Flawed Media Narratives from the NFCCG

[AgentDib]

I agree with everything here.

HHCD just misjudged the ball in the air, likely due to wind. He looked exactly like a center fielder who took a first step in the wrong direction and then couldn't recover.

Pete Carroll would have made all of the same calls that McCarthy did - with the probable exception of running back the INT. It was too early in the game for that level of risk aversion. The field goals in the first half are perfectly reasonable given that they got stuffed on a couple of short yardage attempts and at that point for all McCarthy knew the final score would be 12-6 or some such.

Seahawks D is being majorly overlooked because the Packers scored 22 points. Five turnovers and lots of three and outs from the offense put them in a very tough position all day. The Packers were held to field goals after starting in field goal range three times and the defense also contributed a couple of interceptions. Despite being left on the field for the whole first quarter they had no drop-off, and the last 8 packer drives ended in 5 punts, 2 field goals and 1 interception.

 

[West TX Hawk]

I think another misinterpreted narrative is of the game as a whole-it's being widely analyzed as "Packers' Monumental Collapse" or "G Bay's Epic Failure" as opposed to "Seattle's Remarkable Comeback" etc. There is a big difference. On the NFL Network there was a national poll and reportedly 59% of the nation viewed the game as a Packer Collapse instead of a Seattle Comeback. I was shocked and I thought it spoke volumes as to how people will view and interpret a game the way they want to view it as opposed to reality.

The Packers didn't fumble the ball away in the 4th qtr; they didn't throw a pick-6; they didn't miss an easy field goal-nothing that normally one associates with "giving the game away." Yet the national narrative or "misinterpretation" remains one of disbelief how the Packers somehow lost as opposed to accepting how incredible of a turnaround the Seahawks made in such a short time span. Make no mistake it was a true and perfectly executed comeback for the ages.

 

[kearly]

Not to mention the terrible illegal use of hands call on Avril in the second that gave Green Bay 3 points. That to me cancels out what Rodgers is whining about.

Yeah I didn't get that call. Maybe that actually is the rule, but if having your arm under a facemask is a penalty, there would be flags on almost every play.

 

[kearly]

I still can't figure out what in the world Clinton-Dix was thinking on the 2-pointer. It looks as though he thinks about jumping then hesitates for a split second which allowed Willson to have a shot at the ball. Just truly bizarre and at that point you felt really good about the Seahawks winning the game.

The 2 point play was a broken play that effectively became a Hail Mary snapped from the 2 yard line. Imagine if Seattle threw a hail Mary down the field, and there's only one GB defender to stop it. You'd feel pretty good about our chances right? Especially when the one Seahawk in the area is five inches taller, and has the Green Bay player boxed out.

On top of that, it was windy and it's fairly evident that neither player could really track the ball as it flew towards them. Lucky us, it flew to Willson's outside shoulder. Clinton-Dix went for the ball as best he could, but never really had any prayer of getting to it.

There really isn't any way to criticize Clinton-Dix for how he handled that play without being Captain Hindsight. Even if he had gone for the tackle there's a very good chance Willson scores anyway.

It's fair to question McCarthy on the 4th downs. I would have kicked the FG on the first one, and gone for it on the second one. The second one came off a turnover and with a 3-0 lead, it just felt like the right time to go for the throat. But either way, it's the kind of thing that really only gets questioned in hindsight, or by uber stat nerds who forget that a historic defense in their house doesn't really compare to league average conversion rates.

 

[kearly]

I think another misinterpreted narrative is of the game as a whole-it's being widely analyzed as "Packers' Monumental Collapse" or "G Bay's Epic Failure" as opposed to "Seattle's Remarkable Comeback" etc. There is a big difference. On the NFL Network there was a national poll and reportedly 59% of the nation viewed the game as a Packer Collapse instead of a Seattle Comeback. I was shocked and I thought it spoke volumes as to how people will view and interpret a game the way they want to view it as opposed to reality.

The Packers didn't fumble the ball away in the 4th qtr; they didn't throw a pick-6; they didn't miss an easy field goal-nothing that normally one associates with "giving the game away." Yet the national narrative or "misinterpretation" remains one of disbelief how the Packers somehow lost as opposed to accepting how incredible of a turnaround the Seahawks made in such a short time span. Make no mistake it was a true and perfectly executed comeback for the ages.

