kearly
New member
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2007
- Messages
- 15,975
- Reaction score
- 0
The Seahawks are going places. By some measurements they had the NFL's best defense last year, by other measurements they had the best offense. During the offseason they lost nobody of consequence while adding maybe their best free agent haul in team history. This is also one of the league's youngest teams, and it is one of just a handful of teams equipped to deal with the current read option phase that is sweeping the league.
I can't guarantee that Seattle will win the SB, because, probability. But at the same time, the Seahawks clearly have pole position at the start of the 2013 race.
That said, I still have some apprehensions, because no team is perfect. I wrote a similar "5 things I hope to be wrong about" post in 2011, and ended up being wrong on 4 of them. I must have wanted to be wrong to be wrong that often, so I'm going to set the bar higher this time. Here are my five for 2013:
#1: Seattle will not go "23-0."
I would love to be wrong on this one. Hopefully I just reverse-jinxed it.
#2: The five 10am starts, plus drawing tough teams on the road, will cost Seattle the division (to SF).
The schedule makers screwed us while simultaneously doing everything they could to bail out the 49ers. I truly believe that the schedule difference alone will probably make a 1-2 game difference in the standings, and while I think Seattle is better than SF (especially head to head), I don't know if they are better enough to overcome such a handicap.
The good news is, the 10am disadvantage is almost exclusively for defenses, which is why teams with great offenses tend to have better road records and win a higher total number of regular season games. Football outsiders thinks our offense was even better than our defense last season, and that was beyond debate during the final 8 games or so when Seattle's defense backslid slightly while the offense flirted with historic levels of awesome.
The Seahawks 2013 offense is a good bet to be the best in Seahawks history, and I'm not even joking when I say that it's even got a chance to be the best offensive team season in NFL history (in terms of efficiency). That might matter more than Seattle's awful past track record with 10 am games.
#3: Colin Kaepernick takes another step forward, not a step back.
I thought Alex Smith was certain to take a step back after his 2011 season. The NFL seemed to agree, allowing Smith to languish in free agency before eventually signing back with the niners on a reasonable contract that was, at the time, mocked for being an overpay. Instead, Smith was among the league leaders in 2013 passer rating before inexplicably being benched for the inexperienced, developmental Colin Kaepernick.
I've always liked Kaepernick- but I never thought he'd be this good with such little development. Harbaugh deserves the hype, and then some. There is still a ton of room left for improvement with Kaepernick, and even if he holds steady, just look at what Harbaugh got out of Alex Smith of all people. I don't think Kaepernick is even close to as good as Wilson, but I do think that Kaepernick has a disturbingly decent chance to join Wilson as a top 5 QB in 2013.
#4: The KJ Wright to WILL experiment returns unsavory results.
I just don't see how this makes any sense. Wright is a beast at the LOS, but a liability in downfield coverage. Even when played to his strengths, he was just alright last season. We have five or six non-starting linebackers in camp right now that can run in the 4.4s or 4.5s. I get that they want to keep Wright on the field, but not like this. Also, moving a 228 pound, fragile Malcolm Smith to (compete at) SAM where he'll be much more exposed to linemen? WTH is going on? None of this makes any sense. I trust crazy Pete, especially since this is the time of year to try new things, but if there is a plan behind these moves, it's a nutty one.
The good news is, whenever Pete does something seemingly insane with personnel, it usually works out very well.
#5: Chris Clemons isn't what he used to be, and will be sorely missed.
Maybe the Seahawks 2013 pass rush can be like the 2013 Mariners offense. Maybe it can show rapid improvement though a top to bottom lineup strategy. The Mariners are #2 in the Majors in home runs, which is amazing considering that no Mariner has more than 24 of them (and the guy with with team lead is 41 years old). The Mariners don't have a Mike Trout or a Miguel Cabrera, but they suddenly have a whole hell of a lot of Kyle Seagers, and Kyle Seager is damn good.
Thing is though, most great offenses in baseball are built around a pair of fantastic hitters with a few support pieces here and there. The M's are highly unusual in their approach, but it's working; at least right now it's working.
Most NFL pass rushes are the same thing. Aldon Smith put up monster numbers while being enabled by Justin Smith, but you take those two out of the equation and there isn't really any other major source of sack production. Jared Allen carried the pass rush on his back for chunks of his career. Around the league, you see teams with 1-2 star pass rushers who have nominal pass rush support beyond that. Seattle was one of those teams too up until now, relying on Chris Clemons completely for pass rush production.
