Hawknballs
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So I posted something similar last week and a few people seemed to like it; for those that didn't catch it, this is just something I usually send around the office and to family members who love the hawks, but don't necessarily know every in and out of the NFL. It started as just going through the games and finding the results that best help the hawks reach the playoffs/#1 seed but I've added a bit to it in the form of a quick recap of their last game and a preview of the next one.
I'm not an expert nor do I claim to be one. I'm also not posting this to really debate it. the "Cheat Sheet" isn't who I necessarily WANT to win, or THINK will win. It's simply my analysis of which outcomes work out the best for the hawks. It is about 85% based on logic/math and about 15% gut feeling and emotion.
This was about as frustrating to watch as last year’s playoff game against the Falcons; only with better results. My prediction was a 23-19 Seahawks victory, so I was pretty close. I anticipated our O-line having a rough day; there is just no way you start three backup linemen against guys like Watt and Cushing and some of those other guys they have on their line and expect to have a very good day. I’m no coach or expert but I really felt like we weren’t putting the game into Wilson’s hands early enough. He only had five passes in the first half. I really felt like our coaches went into this game thinking they were just going to play their game with the ‘next man up’ mentality. In many cases I’d agree but not in this situation. On the road at 10 AM with a beat up line against a great D-line and pass rush – it’s perfectly reasonable to change your approach, but we came out thinking we could just play our game, run the ball, and keep Wilson in the pocket. Not so much.
Conversely, on defense, for the first two or three quarters of the game we DID decide to go against our usual scheme. The Hawks generally play press man coverage with one deep safety (Earl) because he can cover the field. Our CB’s press at the line and disrupt the routes. Since we don’t blitz more than four or sometimes five guys usually we rely on this disruption to buy us time to get to the QB. Kam is free to either stop the run or keep an eye on TE’s and slot guys in the middle of the field. Inexplicably, we decided to play mostly 2-deep zone, giving all kinds of room to Andre Johnson and the TE’s to either find holes in it or clear out defenders to free up their running backs. It simply did not work and I am completely and utterly confused by what they thought they were going to do here.
It didn’t make sense to me to try to ‘stick with our game’ on offense and change things up on defense. Luckily we finished the game by once again putting the game in Wilson’s hands, and just doing what we do on defense. Wilson did throw a bad pick at a horrible time in the game and we were lucky to recover, but he also engineered a 98-yard 4th quarter drive to put us within one score. The defense didn’t give up a score in the last 41+ minutes of the game and was shutting down all Houston drives once we finally started playing our usual defense.
Fun Fact of the week:
The Seahawks have not lost a game by more than seven points in the last 32 games, the majority of which have been on the road due to last year’s playoff run. Last time this happened: October 30th, 2011. Bengals 34, Seahawks 12 in a game that was actually within reach 17-12 in the 4th quarter.
Week 4 Results:
The Good:
• Chiefs over Giants
• Lions over Bears
• Broncos over Eagles
• Chargers over Cowboys
• Patriots over Falcons
Not only do the Giants look awful, but they are also one of the opponents for the Seahawks five 10 AM road games. The Giants have started slow and been resilient in the past though; our best bet is for them to keep losing so they are hopeless by the time we face them, rather than making a last gasp playoff push. The Bears also fall from the ranks of the unbeaten. If the Falcons keep losing their fans will be booing them by the time we play there.
The Not-So-Good:
• 49ers over Rams
• Cardinals over Buccaneers
• Vikings over Steelers
• Redskins over Raiders
• Saints over Dolphins
The only two results here that matter much this early in the season is that the Saints stay unbeated against a Miami team that certainly didn’t play very 3-0ish last night, and the 49ers who likewise played against an equally bad Rams team. I hate it when someone uses the “they beat themselves” approach to analyzing a game but the Saints didn’t have to try very hard thanks to poor turnovers by Tannehill and really bad coverage by the Miami secondary. I was concerned about the Rams getting it together going into this season, but so far it looks to me like they’ve actually taken a step back. I was envious of their pickup of Tavon Austin, but he simply hasn’t been a factor.
Week 5 Cheat Sheet:
The Walter Jones Division (important games):
Saints @ Bears
The obvious choice – the Saints look good and we want distance between us and them. As much as possible before our game on Monday night later in the season.
Panthers @ Cardinals
Divisional games are always important, and the Cardinals are keeping pace with the niners at 2-2. We already own a head-to-head win over the Panthers, and it doesn’t look like they will be a threat to win their division with the Saints at 4.0.
Texans @ Farty-Whiners
This one doesn’t need much explanation other than to say it will be interesting to see how tough Houston looks against SF after almost sending us home with our first loss.
The Ben Obomanu Division (games of moderate significance):
Lions @ Packers
One of those hard to call games, and really you could make an argument either way. We don’t get the chance to play either team head to head. On one hand Aaron Rodgers, and a whole lot of hate for the Seahawks. On the other, the Lions have a much better record and already have racked up 3 NFC wins. Logic dictates a Packers win being more beneficial, mathematically. Emotionally, my gut tells me we may look back here and wish the Lions had pulled one out. However I only let emotion and gut feeling be a very small part of these picks, and in this case math wins.