Good points. Really other than the onside kick gaffe it was all Seattle (and a little bit of luck).

 

[Laloosh]

Good topic, Kearly. When I woke up in the middle of the night after the game I posted to the effect that people should pay attention to how the story is told and then consider how it would have been done had Rodgers and the Packers been the ones to win in that fashion.

They can say whatever they want. We all saw it and our team did something amazing. There's no way to spin this game in a way that leaves me feeling less satisfied about what I watched on Sunday and my kids will tell their kids stories about that game.

 

[capncrunch]

I think in a way Wilson's awfulness for 55 minutes is an overstated narrative. This was discussed by Warren Moon and Michael Irvin. Two of his four interceptions should have been caught by Kearse. The passes were on the money. The one in the endzone could have been broken up by Kearse in an intentional offensive pass interference. Remember when Ricardo Lockette threw down that dude who would have had a pick six earlier in the season. He should have done one of those. The fourth one was badly underthrown, so it would have been hard for the receiver to play defense on that one.
If these plays didn't happen, who knows what RW would have done as these drives continued. There some amount of bum luck in the way the passes that bounced off Kearse went right to the defender. The main narrative is about the Packers bad luck. Also, I'll just throw in. Kudos to Lockette. He made some nice catches when we really needed them.

 

[Reaneypark]

From the photos outside the stadium, I would guess about 300 fans were trying to get back in. All that hot air wasted on less than 0.5% of the stadium?

 

[tom sawyer]

Awewome thread thanks for all the great reading.

 

[Dizzlepdx]

I still can't figure out what in the world Clinton-Dix was thinking on the 2-pointer. It looks as though he thinks about jumping then hesitates for a split second which allowed Willson to have a shot at the ball. Just truly bizarre and at that point you felt really good about the Seahawks winning the game.

The 2 point play was a broken play that effectively became a Hail Mary snapped from the 2 yard line. Imagine if Seattle threw a hail Mary down the field, and there's only one GB defender to stop it. You'd feel pretty good about our chances right? Especially when the one Seahawk in the area is five inches taller, and has the Green Bay player boxed out.

On top of that, it was windy and it's fairly evident that neither player could really track the ball as it flew towards them. Lucky us, it flew to Willson's outside shoulder. Clinton-Dix went for the ball as best he could, but never really had any prayer of getting to it.

There really isn't any way to criticize Clinton-Dix for how he handled that play without being Captain Hindsight. Even if he had gone for the tackle there's a very good chance Willson scores anyway.

Willson initially misread the ball as well which I think threw C-D off. C-D looks like he's sort of winding up to try and out jump Willson but then Everything shifts a yard and a half and his timing is all screwed up.

 

[CPHawk]

How pissed would people in GB be right now had he gone for it on 4th down, and been stopped twice. 6 is a lot better than 0.

 

[DavidSeven]

Yeah, I'm not sure I buy into the "GB beat themselves" narrative. Basically every crucial play in the last five minutes involved a Seattle player making a better play than a GB player, including the onside kick. The lone exception is Burnett dropping to his knees after the fourth INT. But as you said, the DAL/DET immediately sprung to mind for me, too. However, it really was the only "unforced" bad play of the game.

I'm not ready to kill McCarthy for his game management, especially playing conservative in the fourth quarter. What if Rodgers had thrown a pick or injured his calf on a dropback in one of those clock-killing drives? People would be killing McCarthy right now for not running the ball. Typical MMQB, results-based analysis. I distinctly remember last year's Cowboys/Packers game where the Cowboys imploded and yielded a crazy comeback win to Matt Flynn precisely because they refused to run the ball in the fourth quarter and kept going for "kill shots."

 

[Seahawk Sailor]

It's fair to question McCarthy on the 4th downs. I would have kicked the FG on the first one, and gone for it on the second one. The second one came off a turnover and with a 3-0 lead, it just felt like the right time to go for the throat. But either way, it's the kind of thing that really only gets questioned in hindsight, or by uber stat nerds who forget that a historic defense in their house doesn't really compare to league average conversion rates.

Absolutely! I said that when it happened too. The first one was understandable--you want points on the board. The second one came right after that and was a huge momentum swing. I was scared to death they'd go for it on 4th and goal from the one yard line. Sure, we'd stopped them before, a bunch of times, but we aren't going to stop all of them, especially with only inches to gain.

