

2. He has the right priorities on defense.

Fieldgulls' Kenneth Arthur remarked recently that there's a difference between an exciting defense and an effective one. The 2011 Seahawks have more playmakers and more plays to brag of than at any other time in the last three seasons, but it still tends to show up a lot more against poor competition, and not in the final score. Yes, Seattle's run defense is top ten in much more proven fashion than last year, and yes, our secondary is getting into receivers' heads and snatching interceptions while Chris Clemons racks up the pressures up front. There is real talent here.

But that collection of big plays has yet to translate to the stoppage of an elite quarterback. It's like strong walls without a foundation. Seattle's pass defense is ranked #21 in DVOA, exposed by any QB rateable above "mediocre", and it's hard to blame the secondary. Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Ryan, and Eli Manning have treated the 12th Man to a display of the scrambling pinpoint passes that even the best coverage just can't stop - the hallmark of the currently ruling QB profile. And any team hankering for the playoffs is on a collision course with those very guys, not to mention Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers.

Conventional NFL wisdom - and yeah, we all know how much regard Carroll has for that, but stick with me - conventional NFL wisdom prescribes a strong interior pass rush to flush the QB from the pocket, kill his playbook, and protect your secondary. That's been the winning formula for the last three Super Bowls (along with strong play from your own QB, which pushed Seattle over the top of the Giants).

But I'm not sure Carroll has the same priorities. Is he looking at the league to take his cues from what's currently working? He's spoken about the draft not falling out right, but that doesn't fully account for the pass rush going almost completely ignored through 17 draft picks. Does that reveal bad draft luck or a philosophy? Carroll has a great eye for the secondary, it seems, but putting that before the pass rush strikes me strongly as putting the cart before the horse. Any secondary will eventually be exposed if the QB has all day to throw.

(To be fair, there were rumblings that Carroll and Schneider were targeting one of the many interior pass rushers available in the mid third round, only to watch a DT run snatch them all away while they prioritized right guard.)

Meanwhile, the team's resources have been shuttled toward run defense. Tim Ruskell did that, too. Seattle's run defense ranked 10th in DVOA in 2009 and boasted all the net effectiveness of a screen door on a submarine. It demolished Denver's run game in 2010 and yet couldn't do a thing to stop Kyle Orton. Drew Brees hung 404 yards on us in the playoffs with Julius Jones providing the rushing yards. The Seahawks have followed to a "T" the cliche formula of shutting down the run and daring quarterbacks to beat them through the air, only to have them shrug, say "okay", and do just that without breaking a sweat. Repeatedly.

That seems a handy counterexample to the common belief that good run defense automatically makes pass defense easier. The gap could be explained by a very poor secondary those years. But the trend reappeared this year when Matt Ryan and Eli Manning racked up big numbers on our improving secondary without much success from their running games. It might be the most under-recognized bugaboo that Seattle has yet to shake from the Ruskell/Holmgren era.

(If you want more than a surface impression, the 2009 campaigns of Philip Rivers, Brett Favre and Matt Schaub are handy examples of non-Peyton Manning QB's who rack up the yards without the assistance of a rushing attack. Also, check out this body of research assembled by Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Stats: here, here, here, and here. I'm not sure if I buy all of his statistical methods, and his conclusions in this last article seem simplistic and too easily arrived at, but it's worth a look.)

Super Bowls aren't being won by premiere running backs. This is one area in which Carroll may ultimately need to adapt to NFL reality. He's taken some steps - jettisoning Aaron Curry in favor of the superior coverage instincts of KJ Wright, backing the linebackers away from the line to play better in space, press coverage to disrupt routes and force QB's to throw deeper. But they're still doing it. In the end, our greatest sources of pressure in this scheme are secondary blitzes (always a big gamble despite our skilled blitzers) and pure end pressure (proven to not be enough despite Chris Clemons' best efforts). It's a defense geared towards the run rather then the pass, and the presence of Alan Branch suggests that that priority is intentional. It remains to be seen whether this defense will make any dent at all in a playoff environment.

1. He can find a franchise QB.

Carroll can talk about "Win Forever" and "Always Compete" until the cows come home, but the only motto that will ultimately make him successful in the NFL is "Find a Franchise Quarterback".

I think we're all in agreement on that point by now. Hopefully, so is Pete Carroll. Better run defense and offensive line? This team is disorganized and needs a face of the franchise. I get the desire for "offensive balance" stemming from a good run game, which Carroll has prioritized. But while we're sitting here in our comfy armchairs with our tea and crumpets, discussing what looks good on paper, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees are out there throwing 40 times a game and putting up 3 TD's in the first half. Good luck keeping up with that using a running game.

The most popular defense of Seattle's quarterback search thus far is that "there haven't been any good options". Well, there have been. Ryan Mallett was available at pick #60 and, even as a bust, would have been only slightly more restrictive than Charlie Whitehurst at that price. Should the good fortune of the draft never come through for Carroll with future QB's, Mallett will stand in retrospect as an easy, escapable offramp that Seattle passed up on because he "didn't fit". The position is important enough that I say draft a guy and MAKE him fit. Especially when you're dealing with first-round talent who fell largely because of character rumors that even now, six months later, have yet to be given any shape.

Instead, Carroll exited the 2011 draft without a QB, consigning himself to the hope that the right guy just falls into his lap (i.e. circumstances completely beyond his control). I realize all coaches are looking for "their guy", and honestly, Tarvaris Jackson's recent improvement could go a long way towards justifying the extension of the search. But I'm still unsettled. Getting picky with QB's at a time with the league is so desperate for them that they're drafting Christian Ponder at #12 - that doesn't seem like a winning strategy. It seems reckless.

However, you can also err on the other extreme. Cincinnati's victory over the Seahawks brought on a wave of national pundits mocking Pete Carroll for not drafting Andy Dalton, who thus far has posted a journeyman performance against modest competition. I don't like the Carpenter pick, but I'd have liked drafting Dalton at #25 even less. QB issues or not, it would have handcuffed the team to a highly questionable low-ceiling prospect for years. A similar risk is true of blatant system guys like Landry Jones, Kellen Moore, or Nick Foles this next year.

These are possibilities that forced me to face a personal self-contradiction. I want a franchise QB badly and don't believe in hedging, don't believe in dinking around with league backups out of a blind optimism and a desire to get something for nothing. But am I willing to stake a first-round contract on a guy with enough red flags to hint at a major bust? As cliche as it is, I'm single at 28 because I'm choosy. I've had enough patience (fortunately) to watch enough great possibilities turn sour that I've learnt that temporary singlehood beats long-term misery any day. Losing one year to a Tarvaris Jackson, as frustrating and uncertain as it seems, is preferable to losing three or more years to a Jason Campbell. This is doubly true for Pete Carroll, who could also lose his job. My conclusion: be flexible with your standards, Pete, but don't throw yourself at just anyone for the sake of appearing proactive.

Fortunately, the wait may not last long. In classic "all's well that ends well" fashion, this upcoming QB class is looking more tantalizing every week. There are a number of guys coming out next April who could operate well in the "point guard" profile that Seattle is currently testing with Tarvaris Jackson. Should Seattle draft too low to nab Andrew Luck or Matt Barkley (that is, should they draft #3 or lower), you've got guys like Ryan Tannehill, Robert Griffin III, and Austin Davis still flying under the radar. They're having quietly impressive seasons, improving their stock week by week. (Seahawks Draft Blog is the place to follow their progress.) They're rated below Luck and Barkley for good reason, but a lower salary cap makes them much more palatable in the Top 16. And every one of them looks like a safer bet than Landry Jones.

As long as the QB search remains unfinished, so does Seattle's identity. Its style and scheme will ultimately reflect the talents of its QB, and that might mean some changes once he arrives. Mike Williams is a good example - a good receiver who thrives on a QB like Matt Hasselbeck who can/will pass into tight coverage but fades next to a QB like Tarvaris Jackson who relies on separation. Like the pass rush/secondary issue, Seattle may be building their team backwards by building the car before the engine - and should be prepared for further adjustments once the incompatibilities show themselves.

It's not what I would have done, but leaving the 2011 draft without a QB was not a fatal mistake for Pete Carroll. There is plenty of time. Meanwhile, that elusive QB's support system is already here and in the process of solidifying. That will help. I just know that I'd hate to be Seattle's front office right now, faced with an "Occupy the VMAC" movement should they fail to draft a quarterback. That's the kind of QB pressure that Carroll would no doubt be happily rid of.

CenturyLink field cancels Seahawks game, hosts a circus instead

2011-10-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

I didn't post a write-up last week, and it honestly had nothing to do with the fact that it was perhaps the most inept offensive showing of the Pete Carroll era. I was sick and the idea of blogging a disaster like that while I could barely think straight didn't seem like a fun idea.

So anyway, sorry about that.

Regarding today's game, I normally watch a game looking for storylines, but the storyline of today's game was about as multi-faceted and incoherent as a David Lynch film. It was a weird game that mixed depressing realities with exciting indications. A game like that doesn't make for a good single narrative, so I'll just jump straight to the bullet points this week.

If I had written about last weeks game, the headline would have been something like this: "Charlie Whitehurst sucks, is the ultimate teammate." Nothing takes the heat off a starter faster than giving the fanbase a full, vivid knowledge that the alternative quarterback is a hot stinking pile of doo. Whitehurst was terrible against Cleveland, and was much worse today than his line of 4/7 for 52 yards would indicate. Seattle couldn't move the ball almost at all with Whitehurst under center today, and it was simply night and day when Tarvaris Jackson entered the game.