Jaguars @ Rams
I would have this higher on the list because it’s always important for a divisional opponent to lose; however after watching their sad showings recently, the Rams don’t scare me too much and the Jags are even worse so I don’t expect them to compete in this game. Remember we have a long week before we play the Rams on the road, and we play them on Monday night in prime time not at 10 AM – I think we sweep them and therefore don’t put a lot of weight in their wins over bad teams.
Broncos @ Cowboys
AFC vs. NFC; easy pick. The Cowboys look like the most legitimate threat to win the NFC East, which overall doesn’t look great. Fortunately in a dome Peyton should shred them. I expect him to have 21 TD’s by the end of week 5, which is pretty incredible.
Jets @ Falcons
Again a simple AFC vs. NFC pick. I don’t see this one happening but who knows.
The Kelly Jennings Division (games that, like Jennings himself, don’t really matter.)
Eagles @ Giants
Another game you could pick either way. Normally, I would go with the team we have a chance to beat head to head for a possible tie breaker – however that team is the Giants and we play them at 10 AM on the road. I would rather we faced a Giants team late in this season that has nothing left to play for than one that is going to be scrapping for a playoff spot. They look terrible but the Giants have looked terrible before only to go on and win the Superbowl. I have much more confidence that the Eagles are what their record says they are.
Seahawks @ Colts:
Seahawks:
Pass Offense: 25
Rush Offense: 4
Total Offense: T-12
Scoring: 6
Pass Defense: 5
Rush Defense: 18
Total Defense: 6
Scoring: 2
Turnover Differential: +7
Colts:
Pass Offense: 23
Rush Offense: 3
Total Offense: 10
Scoring: 9
Pass Defense: 8
Rush Defense: 16
Total Defense: 10
Scoring: 4
Turnover Differential: +6
Looking at the statistics, these are two very evenly matched teams, all within 4 places of each other in most areas as far as their overall ranking in the league.
I see this being another tough grind of a day for us. A couple consistent tendencies for the Seahawks: We usually start slow in spots like this, and we usually make the right half-time adjustments in any game. The key to me here is going to be pretty much the most important part of any game – not making big mistakes and turnovers, and creating turnovers of our own. Grind it out on offense with our run game, meanwhile shut down the Colts run game and force Luck to try to test our secondary. I wish I had more of a deep and conceptual break down here but it’s really straight forward this time around.
If we can somehow pull this out and keep the streak going, we have four winnable games to follow it (vs. Titans, @Cardinals, @Rams, vs. Bucs) before our next 10 AM start – oh, and we will probably have a guy named Percy Harvin ready to go by then.
Familiar Looking Final Score:
Seahawks 23
Colts 20
I'm not an expert nor do I claim to be one. I'm also not posting this to really debate it. the "Cheat Sheet" isn't who I necessarily WANT to win, or THINK will win. It's simply my analysis of which outcomes work out the best for the hawks. It is about 85% based on logic/math and about 15% gut feeling and emotion.
This was about as frustrating to watch as last year’s playoff game against the Falcons; only with better results. My prediction was a 23-19 Seahawks victory, so I was pretty close. I anticipated our O-line having a rough day; there is just no way you start three backup linemen against guys like Watt and Cushing and some of those other guys they have on their line and expect to have a very good day. I’m no coach or expert but I really felt like we weren’t putting the game into Wilson’s hands early enough. He only had five passes in the first half. I really felt like our coaches went into this game thinking they were just going to play their game with the ‘next man up’ mentality. In many cases I’d agree but not in this situation. On the road at 10 AM with a beat up line against a great D-line and pass rush – it’s perfectly reasonable to change your approach, but we came out thinking we could just play our game, run the ball, and keep Wilson in the pocket. Not so much.
Conversely, on defense, for the first two or three quarters of the game we DID decide to go against our usual scheme. The Hawks generally play press man coverage with one deep safety (Earl) because he can cover the field. Our CB’s press at the line and disrupt the routes. Since we don’t blitz more than four or sometimes five guys usually we rely on this disruption to buy us time to get to the QB. Kam is free to either stop the run or keep an eye on TE’s and slot guys in the middle of the field. Inexplicably, we decided to play mostly 2-deep zone, giving all kinds of room to Andre Johnson and the TE’s to either find holes in it or clear out defenders to free up their running backs. It simply did not work and I am completely and utterly confused by what they thought they were going to do here.
It didn’t make sense to me to try to ‘stick with our game’ on offense and change things up on defense. Luckily we finished the game by once again putting the game in Wilson’s hands, and just doing what we do on defense. Wilson did throw a bad pick at a horrible time in the game and we were lucky to recover, but he also engineered a 98-yard 4th quarter drive to put us within one score. The defense didn’t give up a score in the last 41+ minutes of the game and was shutting down all Houston drives once we finally started playing our usual defense.
Fun Fact of the week:
The Seahawks have not lost a game by more than seven points in the last 32 games, the majority of which have been on the road due to last year’s playoff run. Last time this happened: October 30th, 2011. Bengals 34, Seahawks 12 in a game that was actually within reach 17-12 in the 4th quarter.
