Championship teams...

[Scottemojo]

The Rams straight up have our number. And it was even worse last night, because they had 2 reasons to play with fire. 1) Because everyone gives Seattle their best shot (and even mores o in the division) and 2) Everyone, but everyone, laughed at them for being second string to the Cardinals. I imagine they had the type of fire last night that a bad team gets once all season.

And they still lost.

Better informed fans know we don't match up well with the Rams, especially the front 7. I expected a game similar maybe to week 17 last year. THe simple truth is that even with Breno and Okung the Rams are a difficult match up for us, across the board, man for man. Add to that the fact that the Rams have been especially dominant vs zone block teams, and it was never going to be easy.

What I did not expect was a coaching staff that shrunk from the physical challenge being issued by that Rams defense. This was the first time this year that our coaching staff did not insist that our identity is physical run first. That concerns me. A coaching game plan based on "We can trick these guys" seems like a plan that could erode the physical identity of this offense.

I don't want to Greg Roman our offense. Harbaugh had to wrest back control of that team and use a physical run game to re-establish their identity when Roman fell in love with his shiny new Kaepernick toy, and I feel as if that type of adjustment could be coming for us this week.

This was clearly the worst coaching job we have seen this year from our offensive staff. They did not seem to have a clue how to counter the physical challenge.
Perhaps a 45 minute blackout would have been the thing we needed to change gameplans.

 

[Sarlacc83]

The Rams straight up have our number. And it was even worse last night, because they had 2 reasons to play with fire. 1) Because everyone gives Seattle their best shot (and even mores o in the division) and 2) Everyone, but everyone, laughed at them for being second string to the Cardinals. I imagine they had the type of fire last night that a bad team gets once all season.

And they still lost.

Better informed fans know we don't match up well with the Rams, especially the front 7. I expected a game similar maybe to week 17 last year. THe simple truth is that even with Breno and Okung the Rams are a difficult match up for us, across the board, man for man. Add to that the fact that the Rams have been especially dominant vs zone block teams, and it was never going to be easy.

What I did not expect was a coaching staff that shrunk from the physical challenge being issued by that Rams defense. This was the first time this year that our coaching staff did not insist that our identity is physical run first. That concerns me. A coaching game plan based on "We can trick these guys" seems like a plan that could erode the physical identity of this offense.

I don't want to Greg Roman our offense. Harbaugh had to wrest back control of that team and use a physical run game to re-establish their identity when Roman fell in love with his shiny new Kaepernick toy, and I feel as if that type of adjustment could be coming for us this week.

This was clearly the worst coaching job we have seen this year from our offensive staff. They did not seem to have a clue how to counter the physical challenge.
Perhaps a 45 minute blackout would have been the thing we needed to change gameplans.

I completely agree that the Seahawks got far too cute, and I've already gone over my disdain for Bevell letting Marshawn sit this one out. I also don't understand why we didn't utilize draw plays and half back screens to stop the pressure. However, I'm still going to be happy that despite getting punched in the face repeatedly, the Seahawks prevailed. I took that as a good sign. There was still no quit in this team.

 

[Basis4day]

Brandon Browner ‏@bbrowner27 1h
This win was more enjoyable then a blowout win, for the fact we had to dig deep to get it done. Divisional win #Gohawks #LOB
Retweeted by Danny Kelly

I read that and laughed/barged, too.

If that came from an offensive player i'd agree with you. Defense held them to 9 points and forced 2 turnovers and a goal line stand to win the game.

My frustration is all about the offense.

 

[Seahawk Mike]

Crappy teams have games like this too.

No, they don't. Crappy teams don't WIN these games. The 2010 Seahawks wouldn't have won this game.

Crappy teams lose these games and get blown out in other games.

Last years team actually lost "this game" multiple times last year...Miami and Detroit come to mind.

 

[mjwhitay]

Championship teams also usually have a serviceable OL.

When was the last championship team without an average OL? Last year maybe the Ravens but I don't recall any championship team besides that with a below average line.

The 08 Steelers and 09 Packers weren't very good and allowed lots of pressures and sacks, also. It's more common than you might think.

O Lines are thin all over the league. Can't have playmakers all over both sides of the ball and have starting caliber tackles waiting in the wings. Denver is kind of an exception because of their insane receivers getting so much quick separation, Manning, and their dink and dunk style. He doesn't need much time back there, and he's Peyton Manning.

 

[sutz]

Championship teams also usually have a serviceable OL.

When was the last championship team without an average OL? Last year maybe the Ravens but I don't recall any championship team besides that with a below average line.

The 08 Steelers and 09 Packers weren't very good and allowed lots of pressures and sacks, also. It's more common than you might think.

O Lines are thin all over the league. Can't have playmakers all over both sides of the ball and have starting caliber tackles waiting in the wings. Denver is kind of an exception because of their insane receivers getting so much quick separation, Manning, and their dink and dunk style. He doesn't need much time back there, and he's Peyton Manning.

Good point. Perhaps SF is "thin" at WR and playmakers because they have so much invested in their "best in the league" O-line.

 

[plyka]

... have games just like this one.

Forget that old garbage about "Oh, championship teams always beat up on the bad teams and win close games against good teams." That's not true, usually.

Last year's Ravens team won a game VERY MUCH like this one when they got outplayed by the Steelers in Pittsburgh, yet the Ravens walked out with a 13-10 win. That Ravens team also had a nice 3-game losing streak in the middle of the season, but they still won it all.

The 2011 Giants won the SB, but they had a 4-game losing streak during the season and got SWEPT by a 5-11 Redskins team.

The Packers in 2010 lost a game on the road to the Lions, 7-3. They still won the SB.