Now that I've made a point to disclose the amazingly obvious, lets talk about the more subtle reasons for Whitehurst's failings. I do not pretend to be an X's and O's guru, but even to a neophyte like myself, its pretty obvious that Seattle has not reverted or scaled back their offensive expectations to meet Whitehurst's abilities. In the preseason, Whitehurst was moderately successful in a simple "snap, step, and throw" offense. Its not uncommon for NFL teams to adopt similarly undemanding, highly structured schemes in real games too- if the quarterback in question is very young and not ready to have more on his plate. Andy Dalton is a recent example of that, with most of his pass attempts this season being less than 10 yards in the air. Whitehurst is not young, but he's limited in much the way a rookie quarterback would be. Yet rather than switch up the offense to tailor Whitehurst, Seattle tried to force him into playing the same free flowing point guard role Tarvaris Jackson uses, and obviously, Charlie Whitehurst is not a natural point guard type. In retrospect, the results have been completely obvious. Almost to the point where you could legitimately wonder if Pete Carroll set him up to fail.

But then again, I can see the logic in doing so. Whitehurst does not have a meaningful long term future with this team as a simple one read quarterback. Pete has essentially thrown Whitehurst off a cliff to see how he'd handle it. Regardless of the outcome, the last two games have been valuable data for this front office when deciding whether or not to continue to invest in Whitehurst as a future option for this team's relatively unique quarterback role. If Whitehurst plays for the Seahawks again later this year, I don't expect anything to change. They'll keep giving him looks in the point guard offense, just on the off chance that he could somehow be molded into that type of quarterback. We can expect that Whitehurst will struggle, and we can expect that Whitehurst probably won't be a Seahawk next year. But its a good gamble to take in a season that's more about the next five years than this year.

If I read in my morning paper tomorrow that Seattle set a record for dropped passes today, it wouldn't shock me. I was too lazy to keep a tally during the game, but I would guess that 8-10 passes hit a Seahawk on the hands and fell incomplete today. Seattle won the yardage battle today 411 to 252. They were only penalized by 10 yards more than Cincy. The turnover ratio was 0. Even if you take away the pick six and the punt return TD, they still would have lost 20-12. How is that even possible? Some redzone shenanigans, and a lot of drops. Drops were huge today.

Not that Tarvaris Jackson was perfect, but I came away impressed with him for the third game in a row. Despite a deluge of drops, Jackson (21-40, 323, 0 TD, 1 INT) still managed a very impressive 8.1 yards per attempt. His lone interception came on a play where he was hit throwing the ball, although he was lucky not to have an interception on the drive prior, when he briefly thought a Bengals D-lineman was a teammate. He was slightly off on a few throws today, but the results were there despite the drops, and in terms of things like pocket presence and scanning the field, Jackson has looked as comfortable as ever in the role. It really does appear that Jackson turned a corner at halftime in the Falcon's game after all. Do I think Seattle can do better? Sure. But that said, its hard to see any other quarterback starting for Seattle in 2012 right now. Jackson has impressed me, and for a guy that still has a lot of improvements left to make, its heartening that he seems to continue making small improvements each game.

Upon further review, Rice did appear to catch that throwaway pass for a touchdown. His left foot dragged, and his right foot, from the endzone angle, appeared to tap the ground a few millimeters before the white chalk. Seattle didn't challenge, but they should have. It could have changed the entire complexity of the game.

I think Cincinnati got away with one on the final play before halftime. Sitting on the player with the ball to buy time is hardly anything new, but when a Cincy played appeared to bat the ball away, that clearly crossed the line, and should have warranted a no-doubter delay of game penalty. Pete Carroll came screaming on the field afterwards mouthing "YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" Pete was right, but the refs turned a deaf ear and Seattle still got hosed anyway.

I really liked Pete's decision to go for it on the aforementioned play. Seattle was down by 14 and hadn't done almost anything in the first half, despite moving the ball decently well with Jackson under center. In a game like that, you can't win with an attitude that kicks field goals from the 3 yard line. It didn't work out, but it very nearly did, and it wasn't like it was the difference in the game.

I found it very heartening that both Chris Clemons and Tarvaris Jackson returned after being hurt. A game isn't officially ugly until you have injuries to major contributors, and though Seattle is a deep football team in many areas, there are a handful of players they simply can't afford to lose, and Clemons/Jackson are two of them.

Doug Baldwin is a stud, but as I've said before, I just don't see how his undersized body and slight frame can continue taking the hits they've taken for much longer. Baldwin seems to be taking more and more time to get up from them each week. Part of me wants to hold out hope that Baldwin can tough it out for the next ten seasons of great football, but intellectually, I'll be happy if he lasts three.

For all the talk about "what happened to Mike Williams?", an equally valid question might be the same regarding Ben Obomanu. He really seemed to turn a corner in the 2nd half of the 2010 season, looking like a legit #2 WR. Until today, he had been pretty quiet in this new offense, so it felt great seeing him break 100 yards against the Bengals (as did Sidney Rice).

Red Bryant continued to look like a stud today, forcing penalties over and over again.

Anthony McCoy is the clear frontrunner for my imaginary "Courtney Taylor award:" which is the esteemed honor for being the most promising late round player to have his career destroyed by inexplicable drops.

My gameball has to go to Richard Sherman, who made one of the prettiest interceptions I've seen in a good long while, and later made a great pass defense that tipped in Kam Chancellor's hands for another interception. I might have a post on this sometime in the future, but what Seattle has done with their shotgun strategy regarding the secondary has been nothing short of an impressive success. Now they just need to adopt that philosophy to other areas of the team (Running Back *cough-cough*)

Overall, this was a brutally ugly game. Turnovers, a ton of penalties, and a looming phantom of injuries. But it also left us with a lot of hope, and reminder that this front office didn't go about last offseason with 2011 in mind, but building a core towards a long term future. I've seen more than enough to conclude that they know what they are doing, and I'm excited about where this team will be two or three years from now.

Analysis on SEA @ CLE - Watershed for Seahawks Defense?

2011-10-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

I actually did some detailed research on this game, and while I don't think any of us are expecting a shellacking from the Browns, I'm actually a little - what is this feeling? I'm not used to it - excited.

Ten thoughts on Seattle visiting Cleveland as they exit the bye week:

1. Use the word "unproven" on most QB's, and most people will dismiss him. Use it on Charlie Whitehurst, and it means that he might be good. I don't get it.

Anyway, Whitehurst finally gets his long-expected 2011 debut this week against the Browns. It's time that he starts flashing some real promise, for he's been here too long to be a complete unknown. He's seen action in six regular-season games for Seattle, and the fact that he's only started two of them is less relevant than it's being made out to be. Lack of first-string practice snaps doesn't excuse poor fundamentals like staring down receivers and overthrowing them by twenty feet. He's created a visible profile now, and needs to hone it.

What I'm looking for is simple: accuracy and modest depth in the passing game, at the same time. I don't think that's too much to ask from a possible stopgap. Against the Rams, Whitehurst showed decent poise and accuracy in a training-wheels checkdown playbook that gave him a YPA average of 5.3. This got ignored because it a) was a win and b) happened to be, through no accomplishment of Whitehurst's, the game that got the Seahawks into the playoffs. But a checkdown offense isn't going to cut it in the NFL. Neither are the stop-and-start big plays that Whitehurst scattered between bad passes against the Giants.

Is Whitehurst awful? I still don't know. I'm just clearly stating the status quo. I thought his performance against the Giants, spotty as it may have been, was impressive for a backup. I wouldn't say that the Carroll/Bevell Scrap Heap Quarterback Development Program has been entirely wasted on Whitehurst.

Unfortunately, since it's Cleveland, this game probably won't offer any kind of statement on the former San Diego backup either way. If Whitehurst fails, it'll be too easily (though not incorrectly) blamed on his injury-depleted surrounding talent. If he succeeds, it's the Browns. That's how things go - hot debates rarely ever meet any kind of closure. There's always room to wonder what-if.

2. On the other side is Colt McCoy, who is said to have started 2011 hot but declined recently, as if wins against Indy and Miami were that impressive to begin with. Other than a strong game against Tennessee, McCoy's passing totals have hovered right around 210 YPS and his completion % is pulling a Jekyll-and-Hyde between 47% and the mid-60's. He has a weak arm, which invites pressure along the offensive line, and reverts to really bad habits under pressure. He's really being regarded in a similar light as Seattle's quarterbacks - a "wait and see" evaluation, right along with that old familiar chestnut, "it's all the O-line's fault".

3. Truly, though, Cleveland's offensive line seems to be struggling and has failed to ignite the run game, further compounding McCoy's problems. They've lost some strength at guard because of injury, setting into motion a decline for Peyton Hillis. There's plenty of the "young team" hallmarks on this offense - breakdowns in rhythm, execution, and communication. Seattle's #1-rated run defense will probably only motivate Hillis to get out of town faster.

4. McCoy's done a decent job spreading the ball around instead of favoring one guy, but there are few arrows in his sling and Josh Cribbs has been quiet so far. Between this and McCoy's questionable arm strength, Seattle can afford to stack against the run and blitz a little more freely to hassle McCoy, something other teams have found success doing. Their O-line seems especially prone to corner and safety blitzes - a specialty of Gus Bradley. With run defense and pressure-by-blitz being the hallmarks of Seattle's defensive philosophy, this game seems to play right into our strengths. McCoy could be in for a long day.

5. Brandon Browner will have a nice respite from the receivers gauntlet he faced to open the season - Mike Wallace, Larry Fitzgerald, Julio Jones, and Hakeem Nicks - and Walter Thurmond will enjoy a friendlier development setting as he finally assumes his starting position. This game is yet another chance for the league to have their attention (and a few floating McCoy passes) grabbed by our burgeoning ballhawk safety tandem, Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor.