Week 4 Results:
The Good:
• Chiefs over Giants
• Lions over Bears
• Broncos over Eagles
• Chargers over Cowboys
• Patriots over Falcons
Not only do the Giants look awful, but they are also one of the opponents for the Seahawks five 10 AM road games. The Giants have started slow and been resilient in the past though; our best bet is for them to keep losing so they are hopeless by the time we face them, rather than making a last gasp playoff push. The Bears also fall from the ranks of the unbeaten. If the Falcons keep losing their fans will be booing them by the time we play there.
The Not-So-Good:
• 49ers over Rams
• Cardinals over Buccaneers
• Vikings over Steelers
• Redskins over Raiders
• Saints over Dolphins
The only two results here that matter much this early in the season is that the Saints stay unbeated against a Miami team that certainly didn’t play very 3-0ish last night, and the 49ers who likewise played against an equally bad Rams team. I hate it when someone uses the “they beat themselves” approach to analyzing a game but the Saints didn’t have to try very hard thanks to poor turnovers by Tannehill and really bad coverage by the Miami secondary. I was concerned about the Rams getting it together going into this season, but so far it looks to me like they’ve actually taken a step back. I was envious of their pickup of Tavon Austin, but he simply hasn’t been a factor.
Week 5 Cheat Sheet:
The Walter Jones Division (important games):
Saints @ Bears
The obvious choice – the Saints look good and we want distance between us and them. As much as possible before our game on Monday night later in the season.
Panthers @ Cardinals
Divisional games are always important, and the Cardinals are keeping pace with the niners at 2-2. We already own a head-to-head win over the Panthers, and it doesn’t look like they will be a threat to win their division with the Saints at 4.0.
Texans @ Farty-Whiners
This one doesn’t need much explanation other than to say it will be interesting to see how tough Houston looks against SF after almost sending us home with our first loss.
The Ben Obomanu Division (games of moderate significance):
Lions @ Packers
One of those hard to call games, and really you could make an argument either way. We don’t get the chance to play either team head to head. On one hand Aaron Rodgers, and a whole lot of hate for the Seahawks. On the other, the Lions have a much better record and already have racked up 3 NFC wins. Logic dictates a Packers win being more beneficial, mathematically. Emotionally, my gut tells me we may look back here and wish the Lions had pulled one out. However I only let emotion and gut feeling be a very small part of these picks, and in this case math wins.
Jaguars @ Rams
I would have this higher on the list because it’s always important for a divisional opponent to lose; however after watching their sad showings recently, the Rams don’t scare me too much and the Jags are even worse so I don’t expect them to compete in this game. Remember we have a long week before we play the Rams on the road, and we play them on Monday night in prime time not at 10 AM – I think we sweep them and therefore don’t put a lot of weight in their wins over bad teams.
Broncos @ Cowboys
AFC vs. NFC; easy pick. The Cowboys look like the most legitimate threat to win the NFC East, which overall doesn’t look great. Fortunately in a dome Peyton should shred them. I expect him to have 21 TD’s by the end of week 5, which is pretty incredible.
Jets @ Falcons
Again a simple AFC vs. NFC pick. I don’t see this one happening but who knows.
The Kelly Jennings Division (games that, like Jennings himself, don’t really matter.)
Eagles @ Giants
Another game you could pick either way. Normally, I would go with the team we have a chance to beat head to head for a possible tie breaker – however that team is the Giants and we play them at 10 AM on the road. I would rather we faced a Giants team late in this season that has nothing left to play for than one that is going to be scrapping for a playoff spot. They look terrible but the Giants have looked terrible before only to go on and win the Superbowl. I have much more confidence that the Eagles are what their record says they are.
Seahawks @ Colts:
Seahawks:
Pass Offense: 25
Rush Offense: 4
Total Offense: T-12
Scoring: 6
Pass Defense: 5
Rush Defense: 18
Total Defense: 6
Scoring: 2
Turnover Differential: +7
Colts:
Pass Offense: 23
Rush Offense: 3
Total Offense: 10
Scoring: 9
Pass Defense: 8
Rush Defense: 16
Total Defense: 10
Scoring: 4
Turnover Differential: +6
Looking at the statistics, these are two very evenly matched teams, all within 4 places of each other in most areas as far as their overall ranking in the league.
I see this being another tough grind of a day for us. A couple consistent tendencies for the Seahawks: We usually start slow in spots like this, and we usually make the right half-time adjustments in any game. The key to me here is going to be pretty much the most important part of any game – not making big mistakes and turnovers, and creating turnovers of our own. Grind it out on offense with our run game, meanwhile shut down the Colts run game and force Luck to try to test our secondary. I wish I had more of a deep and conceptual break down here but it’s really straight forward this time around.
If we can somehow pull this out and keep the streak going, we have four winnable games to follow it (vs. Titans, @Cardinals, @Rams, vs. Bucs) before our next 10 AM start – oh, and we will probably have a guy named Percy Harvin ready to go by then.
Familiar Looking Final Score:
Seahawks 23
Colts 20
