Bevell is reading this forum!

[kearly]

My personal opinion, worth precisely squat, is that Bevell has gotten passed over for a HC job two years in a row now. Understandably, he has established that he has the chops of a Gary Kubiak. He is fully qualified to call a play action offense. Hooray says no billionaire owner who needs a HC. But if he can keep turning Wilson into a star while being innovative in using aspects of the college game, he will garner more attention from those that care about filled seats.

I think a lot of the new stuff is coming from Pete, but I like this theory quite a bit.

 

[DavidSeven]

Bolded part above is a good reason to not always run Lynch on first and second. I agree with that. But it is also a really excellent reason not to feature empty set passing formations on 3 straight downs, is it not? Your point about play action passing further underscores the WTF aspect of that formation let alone using it 3 straight downs. I mean taking your points into consideration, why would we ever do that and expect it to work?

Hey Russ didn't convert opportunities that were there on Sunday, most glaringly in the last 2 drives, but throughout the game. Under those circumstances, nothing OC can do. But you seemed to pick up that Russ was struggling, I just wish Bevell had picked that up and helped him out a little instead of just constantly passing without an established run threat, thereby adding to the difficulties.

I'm not sure what they were doing on that series, but I'm guessing there was a reason for (maybe not a good one). Often when the offense is sputtering, they seem to do some unconventional things to either shake-up the defensive looks or at least make things more transparent. Not sure how often it actually works for them (obviously it didn't here). The timing for it at that moment probably wasn't great, but they probably couldn't afford another 3-and-out off a stone-walled run and two incomplete passes either. But yes, when they go empty on early downs, I feel the same sense of dread as anyone else. Ideally, we'll get a little better at it one day and won't have to hide from it.

 

[kearly]

Now that the talent has evened itself out a bit, I would say Dan Quinn's 2014 defense is playing worse than Gus Bradley's 2012 defense thus far.

It's mostly due to the new rules environment and a slate of very good QBs and OLs to open the season. Dink and Dunk is king this year, so facing smart QBs like Rodgers, Rivers, Manning, and Romo in a 5 game sample is going to skew the numbers. There's also injuries to consider.

Also, teams have definitely figured out how to call the right plays to attack Pete's Cover 3 this season, something we didn't have to deal with in 2012 and 2013.

Lots of added adversity on defense this year, especially early. It's an apples and oranges comparison to 2012 and 2013.

On the bright side, our run defense has stepped up nicely, three drives in the Dallas game aside. Should be interesting to see how the Run D maintains with Wagner being out a while.

 

[DavidSeven]

Yeah, I don't disagree. Plus, teams are just more honed in on what Seattle is good at than they've ever been in the past. No one's underselling what the corners and safeties are able to do anymore.

I'm selling on Bradley (as DC and as a HC, sadly). I still like Quinn, but this is always going to be largely Pete's defense to me.

 

[sc85sis]

As long as we're taking credit that isn't due, I did send this tweet the other day:

@Seahawks @PeteCarroll 17 of 31 wins (reg & post) since 2012 have incl. 'Shawn rushing 97+ yards. 7 of 11 losses with rushing below 97 yds.

 

[3Girls'HawkDad]

After reading this article, I would guess Pete had a talk with his offensive coaching staff this week and told them they need to go back to what works best with this teams personnel, running the ball first, and taking shots down field once the D starts to stack the line to take away the run. Then once you have them off balance you smash them with the running game to finish the game (it's seemed to work well the last 2 - 2 1/2 seasons)..

I just think the team has their shiny new toy (Harvin) running at full strength and they want to play with him. That's nice and all, but they need to still play their type of football and mix Harvin into the game and not adjust their game plan to Harvin. Teams are daring the Seahawks to take shot down field and they are camping all their players 0-15 yards off the line and are keeping Seattle's offense in front of them, pretty smart. I just hope for a more BALANCED attack this week and moving forward. I really was thrown off by last weeks game plan after the team saw how that same game plan worked against the Chargers this season.

Same page, my man.

We don't need to be run run pass punt.

But it seems we are trying too hard to center on Percy when Marshawn is the center of our world.

 

[Anonymous]

Wasn't that long ago, that the very first play any offense ever ran was a handoff up the middle, just to knock the rust off.

 

[Sarlacc83]

Still very dismissive of a complaint he would then agree with. It's just noise. But the noise is correct.

A simple we do need to get Marshawn more carries would suffice. Don't even acknowledge the noise. Or the cries.

Didn't read dismissive to me. Just two matter of fact statements (which I agree with).

I think Bevell deserves criticism this week. But I don't think he was being snippy here. I think the FF comment was the kind of stock answer joke coaches always say in this situation.

And even if he was being snarky, I wouldn't blame him. I'm sure there are 32 coaching staffs who get annoyed by hearing people with 5% of their football knowledge telling them how to use their players. That's why it's so commonly used.

Dr. Diags had a post above that pretty much nails it.

To me, the fantasy football comment sounds like the norm where coaches get tweets and such from non-Hawks fans who needed Lynch points. Happens a lot; some people can't separate their facts from fictions.

 

[bigskydoc]

Bevell is not reading this forum.

Pretty sure he is. In fact he was in chat with us the other night.

- bsd

 

[Pandion Haliaetus]

Now that I've read through some perspective, I'm kind of wondering if the lack of execution and the purpose of force-feeding "bad play calls" is more or less the function of "not trusting " the scheme and specific plays to begin with.

Seahawks know they can run the ball. They know Lynch is reliable. They know the O-Line can run block. They know they can be highly successful in that way.

But the over emphasis of horizontal plays, maybe they don't trust it as much, and they are running different variations of it, with different players until they get the best results, the best execution, until they can put it in their back-pocket and know it can be successful without any errors.

It could have also been why we saw the Seahawks emphasize the vertical passing game after it being non-existant, get reps, work on live action competition, get it on film, and perfect the timing.

If that is the case, I can see the struggle, Seahawks don't want one identity to define them, they want to be multiple and overbearing.

And from that standpoint, sometime in order to achieve success, you're going to have to fail over and over again, until execution is second nature.

So, its possible 11 games from now the failures and struggle of the offense now will become a strength and another staple this offense can do.

But if one thing is certain is the risk involved in taking such actions, and the risk really isn't the boom or bust plays you're trying to perfect, its setting up your gameplan around an opponent and thinking you can win in such a way.

In that regard, I think Bevell and Co. underestimated the Cowboys defense early on, then the Cowboy's 2nd QTR 10 minute drive but the defense on the curb mouth first, then the Cowboys driving for a TD before the half put the foot on the back of the head.

By the time the Seahawks started to adjust and use thier bread and butter plays, Cowboys D was playing so confident that it didn't matter and that only magnified a Seahawk offensive effort was just out of whack.

But if any of this hold any matters of truths, the Seahawks definately are playing with fire, and they are going to suffer self-inflicted burn damage but the end result could be a dominant, unstoppable multiple offensive force by seasons end. Call it the growing pains of striving for greatness, I suppose.

 

[hawk45]

There is no chance we are sacrificing the 1 seed to experiment with our offense.