6. Cleveland's run defense is underrated, their high allowed YPG a product of opponents with high carry totals. DT Phil Taylor and DE Jabaal Sheard are rising stars on their D-line and will match up against the still-developing group of James Carpenter, John Moffitt, and backup center Lemuel Jeanpierre. Advantage Cleveland. Marshawn Lynch has had a bit of success running outside this year, so that's a (mildly) hot hand Darell Bevell could go with. Look for him to try to exploit Cleveland's weak OLB corps and relieve some pressure on Whitehurst by calling outside runs, screens, and a number of targets to Anthony McCoy.

7. For those worried that this game is both a 10am East Coast road game and a post-bye game, the Seahawks have already faced such a situation under Pete Carroll. They beat Chicago 23-20 in Week 6 last year.

8. It won't help Whitehurst that TE Zach Miller is out. In six weeks, Seattle has dwindled from a glut of tight ends to only one (McCoy). It seems a foregone conclusion that Cameron Morrah will be called upon.

9. Doug Baldwin is being accused by a few national pundits of freelancing on his routes. I won't question their expertise, but Baldwin has defended himself by saying that he's still on course for a specific spot when he runs a route; he's just been given freedom by the coaching staff on how to get there. All well and good, but if Charlie Whitehurst is a more structured QB who relies on receivers being where they should be, Baldwin had better be unerring. Else I see some "Where the heck was he throwing to?" type interceptions happening on Sunday.

10. All things considered, this is a game between two bad teams, so I wouldn't flatter it by predicting any scores with a multiple of 7. Backup center to backup QB screams bumbled exchanges, as does the whole Browns offense. It'll be an ugly game like Arizona in Week 3, coming down to who commits fewer penalties and turnovers.

Seattle 22, Cleveland 19.

What's your prediction?

What the Raiders Fans are Saying About Aaron Curry

2011-10-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

The following isn't an essay on Aaron Curry or the Oakland Raiders' fan base so much as it is on desperate rationalization - the need to believe that mountains of unpleasant news or unfavorable evidence can somehow be turned in your favor by a single unsupported, unsupportable, unfalsifiable hypothesis.

Those big words give way too much credit to the hilarious crap that some Raiders fans are pulling right now. They want to make their new LB acquisition, Aaron Curry, look like a good move and are pulling out all the stops to do it. Most of it involves taking Curry's elite skillz for granted and brandishing all kinds of unrelated criticisms on Seattle's front office, hoping to make them look like just the pack of stooges that would release a burgeoning Hall-of-Famer.

In fairness to Oakland, this phenomenon is not unique to the Bay Area. I remember Seahawks fans rationalizing about Greg Knapp when he came to Seattle for the 2009 season as offensive coordinator. Nobody wanted to believe the simplest implication of his body of work - that Seattle was in for a year of unimaginative, ineffective, laughably bad play-calling - so they set about searching for a reason to believe. Untenable speculation, excuses, dismissals, contradictions of fact, all in an attempt to shed better light on Knapp.

So, before we start making fun of Raiders fans over their Curry-squirming, let's remember that we're not immune to that tendency. We're all sports fans. We all want reason to hope. Some stoic churls like myself excluded, every one of us is looking for the silver lining that might, just might, flash into a glorious clear sky.

Now then, to the good part. Some examples (courtesy of Sadhappy at Seahawks.net) and my rebuttals in Seahawks blue:

"your coaching staff is overvaluing K.J. Wright"
You would need to prove that Curry has outplayed Wright in order to have any kind of respectability behind that.

"Curry is simply not one of 'Carrolls boys'."
Neither was Lofa Tatupu, Lendale White, or Lawrence Jackson, I guess.
"the way he was handled in Seattle by the coaching staff that Curry was thinking too much on the field instead of just playing"
I've seen that excuse floated in Seattle, too. But how hard does a #4 LB have to think to make a basic open-field tackle?

"Curry getting moved around, being asked to play DT"
As impressed as I am that another team's fan would know how we've used our players, it bears mentioning that Curry was moved around only after he failed at his default position of OLB.
"The Seahawk's don't have many vet players on the defensive side of the ball that carry the weight that someone like Seymour does."
Okay, this one there might be some truth to. But how many vets does a #4 LB need to make a basic open-field tackle?
"I think we have great coaches who know how to use people's strengths, and Seattle isn't getting much out of ANY of their players."
Tell that to the stack of highlight-reel plays amassed by Mike Williams, Chris Clemons, Kam Chancellor, Leon Washington, Brandon Browner, Doug Baldwin, Red Bryant, Raheem Brock, and Ben Obomanu. Instead, sadly but typically, I suppose the only Seattle player you're aware of is Tarvaris Jackson.

"he(Carroll) doesn't know how to work with anyone outside of his own system"
Does he need to?

"alot of Nfl players Dont do well in Seattle anyways, see Deion branch tj houshmanzadeh, so I think Aaron curry can do well here"
Yeah, because T.J. Houshmandzadeh is lighting it up these days. Can't argue about Branch, I suppose.
"suspect there were issues in Seattle that may have gone beyond the football field. I think a change of pace to a contender, where he is not expected to save the team (as in Seattle)"
The latter suggestion I respect, but the former - proof, or you're Peter King.
"I'm just amazed that his former team only gave him 2 years when you take him 4th in the first round. I think the same thing for DHB, if you draft someone high, you need to play them, get them experience and let the develop. Not everyone can be a ****ing star day 1, most of the time it takes time."
A #4 LB had better be a Pro Bowler. I'll take Wright otherwise. Pro Bowl linebackers typically flash early, while Curry has flashed nothing but an excess of penalties.

"I'm excited though because Curry has fire within him and Seattle has a depressing affect on players anyway. "
If only that fire had resulted in more than throwing-the-helmet penalties. Might put out some of that rain.

And now the nosebleed section, whose primitive assumptions are so unfounded that responding to each one would be a bigger waste of time than reading Steve Kelley:

"No good can come to Hawks from this. It was desperation sad to say, but preying on another team's desperation is how the game is played!"

"Hey seattle fans, thank you for having crappy coaches and giving us a player of curry's caliber.. much appreciated."
"Seattle doesn't know how to use talent."

"Seahawks are a mess -- I'm betting the guy will be a stud here."

"I'm not quite sure the Seahawk brass is making the best decisions these days"
"he's going to be our starting WLB or much improved in coverage due to our coaches being better than the Seahags."

"No one is denying that he regressed in Seattle, but that's seattle."

"simple, i 'think' seattle has crappy coaches. Do you really need me to elaborate?"

The funny thing is, I can't say that Curry will bust in Oakland. I have no idea. It's being said that a change of scenery, losing the pressure of being a #4 pick, could be the best thing that ever happened to Curry. It's Oprah thinking, to be sure, but not impossible.

But who cares? Curry wasn't cutting the mustard that he needed to cut to justify his salary, and got cut himself. It's that simple. His problems were at the fundamental level. Linebacker is such a fungible position anyway that Seattle faces little long-term damage from releasing him, even standing to benefit from fewer and smaller coverage holes and failed pass-rushing attempts. Curry's release really is addition by subtraction, and Oakland should be grateful that Al Davis wasn't the one making the transaction. Otherwise, we'd be setting pretty with their 2013 first-rounder right now.

I'm not sure why I'm bothering. Since when have opposing fans ever convinced anyone of anything? As long as Seattle is winning the NFC West with 7-9 records and doesn't have an elite quarterback who's grabbing all the headlines, no move we make will look good to anyone else. That's okay. We've climbed to the top of the NFC on the back of national disrespect before, fed off the under-the-radar resentment. We've get through it.

I would have been nicer to Curry here, because I do feel bad for the guy's attempts to succeed here. But I lost that when I saw Curry dogging it on the field against the Giants. That lack of effort was unprecedented, inexcusable, ugly, and fate-sealing. Good luck in Oakland, Aaron.

I really need something to do.

Seahawks Bye-Week Report Card: The Palmer Ship Has Sailed and Other QB Thoughts

2011-10-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

Previously: The Bye-Week Report Card on the Defense

NFL.com, indulging in a small-time shock tactic that's eyebrow-raising just the same, posted an interesting picture yesterday in order to attract clicks to their newest feature article suggesting possible last-minute trades. It was originally a well-known picture of Pete Carroll welcoming Matt Hasselbeck to the sidelines after a presumed touchdown, but the back of the jersey is now (rather obviously) photoshopped to show the number "9" and the name "Palmer".

Had you shown me that a couple weeks ago, I might have gotten excited. Earlier this year, 17 Power was one of a couple of Seattle blogs passing on low-level rumors that the Seahawks were pursuing Palmer in trade. A couple people were insisting that a certain price has been named; others quoted only an intangible interest. Nothing ever materialized, but the interest wasn't disproven either. Palmer, though modestly aged and beset by injuries, is nonetheless a potential short-term franchise quarterback with the skills to produce. He isn't doing anything in his non-retirement in Cincinnati, and the Bengals can only stand to benefit from trading him. It was a needed and potentially exciting prospect for a team struggling at the most important position, and I was hopeful it would happen.

Now...mehh. Not so much.

Before Week 4, there was zero evidence that Seattle had, or could compensate in any way for the lack of, a franchise quarterback. We were stuck in reverse at the position, wasting a large and expensive infusion of receiving talent whom nobody could get the ball to.

And that could still be true. Tarvaris Jackson has looked good the last two weeks, but not only is he now injured, remember that he was known as a notoriously hot-and-cold starter in Minnesota. He'd post three touchdowns one game and self-destruct the next. His last two weeks could still be called a "hot streak", defibrillated by an up-tempo offense against the Falcons' garbage-time defense and then spreading the ball around effectively on the Giants. Jackson is still sitting for the test of consistency, and there's no guarantee he'll pass.