It's time to stop pretending that "championship teams" are juggernauts who never have off games, who never have bad matchups, who never have to deal with injuries decimating a unit, and who always dominate the bad teams and beat the good teams. Anyone trying to sell that isn't watching the NFL. They're in some fantasy land.

This logic is oh so woeful. So basically you creatively looked at superbowl winners in the past and looked for bad games, then made the conclusion that a superbowl team has bad games, thus the seahawks since they have bad games are destined to be superbowl winners --or at least it doesn't eliminate them from being superbowl winners. But you know what other teams have bad games? Non-superbowl winners. Having a bad game does not mean that the Hawks will not be superbowl winners but it certainly does not help the argument.

The 2010 Packers came into the playoffs as a wildcard, having to play each and every game on the road. They lucked out and started peaking at the right time, this was also 100% true of the Giants. I believe up until that point, there had never been another team in NFL history to come in as the 6th seed and win the superbowl. It's an aberation instead of a good indicator.

The fact is, all teams have bad games, even superbowl winners. I highly doubt any of those superbowl winners had 42 yards of total offense into the 3rd quarter in ANY GAME, but even that is not a salient point.

The Hawks last night had a horrible game, one of the worst offensive performances by a good team I've ever seen, and not a good defensive performance either coming up against a career backup QB who gifted them turnovers. This does not eliminate them from being a supwerbowl team, but it does shed some light on their quality. And as I've said from the beginning of the year, the quality at oline may not be good enough to win the superbowl. We will have to wait and see, but they need some help, some major help. They need Okung to come back and stay healthy, they need Breno to come back and stay healthy, they need to get Carpenter off the field. But most of all, they need a better playcaller, he needs to start scheming this team out of its weakness, before Wilson has a career ending injury. Quite frankly, Wilson was very close to a season/career ending injury against the CArdinals, when that SOB made a tackle that in my opinion was meant to injure him --he jumped on the top half and swung his legs into Wilson's legs, causing him to bend his knees sideways. That was a 50/50 chance to full reconstructive knee surgury, the HAwks got lucky.

 

[Smelly McUgly]

No, I think his point was that the best teams are the only ones that have enough talent to win games that they play really poorly.

If anything, you should be encouraged that the offense barely even got off the plane except for Golden and our offensive coordinator is probably too busy thinking about what he's going to do as HC of the Bucs to put together anything resembling a game plan or adjustments, and the team STILL WON.

Bad teams, average teams, or even good teams don't typically win those games. Great ones do, though.

 

[MysterMatt]

Brandon Browner ‏@bbrowner27 1h
This win was more enjoyable then a blowout win, for the fact we had to dig deep to get it done. Divisional win #Gohawks #LOB
Retweeted by Danny Kelly

I read that and laughed/barged, too.

If that came from an offensive player i'd agree with you. Defense held them to 9 points and forced 2 turnovers and a goal line stand to win the game.

My frustration is all about the offense.

I was drunk when I wrote this.

 

[BamKam]

http://espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=320916021

The Ravens last year lost to a 4-12 Philly team on the road as well as got SMASHED by a Houston Texan team on the road. Lost home games to Pittsburgh and Denver as well.

There is a reason why the best teams in the NFL don't go 16-0/15-1 every year and win the Super Bowl.

 

[volsunghawk]

... have games just like this one.

Forget that old garbage about "Oh, championship teams always beat up on the bad teams and win close games against good teams." That's not true, usually.

Last year's Ravens team won a game VERY MUCH like this one when they got outplayed by the Steelers in Pittsburgh, yet the Ravens walked out with a 13-10 win. That Ravens team also had a nice 3-game losing streak in the middle of the season, but they still won it all.

The 2011 Giants won the SB, but they had a 4-game losing streak during the season and got SWEPT by a 5-11 Redskins team.

The Packers in 2010 lost a game on the road to the Lions, 7-3. They still won the SB.




It's time to stop pretending that "championship teams" are juggernauts who never have off games, who never have bad matchups, who never have to deal with injuries decimating a unit, and who always dominate the bad teams and beat the good teams. Anyone trying to sell that isn't watching the NFL. They're in some fantasy land.

This logic is oh so woeful. So basically you creatively looked at superbowl winners in the past and looked for bad games, then made the conclusion that a superbowl team has bad games, thus the seahawks since they have bad games are destined to be superbowl winners --or at least it doesn't eliminate them from being superbowl winners. But you know what other teams have bad games? Non-superbowl winners. Having a bad game does not mean that the Hawks will not be superbowl winners but it certainly does not help the argument.

Right there is where you should have stopped, because it was the entire point of the thread. In fact, I've stated the purpose of the thread multiple times now, just so no one does... well, what you just did.

 

[AgentDib]

everyone gives Seattle their best shot (and even mores o in the division)

I think there is a lot of truth to this. Bevell lost the coaching match to Fisher last night, but Fisher is a very good defensive mind and I suspect Fisher spent a lot more time in the off-season game planning for the Seahawks offense then Bevell spent in the off-season planning for the Rams Defense. There is a finite amount of time that can be spent on anything and one of the drawbacks to preseason #1 rankings is that you get a lot more of the "behind the scenes" effort than the #32 ranked team would.

 

[bmorepunk]

A "Championship Team":

1. Makes the playoffs
2. Wins all of their playoff games

That's it. After watching the high-expectation Ravens play half-assed most of the year and lose four out of their last five games going into the playoffs and their fans doing the same exact things our fans are doing on this very board, it makes me smile.

The Ravens only made it through the Denver game because Rahim Moore was so ridiculously out of position that Jacoby Jones got a freebie touchdown. If Moore doesn't screw up so badly, the Ravens don't win and suddenly Peyton Manning isn't a "choker". Nobody seems to remember this fact.

The tackle situation needs serious help, but this "championship team" stuff just silliness.