And worst case scenario (baring some miraculous fumble/big return) was that we'd get the ball within five yards of our own end zone. Even with league-leading offenses, 95 yard drives are not something you see a lot, and they start out with the potential for a safety and a free kick back to your team.

Going for it on the second 4th down there was absolutely the call to make. And I'm really glad they didn't.

 

[dradee]

How pissed would people in GB be right now had he gone for it on 4th down, and been stopped twice. 6 is a lot better than 0.

Exactly! The pundits keep talking as tho getting a TD was a given which of course it is NOT!

 

[bigskydoc]

Regarding folks leaving the Clink before the game was over, I was perusing my pics and videos from the game and realized I shot this about 10-15 minutes after the final play.

[vimeo]117880486[/vimeo]

Looks almost vacant eh?

- bsd RPA

 

[sc85sis]

Not to mention the terrible illegal use of hands call on Avril in the second that gave Green Bay 3 points. That to me cancels out what Rodgers is whining about.

Yeah I didn't get that call. Maybe that actually is the rule, but if having your arm under a facemask is a penalty, there would be flags on almost every play.

It appeared to me the offensive player was holding and Cliff likely tried to use his arms inside to push outward and try to get the other guy off him. In the process his hand slid up and barely brushed against the face mask. Weak sauce in my opinion.

 

[TXHawk]

I was at the game and I didn't see more than a handful of people leaving. The stadium was still packed at the end.

One meme that I don't buy is that the Packers outplayed the Seahawks for 55 minutes. They actually outplayed the Hawks only until the 8:21 mark of the second quarter when Rodgers threw his interception to Maxwell and the Hawks began to stop the bleeding. The score was 16-0 at that point and the Seahawks offense had not gotten a first down yet.

After that the Seahawks started moving the ball better and for the next two quarters or so had more first downs, total yards, a greater TOP, and outscored the Packers 7-3. Even though they had only cut the lead by four it was this part of the game that kept them in it and allowed them to go on their run at the end to win it. So in reality the Packers outplayed the Hawks for about 22 minutes. After that the Hawks started clawing their way back in it until the dam burst late in the game.

 

[bigskydoc]

Funny you should mention that. I had last week off and went in to work yesterday for the first time since the game. I'm known as the big Hawks fan at my place and everyone knew that I would be at that game, so they were all asking me if I was nervous, if I could believe it etc. I said no, I wasn't particularly nervous. It actually seemed inevitable after the first quarter was over, it was just a question of whether we had enough time left on the clock to finish out the win. I did get a bit nervous when we kicked the onside kick as I thought we had enough time to kick it deep, force a 3 and out, and then score. We were rolling at that point.

The reason I felt so confident is that I was watching the stat line develop through the game. After the 1st quarter, we started taking control of that game, and once the Seahawks turn it on and start dominating like they did, they usually win. (as in win 9 out of 10)

So, last night, I ran the stats by quarter to reflect what I was seeing unfold. I wasn't sure if I was going to post them here being as we are onto the next game, but since you mentioned it.





So we won every quarter but the atrocious first. If I gave you the stats for quarters 2-4 without telling you what game they were from, you would probably say that it looks like a typical Seahawks 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarter. We rolled just like usual once the first quarter was in the rearview mirror.


Looking at some cumulative totals at key points.

derp, incorrect edited out thanks purpleneer

Interesting stuff.

Now, I can't explain why I come up with GB 18 first downs and Seattle 18 for the game (if you include OT) and ESPN etc have it listed at 19 GB and 20 Seattle so maybe you should discount my 1st down stats a bit, but I have watched the game on rewind 3 times and looked through the ESPN play by play and these are the numbers I come up with each time. My yardage totals agree with theirs.

- bsd RPA

 

[purpleneer]

How pissed would people in GB be right now had he gone for it on 4th down, and been stopped twice. 6 is a lot better than 0.

Exactly! The pundits keep talking as tho getting a TD was a given which of course it is NOT!

Actually, even failures there aren't really bad results. Often, leaving a team with the ball that close to their own goal line is better than taking 3 points.

 

[purpleneer]

Looking at some cumulative totals at key points.






Interesting stuff.


- bsd RPA

I think an edit is needed here. Seattle stats had to have been before the drive that ended at 2:09, not after.