Elephant in the room ... is Earl ok?

[Basis4day]

When a safety plays well you don't hear his name. "Safety" is more than a clever name.

 

[NFSeahawks]

He questioned his passion last year. I guess at this point it may be painfully, obviously a legit concern.

When was this? He questioned his own passion? Damn, thats not a good sign at all. I don't remember hearing about that but I may have missed it.

Wonder what would alter his passion for the game?... Only thought is the Kam situation maybe that hurt him more than we know. I know he was different after that.

Deep thinking I know but it's a thought.

 

[Canhawks]

When a safety plays well you don't hear his name. "Safety" is more than a clever name.

Is Kam not a safety?Heard is name a lot today.

 

[Basis4day]

When a safety plays well you don't hear his name. "Safety" is more than a clever name.

Is Kam not a safety?Heard is name a lot today.

As im sure you know Kam plays a hybrid role in the box. Earl is a true single high safety.

 

[Canhawks]

Yea,point taken,but when Earl was in pro bowl form he was a lot more noticeable out there.

 

[Basis4day]

Yea,point taken,but when Earl was in pro bowl form he was a lot more noticeable out there.

That's fair. But he can still be playing his role even when you don't hear his name.

 

[FlyingGreg]

When a safety plays well you don't hear his name. "Safety" is more than a clever name.

Kam all over the place today and his name was called a lot.

So this point is moot.

 

[seahawkfreak]

We were having the same discussion here. I was thinking of Bob Sanders who was amazing, then tailed off with injuries. He lasted into his 7th year. Earl's currently in his 7th. Kenny Easley lasted 7 years. Playing safety normally means a relatively short career.

Also, Earl has a young daughter and kids can change your outlook in the relative importance of things.

Yeah but one guy had severe health problems and Sanders couldn't make it through a season without getting injured. I see no correlation with ET and the previous two you mentioned except all three were/are in their 7th year.

Earl is making mental mistakes. Those are fixable if he still has the motivation to fix them.

 

[vin.couve12]

When a safety plays well you don't hear his name. "Safety" is more than a clever name.

Is Kam not a safety?Heard is name a lot today.

As im sure you know Kam plays a hybrid role in the box. Earl is a true single high safety.

False. He has deep 3rd roughly half the time. There is an enormous difference between that and and a true single high safety. Kam plays deep 3rd about 15% of the time and they'll even go cover 2 sparingly. Earl is a cover 1 safety maybe 25% of the time at most, which is your single high that you're referring to. It's not a great defense to run though. You throw it in there here and there, but most teams don't just flat out run their defenses that way for good reason. It's dangerous no matter who your FS is.

Crap like this is about the same as when I hear that Keuchly is physical at the POA. It's a damn lie.

That said, Earl was noticed about once today by most. He also had two decent tackles against Hyde that stopped them from longer gains. In coverage, you didn't see any passes completed in the deep middle. He had a pretty good game except for the one screw up on that angle, however severe.

 

[The Breh]

He questioned his passion last year. I guess at this point it may be painfully, obviously a legit concern.

When was this? He questioned his own passion? Damn, thats not a good sign at all. I don't remember hearing about that but I may have missed it.

Wonder what would alter his passion for the game?... Only thought is the Kam situation maybe that hurt him more than we know. I know he was different after that.

Deep thinking I know but it's a thought.

Take a look around online. He was saying some pretty concerning shit.

 

[Rocket]

Hmmmm..

Welcome to reality.

I love Earl. But he ain't right.

I spent the whole second half asking what the FooFoo was wrong with Earl. Missed tackles, slow to the ball... like two games ago when he said in his interview that he was off, or something to that effect.
To those who feel he's fine, go listen to Earl. If he thinks he's off, he's off. He returned to off today. If you can, go to the Ninnies last TD, Cameras followed Earl, and Earl looked pissed at himself. Earl is off.

I think Earl's issues are off the field. Earl is an ethereal guy, he's spiritual and thoughtful. When all is right with the world, all is right with Earl.
All ain't right.

 

[Basis4day]

When a safety plays well you don't hear his name. "Safety" is more than a clever name.

Is Kam not a safety?Heard is name a lot today.

As im sure you know Kam plays a hybrid role in the box. Earl is a true single high safety.

False. He has deep 3rd roughly half the time. There is an enormous difference between that and and a true single high safety. Kam plays deep 3rd about 15% of the time and they'll even go cover 2 sparingly. Earl is a cover 1 safety maybe 25% of the time at most, which is your single high that you're referring to. It's not a great defense to run though. You throw it in there here and there, but most teams don't just flat out run their defenses that way for good reason. It's dangerous no matter who your FS is.

Crap like this is about the same as when I hear that Keuchly is physical at the POA. It's a damn lie.

That said, Earl was noticed about once today by most. He also had two decent tackles against Hyde that stopped them from longer gains. In coverage, you didn't see any passes completed in the deep middle. He had a pretty good game except for the one screw up on that angle, however severe.

I'd be happy to look at the stats that you're citing. Link?

 

[MontanaHawk05]

He questioned his passion last year. I guess at this point it may be painfully, obviously a legit concern.

My exact concern. I just don't see the same blitzkrieging dude.

To be honest, Greg, you don't seem to be asking questions in this thread so much as making statements. If you want to make a statement - "Earl is not well" - do that. Don't make it a question and then get annoyed when people answer it that way (i.e. sometimes with a "no").