But at the same time, there's now sufficient reason to believe that he could pass, and that changes the picture. Jackson is clearly more comfortable playing no-huddle and is starting to survey the entire field for his targets now. This has led him to discover that there are, in fact, wide receivers on the left side of the field sometimes, and that they can be thrown to in order to gain yardage. Chemistry with Sidney Rice, Ben Obomanu, and Doug Baldwin helps.

Jackson isn't Peyton Manning and never will be - I wish he'd stabilize his vertical accuracy and quit leading his receivers into jarring collisions. But this is more than most of us were expecting in August. His poise and endurance in the face of a blistering Giants pass rush were also impressive, and nobody can legitimately find fault with his attitude and professionalism before the cameras. His words and behavior on the field have been worthy of Matt Hasselbeck, and that's the highest praise a Seahawks fan could offer.

Also deserving of credit is the Seahawks coaching staff for maximizing Jackson's potential in Seattle. The focus on eliminating turnovers, providing protection and weapons, and the switch to up-tempo and favorable plays for Jackson's skill set, all great moves. It may be less accurate to call Jackson a franchise QB in the rising, than it is to call him a well-handled benefactor. For all my skepticism that Pete Carroll could scheme his way out of a lack of talent and produce something, he's proving me wrong.

The Palmer Factor

So if we're talking about finding ourselves a competent holdover QB until Pete Carroll finds "the guy" in the draft, Jackson's improvement (should he manage to return to the lineup) has seriously reduced the impetus for trading for Carson Palmer, especially for the outrageous price suggested by Gil Brandt: a conditional first-rounder and WR Doug Baldwin.

Despite his experience and game-manager skill, Palmer's age, injuries, and recent high turnover quotient ensure that he wouldn't be anything more than another bridge QB for Seattle. Just like Jackson, but much more expensive and with lesser arm and mobility (the front office's pet qualities). Even if Seattle could wrangle him for a second- or third-round pick, that's more draft collateral than I could see John Schneider being willing to lose.

I also don't see the Bengals doing it, even now. Even before the Palmer rumors were dying, I'd expressed increased doubt that notoriously stubborn Cincinnati owner Mike Brown would cave to Palmer's trade demands. It would set a bad precedent for him and leave him in a weaker position against other future trade requests. And on a team like that, you can be sure that other requests will eventually happen. Brown already had a history of obstinacy and there was no reason to think that he'd suddenly see the light and change his ways. The approach of the trade deadline doesn't necessarily fix that.

I think little of Gil Brandt for suggesting that it would just because Brown declined comment at a recent meeting. That's like the media insisting that Chris Christie might be running for President because he "didn't flat-out say no". I think even less of Brandt for suggesting that Seattle offer a conditional first-rounder and Doug Baldwin in exchange for Palmer. Jackson is not in any Pro Bowl conversations, but neither is he so abjectly bad (as we thought he would be) that Seattle should be willing to sell the farm for Palmer. A first-rounder and Baldwin would be selling the farm and the kids.

Then again, if Palmer is going to don Seahawks blue, now is a better time than a week ago. The picture shifts if Jackson is forecast to miss more than the four weeks occupied by the bye, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Dallas. Even if a first-rounder and Baldwin is too ridiculous an asking price, Seattle might want to be generous in its offering for Palmer, because our other alternative...well...

Oh yeah, there's that other guy, too...

Call me premature, but I'd honestly dismissed Charlie Whitehurst as soon as I saw the trade headline. Whitehurst was a third-stringer who had shown little in the way of fundamentals. Occam's Razor - accepting the simplest explanation instead of tiresome rationalization - said that Seattle had simply overpaid for a backup.

That was a much easier conclusion to swallow than the empty claims that we didn't have enough information to judge. That's not an argument. That's desperation to rationalize, and it wouldn't have been heard if Whitehurst had been purchased with, say, a sixth-round pick. There'd be calls to experiment like with Josh Portis and Mike Teel, but nothing generating ten-page debate threads on message boards.

BUT, kudos to Whitehurst for taking a couple steps forward in relief last Sunday. He seemed eager to dispel to the subtle accusation from Carroll that he hadn't shown enough initiative over the offseason. He didn't look as solid as Jackson fundamentally, still zeroing in on receivers and making some awful throws until the final drive. But he came up with some big intermediate passes to keep the game open in a critical fourth-quarter, and like Jackson, didn't quail under the ferocious pass pressure.

How much of an equalizer is Charlie's lack of practice? We don't know, but it belongs in the discussion. It would also help to know whether the Giants gave up the play on Charlie's TD throw because they heard the whistle that Baldwin claims he heard, or simply bit on a faked bubble screen like the defenders claimed. Either way the circumstances made Charlie's life far easier, not the other way around. Are we still singing his praises if Brandon Browner doesn't grab that lucky bounce and take it to the house?

Whitehurst performed well in relief, especially considering he had limited practice. That's good for a backup, but solid backup doesn't equate to solid starter. Gameplan for a guy (and for Jackson, for that matter) and he gets exposed. People say that the test for Whitehurst is a couple of games for which he's put in practice time (oh, but not against the Giants, because it's not fair to test a franchise prospect against a good team). I say the test for Whitehurst is a couple of games for which his opponents have put in practice time - with him in mind. In that regard, we know even less about Whitehurst than most people say we do, but this time, that's not a hopeful for Whitehurst.

Backup could be Whitehurst's best role, and a perfectly acceptable role despite the fact that we overpaid for him. It may be that people just need to stop wanting that third-rounder to mean something, let it go. There were still too many worrisome things about Charlie's performance on Sunday to prefer him over Carson Palmer, should Jackson be forced to miss the season and Seattle manage to get Palmer at a reasonable price.

Josh Portis remains intriguing, but an untested project nonetheless. He should be kept around.

Competition

A lot of people called Pete Carroll, purveyor of "Always Compete", a hypocrite for anointing Tarvaris Jackson the starter immediately rather than opening a QB competition. I didn't see it that way. He had a brutally short offseason to prepare, and needed some favorable factors in play to overcome the lack of practice and development. He couldn't simply it as just another August. Tarvaris Jackson offered that possible X-factor. He offered scheme and personnel familiarity, as well as mobility to mitigate some of early struggle from the offensive line.

For me, Carroll wasn't going back on his philosophy by forgoing a QB competition. He was acknowledging the reality of the NFL (and of the lockout). It was a sign that he remembers that "Always Compete" ultimately refers to competition against other teams, not within his own roster. It wasn't about roster management, it was about how to get the fastest start to the season. It was encouraging to see Carroll showing flexibility and adaptability rather than rigid adherence to an abstract philosophy that would have taken valuable practice reps away from the eventual winner of a competition.

It's quite open for debate whether Jackson is bushwhacking his way toward "good game manager" status or poised on the brink of another three-pick performance in Cleveland. There are no set answers yet. But that's a compliment to Jackson, because two weeks ago, the answer seemed obvious: "please God, bring us someone else". And while I wouldn't be happy with the thought of another ten years of Jackson, he may just become a good enough stopgap to bide the time while Carroll and Schneider look for "that guy". It's clear from Jackson's contract that the front office is thinking that way.

The test for Jackson right now (besides his health) is consistent dependability as a stopgap. Let's keep that in perspective as Seattle's secondary gathers like slavering wolves in the film room, drooling over their upcoming meal of Colt McCoy.

The smartass guide to the LuckStakes, sans Seattle. Cry or rejoice as you see fit.

2011-10-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

Who really has a shot at drafting Andrew Luck? Who's plummeting in free-fall towards the bottom of the barrel, and who's losing out by inexplicably winning? Here's the leading contenders.

1. Miami Dolphins. They opted not to fire Sparano during the lockout, why mess with a winning (at losing) formula? If Sparano's tenure was any more lame duck, the team's uniform accent color would be a l'orange. There has been talk among some pundits that now is the time to go get Orton, but with 11/16ths of his 9 million dollar salary still due, I find it hard to believe they would. Besides, the owner has the option of selling tickets one of two ways: build a winning team and tradition, or draft Andrew Luck. He is pushing the EASY button in Miami this year.

2. Indianpolis Colts. The latest news is that Peyton is less than 50/50 on playing this season. Expect those odds to dwindle as 16 losses draws closer. Those odds nearly got a big boost when Indy somehow found a way to lead the hapless Chiefs in an actual NFL game played in front of fans and everything, but some good mid-game adjustments by the Colts coaching staff made sure the Chiefs were able to come from behind and win a 2nd! NFL game.

3. St. Louis Rams. They are moving on up. The Jefferson's have nothing on this bunch, who are happy to report that they only have 5 home games left to gag. In related news, StubHub is reporting that St. Louis fans have bogged their servers with tickets for sale. While how much the Rams would want to draft Luck may be a matter of debate, the kings' ransom they would receive for trading that spot is not. Don't worry Seattle fans, the Rams will somehow get themselves to a couple of wins. Their goal is not Luck, but Los Angeles.

4. Denver Broncos. More proof that Elway has no idea what he is doing in Denver: Tebow Time. All he did was nearly beat San Diego. To the 3 or 4 Bronco fans who have not become Tebow acolytes, worry not. John Fox has promised that after the bye week they will have "training camp" style practices especially for Tim Tebow. Wasn't training camp a total disaster for Tebow? With a game at Miami the week after the upcoming bye, Fox and Elway are apparently hoping for a training camp-style ass-kicking in Miami.

5. Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jags are also competing for a spot in LA. The only team on my list who might trade the rights to the top spot to Seattle also might just reconsider that stance if Gabbert continues to poop the bed. Which kind of means Seattle has no chance.

6. Minnesota Vikings. Their chances took a severe blow when the Arizona Cardinals came to town, who after Seattle's win remain the western team most committed to losing 10 AM starts. I told them to IR Purple Jesus, but did they listen? Nope. Come on Vikings, would you rather have a dozen or so years of Luck, or 3 years of Christian Ponder? The Vikings will probably fall off the list, their defense is good enough to get them a handful of wins.