Recovering from a knee injury at age 32 isn't easy for a defensive lineman, especially one who already had knee injuries on his record. And that injury didn't happen last September, it happened in January. We don't know how Clemons performs, but even if he played all 16 regular season games (by some miracle), it seems like a stretch that he'd get his usual 11+ sack production in that kind of physical condition. And with every past Carroll Seahawks team, that would be a grim prospect. I think I will probably be right on the first half of statement #5, but it's the second half where I have some faint hope that I could not only be wrong, but spectacularly so.
Back to the Mariners analogy. The reason you don't see a lot of top to bottom offenses in baseball is because it is very hard to do. Finding shortstops that hit (Miller) is hard. Finding centerfielders that hit (Saunders) is hard. Finding second basemen that hit (Franklin) is hard, especially one who is hitting homeruns at a 30+ per full season rate (as a rookie). Finding catchers with even a decent bat is hard (Zunino). Even finding a high OPS 3rd basemen with great defense (Seager) isn't that easy to do. Somehow, the Mariners have done all these things, and all these things came together with stunning suddenness.
When I look at Seattle's pass rush, I don't see any sure superstars, but I do see a very large number of players who are merely very good. Bennett was one of the better pass rushing dual threat 5-techs in the league last year. Avril is one dimensional, but solidly productive. Jordan Hill is a classic low ceiling, try hard player, but he shouldn't be doubted just yet, because sometimes college overachievers become NFL overachievers too (just ask our QB). McDaniel has a track record of being disruptive. Bruce Irvin probably won't blitz a ton, but when he does he'll probably be several times more effective than he was on most of his DE reps last season. Dan Quinn will bring an attack mentality to the defense.
Hawkblogger recently described Seattle's defense in TC to having a "front nine." In other words, Dan Quinn is a guy that likes to get as many players involved in the pass rush as possible, and he could be a perfect DC for a "top to bottom" styled pass rush which relies not on a single superstar but a wide base of contributors, similar to Seattle's philosophy in the passing game.
Still, this kind of pass rush isn't easy to pull off and it will require a lot of pleasant surprises. The pass rush is probably my top concern entering this season, but I'll readily admit that the gate could swing either way depending on how the new additions (including Quinn) fit together.
I can't guarantee that Seattle will win the SB, because, probability. But at the same time, the Seahawks clearly have pole position at the start of the 2013 race.
That said, I still have some apprehensions, because no team is perfect. I wrote a similar "5 things I hope to be wrong about" post in 2011, and ended up being wrong on 4 of them. I must have wanted to be wrong to be wrong that often, so I'm going to set the bar higher this time. Here are my five for 2013:
#1: Seattle will not go "23-0."
I would love to be wrong on this one. Hopefully I just reverse-jinxed it.
#2: The five 10am starts, plus drawing tough teams on the road, will cost Seattle the division (to SF).
The schedule makers screwed us while simultaneously doing everything they could to bail out the 49ers. I truly believe that the schedule difference alone will probably make a 1-2 game difference in the standings, and while I think Seattle is better than SF (especially head to head), I don't know if they are better enough to overcome such a handicap.
The good news is, the 10am disadvantage is almost exclusively for defenses, which is why teams with great offenses tend to have better road records and win a higher total number of regular season games. Football outsiders thinks our offense was even better than our defense last season, and that was beyond debate during the final 8 games or so when Seattle's defense backslid slightly while the offense flirted with historic levels of awesome.
The Seahawks 2013 offense is a good bet to be the best in Seahawks history, and I'm not even joking when I say that it's even got a chance to be the best offensive team season in NFL history (in terms of efficiency). That might matter more than Seattle's awful past track record with 10 am games.
#3: Colin Kaepernick takes another step forward, not a step back.
I thought Alex Smith was certain to take a step back after his 2011 season. The NFL seemed to agree, allowing Smith to languish in free agency before eventually signing back with the niners on a reasonable contract that was, at the time, mocked for being an overpay. Instead, Smith was among the league leaders in 2013 passer rating before inexplicably being benched for the inexperienced, developmental Colin Kaepernick.