My take is, we gave up nothing in this game when it mattered, and given Blaine Gabbert can tear up an offense when he needs to, I'd say a lot of that success was on Earl. The FS, to me, is like the OL - not being seen is a good sign he's doing a job. Or like a MLB - too many tackles probably means that the DL isn't doing ITS job. Earl has a whiff or two per game. Always has. But giving up 12 points per game, 5 of those during garbage time, and with the DL's performance being rather spotty today - I can't get up in arms over Earl's performance.

 

[AROS]

More than anything else, it's the self questioning of his passion for the game last year that is by far the biggest red flag for me. His performance this season (or lack thereof) should be a legitimate concern. Earl is one of the most mental/emotional players I've ever seen before and if he's not 100% in it, that is bad, bad news.

 

[Bobblehead]

Still think he's worried about laying his shoulder into someone. You notice all his tackles seem to be arm swipes, not your Seahawk method of hit and wrapping up the player. Yeah, I think he's a little gun shy.

 

[RussB]

Kam was all over the place today and you could see it, he was laying hits and making plays in coverage. Thats what earl used to do but you just dont see it anymore. Now im not saying hes bad or anything but he really might be declining at this point in his career or hes just lost his passion for the game.

 

[Smellyman]

Still think he's worried about laying his shoulder into someone. You notice all his tackles seem to be arm swipes, not your Seahawk method of hit and wrapping up the player. Yeah, I think he's a little gun shy.

To me he still comes with all shoulder. Wrap up and make the tackle.

Just wird seeing him take terrible angles, look slow with people running right by him.


He wasn't very good last year either. This isn't really new.

 

[vin.couve12]

When a safety plays well you don't hear his name. "Safety" is more than a clever name.

Is Kam not a safety?Heard is name a lot today.

As im sure you know Kam plays a hybrid role in the box. Earl is a true single high safety.

False. He has deep 3rd roughly half the time. There is an enormous difference between that and and a true single high safety. Kam plays deep 3rd about 15% of the time and they'll even go cover 2 sparingly. Earl is a cover 1 safety maybe 25% of the time at most, which is your single high that you're referring to. It's not a great defense to run though. You throw it in there here and there, but most teams don't just flat out run their defenses that way for good reason. It's dangerous no matter who your FS is.

Crap like this is about the same as when I hear that Keuchly is physical at the POA. It's a damn lie.

That said, Earl was noticed about once today by most. He also had two decent tackles against Hyde that stopped them from longer gains. In coverage, you didn't see any passes completed in the deep middle. He had a pretty good game except for the one screw up on that angle, however severe.

I'd be happy to look at the stats that you're citing. Link?

I'm on my phone, but ask yourself...what's the difference between cover 3 and cover 1.

 

[vin.couve12]

Wanted to come back to this, but the long of the short is that the stats to reference which coverage a defense is in don't exist. You strictly have to pay attention and even when you know coverages extremely well, it's still subjective.

Cover 3 is a 3 deep zone however, and it is our most dominant coverage call by a large margin. Earl is not responsible for everything deep in this case. His responsibility is for the deep middle. You will nary see a Hawks safety make an INT on the sideline that a CB doesn't tip to them. You have to go all the way back to 2012 playoffs where Earl picked one off against the Skins that wasn't tipped to him. Kam got one that wasn't tipped to him in 2014 against the Cards/Fitz, but was nullified by a holding call. Now, those INTs were actually in a cover 1 scenario, where single high is an actual reality. We use cover 1 fairly sparingly, however, and we aren't necessarily in cover 1 even when we blitz. Often times we are using a 6 zone scheme where we keep the 3 deep and have only 3 short zones instead of 4, but theoretically, you force the fast dump off, which makes it very important that you identify who's going to be running routes pre-snap.

Cover 3 is a very loose term for us though. There are about 6 vriations of cover 3 that we use, which include what a lot of people call cover 6, where instead of a LB or a safety having the flat, you'll see a corner take the flat and the other corner and two safeties take the 3 deep zones. We've also run cover 2 to a minor extent and I've even caught us in cover 2 buc, where you'll see Wagner get a deeper zone drop than the two shorter zones in front of him. That's really pretty rare though. Generally we run variants of cover 3, where no one player is "single high", but we do mix in some man coverage here and there depending on down and distance where there will be a single high and either a "creeper" (short zone that reads the QBs eyes, but I like to say creeper anyway) underneath with everyone else in man coverage. Sometimes that creeper can be a blitzer too, in the case of Bobby Wagner, most of the time. He tends to force and early release with very high success and really punishes QBs in the process. I almost never see a cover 2 man under or 2 man press, whichever you want to call it. That'd be where both Earl and Kam are deep halves and everyone else is in man, but this being fairly subjective, I could miss those from at times.

But there you have it...unless we're in cover 1, it ain't single high. We've never been a single high dominant coverage. Not ever. No one should. I think the Eagles did it A TON last year and hung their DBs out to dry like laundry.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

When I watch Earl, I don't see any of his speed, quickness or tenacity diminishing.............I see a player who's pressing something fierce.

It's like he's regressed back to his rookie year when Pete almost benched him because he was over running plays and getting out of position too often. Earl's such a gamer that he's desperate to make plays, and sometimes to the detriment of what he's suppose to be doing.

He'll be fine, he just needs to make some plays and get his head right.