7. Arizona Cardinals. The more likely it becomes that Whisenhunt gets fired, the higher the Cards will move up this list. Kolb is looking less like a quarterback and more like an albatross every week. If every running back makes Patrick Peterson flinch the way that Adrian Peterson does, Kolb won't be able to throw enough touchdowns to keep this suddenly irrelevant team anywhere but near the top of the Luckstakes.

Philadelphia and Carolina sport records of 1-4, but I have a hard time seriously including them in the race for the number one pick right now. Seattle is out of it. Like I said last week, this Seattle Defense is only a couple of attitude ticks away from winning a few games by itself. They played against the Giants like their attitude was ticked, and good for them. They put the loud but vocal Suck for Luck minority to bed, and thank goodness. With 3 games left against the Rams and Cards, it is highly unlikely that Seattle even drafts in the top 5, let alone grabs the top spot.

Seahawks Bye-Week Report Card: Offense

2011-10-12T07:00:00.001-07:00

I was going to call this a "First Quarter Report Card" after Seattle's first four games, but never got a chance to finish the piece before the Seahawks crashed through the Meadowlands and left a Doug Baldwin-shaped hole behind them.

Turns out that's just as well, because that gutsy win didn't just make it five games into the season and ruin my "first quarter" artifice - it drastically changed perceptions of this team. There's no ignoring a road victory like that, regardless of any caveats. Beating a playoff-caliber team with an elite QB and pass rush, on the road, at 10AM, after flying in from the West Coast - there's substance there. It's no fluke.

Offensive Line

Tom Cable is rapidly fulfilling the lofty expectations he entered Seattle with. This offensive line has covered such a ridiculous amount of ground during the bye-week stretch that it no longer looks like the same unit. Heck, the offense no longer looks like the same offense. Overall, the pass protection is better than its ever been for Tarvaris Jackson, while the run-blocking has a ways to go but showed promise on Sunday.

Tackle is the best news. Russell Okung has rebounded some to the last couple weeks, despite recurring ankle booboos and a newfound proclivity for penalties. James Carpenter has vaulted from prematurely-labeled bust to respectable. His highlight Sunday was a tremendous edge block to spring Marshawn Lynch for a long gain that would eventually lead to a touchdown. Both tackles' mistakes against the Giants were glaring but isolated, and forgiveable against a championship New York defensive line. It speaks volumes to their toughness and determination, as they've had (and still do) a lot of adversity of various sorts to fight through.

The interior of Paul McQuistan, Max Unger and John Moffitt has been mostly quiet. That's better than noticeable for the wrong reasons. Unger's tenacity in getting to the second level has stood out. The push up the middle could stand to benefit once Robert Gallery returns.

After Seattle's one-dimensional draft last April, proving this O-line worthy was an important validator for this front office. It's starting to pay off. We'd know if it weren't - our uncertainty at QB makes good protection an essential.

Running Back

My colleague Kip Earlywine insists that no running back on this roster has the right profile for the consistent, hard-earned yardage of a true zone runner. I see his point, but right now I'll take whatever I can get. Marshawn Lynch has no doubt been aching to prove that his immortal "Beast Run" against New Orleans was not the only thing we would remember him by. Until Sunday, it was. But Lynch's 98-yard performance was a factor in the offense, and was helped by the fact that Carroll wasn't forced to abandon the run in the face of a three-touchdown deficit by halftime. He was also handy in the up-tempo short passing game.

Leon Washington and Justin Forsett continue to see surprisingly little action in the offense. Both are admittedly boom-or-bust types, and perhaps not the kind of weapon that Seattle can afford to deploy right now with the offense still finding its footing. I maintain that Forsett could still be an attractive trade target for some hungry team. Seattle has only a week left to make use of this, though I'll be sad to see him go. His spirit is infectious.

Michael Robinson, newly returned from injury, committed a costly fumble and didn't really help his case as long-term weapon in this offense.

Tight End

With Zach Miller recovering from a head injury and an excess of blocking responsibilities, his future impact is cloudy. This is frustrating, because he cost an arm and a leg and was supposed to be a security blanket for our quarterback. Frustrating, not worrying, because others are stepping up in that role just fine. But for all the supposed dependence this offense was going to have on its tight ends, Seattle has allowed its tight end corps to diminish to just two, collectively out-produced by Ben Obomanu.

Cameron Morrah returns this week from PUP. I don't know whether our tackles aren't yet ready to be weaned off tight end protection, whether Darell Bevell is ignoring them, or whether Tarvaris Jackson has been ignoring them (most likely a combination), but I'm intrigued to think of how much more this already-interesting receiving corps could be opened up by more tight end involvement.

Anthony McCoy, after some flashes early in the season, had some irritating drops against the Giants but kept his head in the game for a drive-extending 20-yard catch from Charlie Whitehurst. He's an underrated prospect who should get more looks.

Wide Receiver

This group has emerged as one of the best surprises of the year, largely because of the emergence of Doug Baldwin. The undrafted Standford wide receiver is leading the team in receptions and yards and starting to garner attention from the national media. The guy is just brilliant at finding soft spots in the zones, like greased lightning in and out of his breaks, and has vicegrips for hands. All at a whopping 5'10". Ironic for a starter under a head coach obsessed with tall receivers, don't you think?

Sidney Rice has been relatively quiet. His yardage is about on a level with 2010 Mike Williams and 2009 T.J. Houshmandzadeh (who produced despite fans' hatred). I'd love to break down the tape and find out whether he's been effective at drawing defenders away from the line and other receivers. Like Miller, it's a little disconcerting that he's producing below his cost.

Williams is not a separation receiver. He gets his yardage by out-reaching and out-muscling close coverage, which makes him attractive to gunslingers like Matt Hasselbeck but ugly to skittish quarterbacks like pre-no-huddle Tarvaris Jackson. His role will probably shift after the bye, with everyone voicing an intent to get him involved.

Ben Obomanu, relatively quiet until the Meadowlands, looks like a useful tool in the up-tempo passing game that Seattle is now experimenting with. He's a counter-example to the theory that Pete Carroll just gets rid of anyone with Tim Ruskell's name on his draft card, which could bode well for the returning Deon Butler, whom Carroll worked hard to integrate into the offense.

Then again, it may not. With the WR corps crowded by Butler's return, Seattle likely has to release one of Butler, Golden Tate, or Kris Durham. But with everyone else staking their claims in this offense, that choice isn't as easy. Butler is a similar player to Baldwin and may not offer as much value. He doesn't recover from jams or withstand the physical nature of the game as well as Baldwin does. Kris Durham is a project with tools and plenty of upside, and probably wouldn't make it to the practice squad (Kansas City was rumored to be targeting him in the fourth round), while Golden Tate is more of a prize pick and offers more diversity to the offense.

My preference would be to see Tate go. He's done very little and is so fundamentally behind the curve that Seattle doesn't appear to be able to make him a priority in the offense. Butler would probably provide more immediate returns. But my guess is that Tate is kept around for that tantalizing hint of big plays that someone on this front office is seeing. Charlie Whitehurst has shown some chemistry with him at times, which might prove valuable should he be starting after the bye.

Other Thoughts

Seattle's offense is showing signs of an identity despite not fully delivering on all its big purchases. Sidney Rice, Zach Miller, and Robert Gallery, all expensive offseason finds, aren't having as much of an impact as their paychecks suggested they would. That may not materr that much beyond matters of the purse, because Seattle is finding traction with other guys. But it's something to keep an eye on.

Discuss!

This afternoon: The Smartass Guide to the LuckStakes, from Scott Williams.

Further Thoughts on the Giants Victory

2011-10-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

The more I think about Sunday's win against the Giants, the more it feels like an illustration of how defense and QB play fit together in this league. The Seahawks' defense didn't win the game for them. The game-sealing interception was a lucky bounce that lies more on Eli Manning's shoulders than any Seattle DB's, another of several bad decisions by a QB that couldn't push his luck forever.

No, in this instance, the Seahawks won because their QB play was able to keep pace with New York's. Shocker this, but the combination of Tarvaris Jackson and Charlie Whitehurst exceeded 300 yards and won the turnover battle. This left the Seahawks hanging around in the fourth quarter, well in position to capitalize on a lucky bounce.

Does this mean the Giants gave the game away? Yes and no. Manning had a horribly inconsistent day, but how many Seahawks teams of late have been able to run away with lucky breaks? Very few. Now we're seeing one. It says a lot about the spirit and tenacity of this team that they were still around mentally and physically when Eli Manning threw that fateful pass too wide of Victor Cruz. The Seahawks were playing sixty minutes of football, making plays when it counted. And they forced a few of their own.

Offense

Some consider the Tarvaris Jackson debate blown wide open again. I was under no impression that he was capable of playing franchise QB in the NFL, but Pete Carroll's system seems set up to maximize Jackson's abilities. Jackson led sustained drives against the Giants defense, rather than just a couple good ones. His newfound point-guarding is opening up the offense and affording them more red-zone opportunities. He's surprised me.

It certainly helps to have the weapons he does. Good QB's elevate bad WR's much more than the other way around, but there is an effect both ways, and the latter effect is near full strength right now. Doug Baldwin is out there doing his thing. He's fluid, instinctive, aware, and has experience with a similar system from Stanford from what I hear. It gives him an "it" factor that Golden Tate just plain lacks. Ben Obomanu and Marshawn Lynch acquitted themselves well in the short passing game, and Lynch showed good things Sunday pounding the rock. It was steady production, not just one long run. It wouldn't surprise me if they're all benefiting from Sidney Rice drawing a bit of coverage downfield.