I've always liked Kaepernick- but I never thought he'd be this good with such little development. Harbaugh deserves the hype, and then some. There is still a ton of room left for improvement with Kaepernick, and even if he holds steady, just look at what Harbaugh got out of Alex Smith of all people. I don't think Kaepernick is even close to as good as Wilson, but I do think that Kaepernick has a disturbingly decent chance to join Wilson as a top 5 QB in 2013.
#4: The KJ Wright to WILL experiment returns unsavory results.
I just don't see how this makes any sense. Wright is a beast at the LOS, but a liability in downfield coverage. Even when played to his strengths, he was just alright last season. We have five or six non-starting linebackers in camp right now that can run in the 4.4s or 4.5s. I get that they want to keep Wright on the field, but not like this. Also, moving a 228 pound, fragile Malcolm Smith to (compete at) SAM where he'll be much more exposed to linemen? WTH is going on? None of this makes any sense. I trust crazy Pete, especially since this is the time of year to try new things, but if there is a plan behind these moves, it's a nutty one.
The good news is, whenever Pete does something seemingly insane with personnel, it usually works out very well.
#5: Chris Clemons isn't what he used to be, and will be sorely missed.
Maybe the Seahawks 2013 pass rush can be like the 2013 Mariners offense. Maybe it can show rapid improvement though a top to bottom lineup strategy. The Mariners are #2 in the Majors in home runs, which is amazing considering that no Mariner has more than 24 of them (and the guy with with team lead is 41 years old). The Mariners don't have a Mike Trout or a Miguel Cabrera, but they suddenly have a whole hell of a lot of Kyle Seagers, and Kyle Seager is damn good.
Thing is though, most great offenses in baseball are built around a pair of fantastic hitters with a few support pieces here and there. The M's are highly unusual in their approach, but it's working; at least right now it's working.
Most NFL pass rushes are the same thing. Aldon Smith put up monster numbers while being enabled by Justin Smith, but you take those two out of the equation and there isn't really any other major source of sack production. Jared Allen carried the pass rush on his back for chunks of his career. Around the league, you see teams with 1-2 star pass rushers who have nominal pass rush support beyond that. Seattle was one of those teams too up until now, relying on Chris Clemons completely for pass rush production.
Recovering from a knee injury at age 32 isn't easy for a defensive lineman, especially one who already had knee injuries on his record. And that injury didn't happen last September, it happened in January. We don't know how Clemons performs, but even if he played all 16 regular season games (by some miracle), it seems like a stretch that he'd get his usual 11+ sack production in that kind of physical condition. And with every past Carroll Seahawks team, that would be a grim prospect. I think I will probably be right on the first half of statement #5, but it's the second half where I have some faint hope that I could not only be wrong, but spectacularly so.
Back to the Mariners analogy. The reason you don't see a lot of top to bottom offenses in baseball is because it is very hard to do. Finding shortstops that hit (Miller) is hard. Finding centerfielders that hit (Saunders) is hard. Finding second basemen that hit (Franklin) is hard, especially one who is hitting homeruns at a 30+ per full season rate (as a rookie). Finding catchers with even a decent bat is hard (Zunino). Even finding a high OPS 3rd basemen with great defense (Seager) isn't that easy to do. Somehow, the Mariners have done all these things, and all these things came together with stunning suddenness.
When I look at Seattle's pass rush, I don't see any sure superstars, but I do see a very large number of players who are merely very good. Bennett was one of the better pass rushing dual threat 5-techs in the league last year. Avril is one dimensional, but solidly productive. Jordan Hill is a classic low ceiling, try hard player, but he shouldn't be doubted just yet, because sometimes college overachievers become NFL overachievers too (just ask our QB). McDaniel has a track record of being disruptive. Bruce Irvin probably won't blitz a ton, but when he does he'll probably be several times more effective than he was on most of his DE reps last season. Dan Quinn will bring an attack mentality to the defense.
Hawkblogger recently described Seattle's defense in TC to having a "front nine." In other words, Dan Quinn is a guy that likes to get as many players involved in the pass rush as possible, and he could be a perfect DC for a "top to bottom" styled pass rush which relies not on a single superstar but a wide base of contributors, similar to Seattle's philosophy in the passing game.
Still, this kind of pass rush isn't easy to pull off and it will require a lot of pleasant surprises. The pass rush is probably my top concern entering this season, but I'll readily admit that the gate could swing either way depending on how the new additions (including Quinn) fit together.