Charlie Whitehurst made some eyebrow-raising deep throws to keep Seattle in the game late. He also had some bad throws and continues to obsess over his first read. He's not as much of an improv QB as Jackson is, which is both good and bad. If a solid month of starting could do Jackson some good, it might help Whitehurst as well, but it might not. Depends on Carroll's system.

Speaking of which, kudos to Darell Bevell for the gutsy decision to switch to an up-tempo offense. It keeps the defense off-balance and seemed to favor both Jackson and Whitehurst. It has downside, in particular an increased turnover risk and the opposite of a grinding offense (i.e. leaving the other offense with more time instead of less). But it's funny how an offensive coordinators' play-calling looks so much better when the offense is in sync, whereas from behind the plays tend to look dumber.

Also credit the offensive line, particularly the rapidly improving James Carpenter, and the fearlessness of Seattle's sack-laden QB's as well. Jackson did a great job not getting rattled, as did Whitehurst in relief (without a lot of first-team practice).

Defense

The Seattle defense has all the signs of a collection of playmakers being exposed too often by a lack of consistent interior pass rush. The defensive ends are notching pressures and hits, the corners are getting some good jams and defenses, the safeties are flying around, and yet good QB's are still racking up yards, yards, yards with or without much help from the run game. At first glance, this is a paradox, with most people's first instinct to look to the secondary for someone to blame.

Kip pointed out a number of contributing factors to Manning's success on Sunday. Seattle's good offensive play and tenacity, their reliance on an up-tempo offense, and the lack of a run game were all relevant. They forced Manning to keep up the pace and inflated his stats to some degree, as did Leon Washington's kickoff returns against Philip Rivers last year. Manning's own bumbles are also on that list. He was lucky to be in the game as long as he was, with Seattle defenders getting their hands on several footballs. It was a poorly placed throw to Cruz that did him in, although I'm not sure whether he or Cruz is more responsible there.

Another factor is revealed by Victor Cruz' "magical" 68-yard touchdown completion. I've seen a number of attempts to affix blame for this catch-and-run to a Seahawk defensive back, but I don't buy it. Kam Chancellor shouldn't get blamed for merely tipping the ball instead of intercepting it, while Richard Sherman didn't have the reaction time to close. It looks like hard luck on them. But I can think of someone who could have stopped the pass - the defensive line, at the source. Eli Manning had four seconds to literally dance around in the pocket before he released that pass. The more time the QB has in the pocket, the more lucky things he's going to make happen.

And not even lucky things so much as perfectly placed throws. For two weeks now, we've had front-row seats as Seattle defensive backs (this week, Walter Thurmond; last week, Brandon Browner) played excellent coverage, only to get burned by the kind of beautifully placed pinpoint throw that one-on-one sideline coverage just can't really defend against. It's a matter of inches, and franchise QB's like Manning and Matt Ryan are defined partly by their ability to complete such passes on a regular basis. On Thurmond's play in particular, even the pass rush couldn't help. Manning was flushed out and still made the play, helped by the great hands of Cruz.

Our defense are still giving up some big plays, but they're also showing promise. I can't help but wonder if our secondary's life would be made easier by interior pressure on the QB himself. But even great pass rush can only limit a QB's opportunities. Aaron Rodgers went up against the NFL's very best defense in last year's Super Bowl, and still his accuracy and improvisation prevailed. Pittsburgh needed its offense to seal the deal, and Ben Roethlisberger's turnovers doomed the operation.

Which leads me back to my belief about the power structure of the NFL. Defense isn't enough on its own, and in the last two weeks we've been shown a clinic as to why. Kudos to Browner for keeping his head in the play, but his winning interception return was a crazy ricochet off an inaccurate throw from Manning and was thus a factor of offense, not defense. Ordinarily, Seattle's struggle to produce offensively would have put Seattle 3 touchdowns behind at the time of Browner's pick-six.

Conclusion

But as Kip eloquently put it, good offensive play is an equalizer. On Sunday, Seattle had it. The victory was due in no small part to Seattle's ability to score early. A similar effect is visible in our unlikely wins against San Diego and Chicago last year - the Seahawks put up points, exerting pressure on the opponent to score, and then kept the pressure in place with good field position (let no one ignore Leon Washington's contributions to the win). Usually when the Seahawks lose, it's to a runaway scoring pile-on in the first half. This Sunday, much like our 2005 team (dare I make even tangential comparisons to that?), early points equalized the game and gave our defense greater influence.

Context

I always look at the quality of the defeated opponent to gauge the quality of a win. Are the Giants a bad football team, thus reducing the significance of Seattle's victory? I find that hard to swallow. On one hand, they opened the season by losing to the Redskins and scraping past the awful Cardinals, so that doesn't speak to their stature. Injuries have certainly backed the team up, and their offensive line was surprisingly soft. But this team carries a lot of talent, plays in a tough division, boasts a fearsome pass rush that got to our QB's multiple times, and knows how to win. Even at his worst, Eli Manning is a good quarterback and made a lot of great plays against Seattle in between his bad ones.

So it's tough to say.

What we do know, like we knew before, is that the Seahawks have a few tricks up their sleeve when it comes to keeping games in hand. Pete Carroll's obsession over turnovers is a big part of that, and who knows how much better our 2010 season could have looked without Matt Hasselbeck's multiple four-turnover fiascos? We've got Leon Washington, we've got a fierce pair of playmaker safeties who seem to come up big every time we succeed, and we've got a great receiver tandem. Should these elements create room for some balance, we have running and short-passing to add to the fire. We have passion and determination from the players that certainly wasn't around when Mora was coach. And, of course, there's the awesome equalizer of the 12th Man crowd at CenturyLink Field.

What does this say about the rest of our season? The rest of our schedule features QB's mostly of the "respectable but highly inconsistent" category, and the only intimidating defense I see on that schedule is Baltimore. The toughest stretch could well be behind us already.

This is wonderfully encouraging stuff. I can't say that I consider the QB situation resolved, but it's a complement to Carroll's coaching and offseason acquisitions that the Seahawks can keep games close enough to where a big play or two will swing fortune our way. That really does seem to be Carroll's mantra, his big answer to the big-time playground of elite quarterbacks and smashmouth defenses. I hope it becomes a pattern. Last year's 3-7 finish of blowout losses still stands as the mean of Seattle's quality in a vacuum, and it will take some consistent performance against good teams to change my mind about that.

But we're certainly on our way.

Seahawks blessed with shocking victory after sufficiently pleasing the injury gods

2011-10-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

The Seahawks lost last weekend, but in defeat they made a statement: Tarvaris Jackson might just "get it," and with a functioning quarterback, the Seahawks have a formidable and efficient offense.

I said last week that I felt guilty about rooting for a loss. I decided before the Giants game today that I was done with that mentality, and wanted nothing more than a Seahawks win. The only reason I wanted the Seahawks to lose in the first place was to help secure a franchise quarterback. Yet, with steady improvement by Jackson and a pair of solid/good backups, its beginning to appear that Seattle's quarterback situation is not quite as dire as I originally thought it was. Which I think says more about our coaching staff than our actual quarterbacks. More on that in a bit, but first, the game. What a game.

I picked a horrible time to stop taking game notes, as so many things happened that I'm sure I'll forget most of it. But to me, the storyline of this game was how beautiful it was while also being so ugly. There was a mountain of penalties, particularly of the procedural variety. Several Giants players were injured, and at least 6 Seahawks left the game with injury, and all of them were important starters. Baldwin and Moffitt would later return, and it didn't look like any of the other injuries would be season ending (except for Jackson in a worst case scenario). But still, that's a ton of notable injuries. I know this is cliche, so I hate saying it, but the saying "when it rains it pours" feels like one of the most convincing truisms I've heard. Going back to my younger days working in restaurants and retail, it seemed like people always wanted to swing by all at once or not at all, and sometimes events occur in bunches as well.

Every so often, a game like this happens. I vividly remember the Vikings game in 2006 when the Seahawks had a few injuries, including the very first major injury to Matt Hasselbeck. I remember the brutal season opener at Buffalo in 2008 when the Seahawks had a ton of injuries, including Rob Sims and Nate Burleson being put on the IR, which is something you never want to see in the first game of a season. Then there was the Cowboys game later that same year, when among a long list of injury casualties that day was Walter Jones, who would never play another NFL game. Then last year, there was the Raiders game, in which I swear there must have been at least 6-7 injured Seahawks, including Red Bryant who was lost for the season. You know what else those games had in common? The Seahawks were blown out in every single one of them. The final combined scores of those 4 games was 132 to 35. The smallest margin of defeat was by 18 points.

The Seahawks hadn't beaten an NFC East team on the road since Philly in 2007. They were 1-11 in their previous 12 Eastern Time Zone games. They came into this game 1-3 with a -39 scoring ratio. They hadn't won at the Meadowlands specifically in almost 3 decades, and the last team that did it was pretty good (1983). (Hell, even the name "Meadowlands" sounds like a far distant Nordic place where warriors go to fight and die).

And it wasn't just Seattle's road futility working against them. The Giants had won 3 straight and Eli Manning was off to a career year start. The Seahawks had faced the Giants two of the previous three seasons, and were crushed in those games 44-6 and 41-7 respectively. In more ways than one, this wasn't a game you'd expect Seattle to win.

So to recap, the Seahawks suffered a ton of injuries, which is a recipe for a blowout, and were playing an opponent who had blown them out in the previous two meetings, at a place Seattle hadn't won in 28 years. But they didn't collapse like every previous injury riddled Seahawks team would have, instead brandishing a stubborn "tis just a fleshwound!" attitude of resilience. And they won. They won! It was an outcome every bit as improbable as the Brandon Browner pick six that sealed it. The game itself was adrenaline pumping, and watching the 4th quarter I had this song stuck in my head. It was so closely contested throughout that I almost couldn't fit a picture into my win probability chart. This wasn't like Seattle's week three win against the Cardinals. That game felt like a 4-12 team holding on against a 3-13 team playing at home. Today felt like a 9-7 team upsetting a heavily favored 10-6 team on the road.

And yet, I wasn't completely shocked by it. I felt an unusual cockiness coming into this game, and from reading a certain message board, I know I wasn't the only one. The Seahawks offense really did appear to awaken in the 2nd half of the Falcons game, and the great thing about having a good offense is that its such an equalizer. A great offense can dictate the pace of the game, erase late leads, and at least keep a team hanging around at the end of games almost every week. Its no surprise then that offense is the better indicator for regular season success, or at least that's what football outsiders told me. If Seattle's offense is as legit as it looked in the Falcons game, then I believe they will hang with every single opponent the rest of the season. They might still win only 6 or 7 games, but you'll have a lot of losses like the Falcons game and very few losses like the Steelers game.

I'll cover the offense more in the bullet points section, but I think its time we talked about Tarvaris Jackson. Every single week, Tarvaris Jackson has shown a slow but steady increase in his comfort level. In particular, his pocket presence and elusiveness has gone from abysmal to just about average since the start of the preseason. This is a really huge factor as the Seahawks do not have a good pass blocking line to say the least, and with options like Sidney Rice, Ben Obomanu, and Mike Williams, you want a quarterback who will have the time necessary to get good looks downfield. Jackson has also improved with his decision making about when to run and when not to. His accuracy has always been above average. Tarvaris Jackson followed up his 96.3 passer rating (8.4 YPA) against Atlanta with a solid 86.6 rating (7.5 YPA) today. I don't think its any coincidence either that the Seahawks running game has opened up quite a bit while this has been going on either. Sometimes the best rushing offense is a great passing offense.

And yet, as pleased as I am with Tarvaris Jackson right now, I can't help but wonder how much better the Seahawks could be doing with another quarterback. Jackson doesn't have a weak arm, but for some reason he'll have games where his passes have no zip at all. Jackson should have been intercepted 3 or 4 times today, and in each case, the main culprit was a ball that arrived too slowly. Deon Grant's near interception to a pass intended for Doug Baldwin highlighted this problem. If that pass arrives with zip, its a completion, maybe a long completion. Jackson has other issues too. His footwork is below average, and even with his improvements, his mobility and pocket presence still need to be better. Watching Jackson, even on his good days, I'm surprised he was once a 2nd round pick.

And yet for all those problems, Jackson still led his offense for 20 points in less than a full game, despite three turnovers in Giants territory. To me it speaks less to Tarvaris Jackson than it does for the brilliant system he's been placed in.

Against the Cowboys in 2002, Hasselbeck entered the game following a Dilfer injury and the rest is history. He later said, just like Brett Favre once did before him, that "the lightbulb came on" at that moment in his career. I've always wondered exactly what he meant when he said that, and watching Tarvaris Jackson play point guard quarterback recently has helped me understand the meaning of those words all these years later. The bad Matt Hasselbeck was just being a quarterback, trying to make plays and do everything he could to win. The good Matt Hasselbeck realized that he didn't have to try too hard, because he was playing in a fine tuned system built to set up easy, high percentage completions. He adjusted his aim a little lower, and suddenly everything just clicked playing in an offense that stressed sure things over big plays. Once he mastered the small plays, opportunities for the big plays opened up too.

With Jackson, I see a very flawed quarterback who's squeezing out impressive production thanks a coach that is trying to make the quarterback's job as easy as possible. Jackson is making a living targeting tight ends, running backs, and slot receivers. That in turn opens up bigger plays for guys like Sidney Rice. And that in turn drops the safeties back which then helps the tight ends and slot receivers even more. By forcing a defense to defend the whole field, it helps open the running game as well. All Jackson has to do is buy a little time with his legs, look to see if anyone is wide open, and if not, run for it. This method is heavy on improvisation and light on structure. Structure is fantastic if you are a quarterback like Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees. However, acquiring those kind of quarterbacks is really hard to do. It would be incorrect to accuse Pete Carroll of "dumbing down" his offense, but I think its safe to say that a good point guard quarterback is more of an instinctive player than a skilled one. The fact that the team went full no huddle today and scored 27 points on offense is proof of that.

In summary, I think Jackson has played well the last two weeks, and I think he has a real shot at being a quality bridge quarterback for the next several years. I think its quite remarkable how in just 2 weeks, we've gone from Charlie chants to fans being legitimately concerned with how soon Jackson can recover from his pectoral injury. He doesn't turn 30 until the week of the 2013 draft. However, I salivate thinking about what a more talented point guard quarterback could do in this same offense, because Jackson isn't a very talented quarterback overall, and he wasn't even a natural point guard quarterback when he came here either. Its slowly being coached into him, and he's slowly becoming a real asset to the Seahawks offense. His injury was diagnosed (pre-MRI) as a pectoral injury. That could be nothing or it could be season ending (as it was for Rob Sims in 2008). He has an extra week to heal. Hopefully that's enough.

Wow this got long. Thank goodness I didn't take notes! Who says laziness doesn't pay off later?

For the first time that I can remember this season, the Seahawks finally called a designed quarterback run play. It was executed to perfection and picked up an easy 11 yards. It also ended Tarvaris Jackson's day, and possibly his season.

The injury to Leroy Hill had a much bigger impact than I expected. His spot was filled by Aaron Curry, who promptly gave up two long plays and had one of the more shocking displays of apathy I've ever seen. On his big reception given up to a tight end on just the 2nd play, he appeared to be jogging in pursuit the whole play, and didn't even really make an effort on the tackle. Its a really odd situation with Curry. His play in the last few games, and especially today, just screams "trade me already!" But if Leroy Hill is out for any decent amount of time at all, that makes moving Curry really difficult, even if he's quit on the team. I've been a critic of Curry since before he was drafted, but I would have never expected him to look so uncaring on the field as he did today. If nothing else, he always worked his ass off. The Aaron Curry chapter in Seattle began with him taking a 12 year old cancer victim with him to the draft and shedding tears at the podium; and now its ending like this. Its hard to watch.

Whatever happened to the Giants offensive line? Alan Branch owned the right guard assigned on him for a insta-sack, and a few series later Hargrove did the same to the left guard for a rare rushing play safety snapped from the 5 yard line. Chris Clemons and Raheem Brock pretty much had their way with the offensive tackles most of the day, and Red Bryant was his usual beastly self against the run. I'd like to believe that the Seahawks defensive line had a breakout performance today, but that doesn't seem possible given how much better they looked today than in any game previously.

Maybe my favorite thing about Pete Carroll is how inventive he is at defense. He loves to blitz, and he isn't afraid to blitz from anywhere. His predecessor Jim Mora also loved to blitz, but blitzed too many players and too predictably. Carroll generally sends 5 or 6 on his blitzes, and very frequently he'll send safeties and corners with impressive effectiveness. The Eli Manning fumble in the first quarter was recovered by none other than Earl Thomas. While no Seahawks DB officially registered a sack today, they forced several hurried passes, incompletions, and made quarterback hits. The DB blitz is a disruptive force when its timed perfectly, and today it was clicking very well.

A couple of young players had notable mixed performances today. The first was James Carpenter, who had a very impressive run block to spring Lynch for his long gain. He would draw penalties later, and get schooled by both Jason Pierre Paul and Mathias Kiwanuka. Despite having a tough day, I find myself upbeat about Carpenter. Most rookie lineman struggle, and today was a good learning experience for him. Particularly the sack he allowed to JPP on a simple inside move.

The other was Anthony McCoy. McCoy is a good player who knows how to get open, but he will drop passes sometimes, and today was one of those days. I didn't take notes, but I remember 3 negative plays for McCoy today against one very positive one, a 4th quarter reception for 20 yards. McCoy was forced into action after Zach Miller left the game with an apparent head injury.

Kam Chancellor hasn't gotten national attention yet, but he's one of the best young strong safeties in the business. Especially today. Every time I noticed #31, it was from a positive contribution. Whether it was on a safety blitz, making great tackles, or playing good coverage. He nearly had an interception on Cruz's insane 68 yard TD reception. When he sealed the game by intercepting Eli Manning, it was the perfect ending to very impressive day. Earl Thomas was great with a pick and a fumble recovery with quality plays in between. I agree with former star NFL safety John Lynch. The Seahawks might just have the best young safety duo in the NFL.

Walter Thurmond had a strong game overall. He was forced into action thanks to Trufant's recurring back spasms. Thurmond had a diving near interception and had several other great defensive plays that were so good they bordered on pass interference. Given how well Thurmond, Browner, Thomas, and Chancellor played, and how well Seattle's pass rush was operating, it seems rather shocking that Eli Manning had a career high 420 yards today. Without going back for a second look, I'm guessing that the reason for such a high total was the fast pace of the game, the fact that the running offense was going nowhere, and the game status of trailing for a majority of the game.

Russell Okung felt left out seeing so many other Seahawks going down with injuries, so he joined the parade late in the 4th quarter with yet another ankle sprain. It's already his 2nd this year and I think his 5th in less than a season and a half. Players become more prone to ankle injuries after they have them, and Okung has injured both ankles. I've gone from nervous about Okung becoming an "injury-bust" to resigned about it. I commented on this just last week, when I noted that any game that Okung isn't injured is a small win. I think that says it all about Okung, when you literally expect him to limp off the field injured every single game. I don't know what Seattle should do, given that Okung is still a good player when healthy. [Update:] Apparently Okung did not injure his ankle and returned later in the 4th quarter. It may have been a bad cramp instead. Great news if this is the case.

The coaching staff finally adopted a running back by committee approach. Lynch only had 12 carries, while Forsett had 4, Washington 3, and even Robinson was granted 3 carries (which he promptly rewarded with a red zone fumble). The result was 145 net rushing yards, and a highly respectable net rushing yards per attempt of 5.0.

Marshawn Lynch had a great game today. He showed increased quickness and decisiveness. I really liked some of the cuts he made at the first level in the initial drives of the game. He finished with 98 yards on only 12 carries and 33 more yards on 4 receptions. The Saints game will forever be Lynch's greatest game as a Seahawk because of The Run for which this blog is named, but start to finish, I'd actually say today was Lynch's best overall game yet as a Seahawk.

Perhaps a bigger reason for the Seahawks run offense efficiency today was due to the fact that Tarvaris Jackson was spreading the ball well once again. A defense that has to anticipate receptions either quick or slow, either left or right, and either shallow or deep is not going to be in good position to stop the run. Jackson was hitting all areas of the field, and when he left the game, the running offense ground to a halt immediately. Charlie Whitehurst is not a point guard quarterback, and it impacted the running game accordingly. A point guard quarterback is fluid, instinctive, is a threat to run, and uses the entire field. Charlie Whitehurst is a threat to run, but doesn't use the entire field nearly as much, and is a highly structured quarterback, with most of his throws being quick hits pre-designed before the snap. Whitehurst threw a lot of bubble screen passes which positioned the defense closer to the line of scrimmage and often put defenses in favorable positions to stop the run.

Doug Baldwin continues to impress. I don't know what I can say that his line of 8 catches for 136 yards and a TD doesn't say already. So instead I'll say this. Doug Baldwin entered the regular season as Seattle's #6 wide receiver, and yet he's currently on pace for 1,056 yards on the season. If he does so, he'll be the first Seahawks receiver to break 1000 yards since Bobby Engram did it in 2007. How appropriate.

The Seahawks have a bye next week, then face the Bengals and Browns in the next two games. Going 4-3 is looking like a distinct possibility, especially if Tarvaris Jackson is able to heal by then. Its a shame that the 49ers are running away with the division. I beginning to think this Seahawks team is better than last year's.

2-3 Chart

2011-10-09T15:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the late post, I wasn't able to start watching the game until 1:30.

(Baldwin and Moffitt both returned later in the game).

I can't believe they won. That's three great viewing experiences in a row for the Seahawks. Its shocking to think that they are a field goal away from being 3-2 right now.

Seahawks Defeat NY Giants on the Road, 36-25

2011-10-09T14:26:00.000-07:00

The title alone is a stunner. Not something I was expecting to see this year.

This game was a back-and-forth, messy, opportunistic contest with poor fundamental football interspersed with big plays - for both teams. It was a firefight of turnovers. It was a slew of injuries toughed out. It was a showcase for wide receiver depth. It was a clinic on how to rebound from mistakes. It was another chance for Charlie Whitehurst. It was a head-shaker for linebackers. It was a hailstorm of penalties. It was a highlight reel-filler of lucky bounces, an agonizing march of almost-big-plays, finally decided by the luck of one team running out while the other team still had the endurance and spirit to capitalize.

For once, the latter team was the Seahawks, now 2-3. Once again, we are reminded of the masterful motivation of Pete Carroll and the power it sometimes offers to an otherwise struggling team.

This game could mark a tremendous shift in the Seahawks' season, or at least, as tremendous as it can be as the 49ers(!) run away with the division. Pending further news on Tarvaris Jackson's injury, Charlie Whitehurst could be looking at yet another chance, probably his final one, to cement himself as a starting quarterback.

His weapons are well on their way to establishing themselves. Don't look now, but an undrafted wide receiver just broke 100 receiving yards for the Seahawks, leads the team's receivers, and in five weeks has gone from roster long-shot to security blanket in the slot. Brandon Stokley in miniature. I shudder to think what he could do with a real QB throwing to him, and to think what we would have missed out on had Seattle followed my advice and cut him last month.

I don't know what to make of our cornerback depth. Brandon Browner in particular is an enigma, a bigger, stronger Kelly Jennings who scatters small victories in between big plays and costly penalties. Nobody else is much better. But we've also seen great things in spurts. Would their job be easier with any real pass rush? QB's would have a lot less time to make perfectly placed passes and other lucky things happen. I feel the need to withhold judgment there.

So much to say about this team right now, so little time. I look forward to Kip Earlywine's piece later today.

CenturyLink field tragically not at 5280 feet of elevation, Seahawks lose

2011-10-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. I want the Seahawks to draft a successful NFL franchise quarterback. No matter what. Drafting higher increases the odds said player will work out. Teams that draft higher lose more games. I wanted Seattle to lose against the 49ers. I wanted them to lose against the Steelers. When the Hawks beat the Cardinals, I wasn't terribly happy about it.

But today was different. Yes, I wanted the Seahawks to lose, but when Steven Hauschka's hilariously impossible kick attempt fell well short and well off the mark, I couldn't help but feel the heavy burden of a guilty conscience. And I don't just mean that because King Felix was in attendance sporting an awesome custom #34 Seahawks jersey.

It was because something clearly awoke within Tarvaris Jackson in the 2nd half. I don't want to crown the guy prematurely. I've already made enough of an ass out of myself with the first paragraph. But for the first time all season, Jackson finally had the look of a real point guard quarterback. And unsurprisingly, the offense clicked in a big way once Jackson "got" what being a ball distribution quarterback is all about.

Which isn't to say that Jackson was bad in the first half. He once again seemed to key on Sidney Rice, including this gorgeous 52 yard bomb for the team's first score. Jackson looked more confident and more polished than usual, but the offense was still the same predictable unit it had been previously. The run game was going nowhere, and Jackson wasn't tapping into the full breadth of his impressive collection of receiving talent.

Atlanta kicked a field goal early in the 3rd quarter to stretch their lead to 27-7. From that point forward, Jackson was 5 for 6 on 3rd downs, with that lone miss coming at the very end of the game. He started targeting Mike Williams, including this touchdown pass. He found Obomanu open on a blown coverage for a touchdown. He took advantage of Doug Baldwin's precocious slot receiver skills. Baldwin finished with a team high 5 receptions for 84 yards. This next stat might be the stat of the game though: Sidney Rice finished with 3 catches, but six other Seahawks finished with at least that many.

Jackson has been accused of only scanning one side of the field, but today, I regularly observed him checking multiple reads and scanning the entire defense. He also showed increased boldness with running the ball, and always at intelligent times. His two interceptions were not the usual variety. His first was a great defensive play and a lucky bounce. His second was a great defensive play and a lucky bounce in the endzone. Jackson very easily could have ran a 4/0 TD/INT ratio today. This was a huge step forward for #7, in just about every way possible.

Is it conceivable that just maybe, Pete Carroll might be able to duplicate Steve Sarkisian's surprise success with Keith Price, using Jackson as his medium? I'll freely admit that snap judgements are a fault of mine. It's tempting though. Lets give Pete some credit, he knows a thing or two about molding quarterbacks. Probably a lot more than Brad Childress did.

As far as the rest of the game...

The Seahawks once again played stout against the run, allowing 121 net yards on 36 carries (3.4 average). Consistently, all day long, the Seahawks kept a good running back in Michael Turner in check. Well, except for this play anyway. Turner ran 21 yards untouched into the endzone simply running off the left end. Chris Clemons was taken out by the blocking fullback, which, okay, you would expect that. My question is, why would the rest of the run be so easy? Where are the linebackers? Well as it turns out, there was just one linebacker with responsibility for that area, and he was lost in his own world while pass covering a tight end. It would be wrong to crucify Aaron Curry for this play, but is it too much to ask for him to simply notice it was a run play before Turner is 15 yards downfield?

John Lynch and his announcer partner repeatedly lavished praise on the Falcons offensive line for protecting Matt Ryan so well after being so attrocious at it before this game. Not to diminish their accomplishment, but to me, that probably says more about the quality of Seattle's pass rush than anything else.

Any dreams that Brandon Browner might end up an NFL #1 corner have long since abated. In a way, he's kind of a bizzaro Kelly Jennings, back in 2006 and 2007 when Jennings was actually good. He doesn't go for interceptions, but he consistently plays tight coverage which somewhat discourages targets. He does need to learn to make plays on the ball though. If teams feel no fear of a Browner pick, they'll thread the needle on him into oblivion, and plays like Julio Jones' long sideline catch will become a mainstay. Browner is getting the job done for now, and he's physical in a way that Jennings could never be, but if Browner doesn't improve just a little bit more, he may eventually become a real liability.

I took a break from watching the offensive line again today, but I couldn't help but notice that Russell Okung had a strong game, and James Carpenter once again managed to look dignified out there. Any game which helps Okung's ankle issues feel like an old memory is a good thing.

Finally, the game ended after Pete Carroll trusted Steven Hauschka with a game winning kick of 61 yards. Never mind that Hauschka is a young kicker with only 26 real field goal attempts in his pro career prior to that moment. Asking him to kick a 40 yarder to decide a win or a loss is tough enough, with the pressure of 67,000 onlookers. But as if that wasn't enough that it was a game winning kick, it was a virtually impossible 61 yard attempt, which has only been done a handful of times ever in the NFL outside of Mile-High stadium.

Its moments like this that I genuinely wonder if Pete Carroll is secretly just like me, hoping for a great performance but ultimately a loss to help in his quest for finding a quarterback. With 13 seconds left, a 4th and 8 situation (with a quarterback playing in the zone), and a timeout remaining, going for 4th and 8 was clearly the smarter option. Attempting a field goal in a situation like that... its almost like something a coach would do in the preseason just for kicks. Not that I'm complaining, given what I said in the first paragraph. Still, if the Seahawks become a 10 to 13 win caliber team while Pete Carroll is still here, I hope he chooses a different route in future meaningful games.

1-3 Chart

2011-10-02T16:44:00.000-07:00

What a game.