It won't be easy in Atlanta

[FalconsFanNW]

So...let's talk about being your definition of being "wildly inconsistent" again.

Ok.

Offensive line (How many sacks on Wilson?)
Run game (87 yds vs worst run D in league? 26 coming on 1 play?)

What game was it when Seattle had like negative first half yards? The 3 pt LA game? 6 pt AZ game? Or 5 pt TB game? I can't remember but if that offense shows up... well...

The irony here is all these games were on the road. Name one good road performance outside of the NE game...

Anyone? Anyone?

That ladies and gentlemen is why this fan is confident in a team that averaged 35 a game at home.

 

[Followthelegion]

Its funny, but I don't think most of us round here exactly ignore the New England game. Think that was one where:
1) the media wrote us off on a short week
2) we had the team relatively healthy (Prosise included)
3) we played a defense who does not have a dominant pass rush
4) played on turf, not grass (who'd have thought it but this makes a big difference to us it seems in terms of the defense relying on speed)

Sound familiar?

I'd be staggered, utterly staggered if you see a Seattle offense that puts up single digit points as you're alluding to above. I'd wager anything for that bet.

 

[FalconsFanNW]

Its funny, but I don't think most of us round here exactly ignore the New England game. Think that was one where:
1) the media wrote us off on a short week
2) we had the team relatively healthy (Prosise included)
3) we played a defense who does not have a dominant pass rush
4) played on turf, not grass (who'd have thought it but this makes a big difference to us it seems in terms of the defense relying on speed)

Sound familiar?

I'd be staggered, utterly staggered if you see a Seattle offense that puts up single digit points as you're alluding to above. I'd wager anything for that bet.

I've got 3 Hawk fans at work offering to bet me straight up on Seattle winning in Atlanta. $200 each. They apparently want bragging rights for the next year.

Confident bunch I'll tell ya. Of course I'm gonna take those bets. Be a fool not to.

As for Seattle... I'd wager they score more than 6 too.

 

[West TX Hawk]

It will indeed not be easy but there was much to be encouraged about last night. With Richardson's emergence I would love to see us stretch the field with some go routes if we can get him isolated. We finally ran a couple quick slants with Jimmy and if Atl consistently doubles him, Baldwin may be open all day in slants and crossing patterns. If the oline continues to open up lanes and Rawls gets off to a quick start, Atl will have to respect the run. Quinn will mix things up, stack the box at times and play action could work for us. And have Jimmy run a few seams and the underneath routes will open up as well.

Defensively, Richard cannot have us in soft zone or Ryan will hammer us all day. Julio will get 10 and 110 but with Sherman on him all game and Kam back there to avoid any miscommunication issues, don't expect any broken coverage nightmares as before. We had Clark occasionally lined up inside last night and that really worked. We're going to need our big 3 to maintain pressure and if Bennett or Clark can rush inside we're in better shape. We're going to have to rush 5 more often IMO too.

1:35 Pacific start is good for us and our speed carries well in the dome. As usual, we need to avoid the slow start or we'll be in a hole we won't get out. Establish the run early, sustain long drives to keep Ryan off the field-all of this much easier said than done, but these will be keys.

 

[FalconsFanNW]

Very good post West TX Hawk. ^

You make some good points and I agree. Cheers.

 

[fenderbender123]

Hopefully our D has a better first half and doesn't have to rely on a plethora of dropped passes.

 

[sutz]

Hopefully our D has a better first half and doesn't have to rely on a plethora of dropped passes.

Frankly, I think our pass rush against Detroit has been undervalued around here, and at least some of those drops were because of timing issues from pressuring Stafford. We may have not made the sacks, but we were collapsing the pocket and moving him off his spot most of the night.

 

[fenderbender123]

Hopefully our D has a better first half and doesn't have to rely on a plethora of dropped passes.

Frankly, I think our pass rush against Detroit has been undervalued around here, and at least some of those drops were because of timing issues from pressuring Stafford. We may have not made the sacks, but we were collapsing the pocket and moving him off his spot most of the night.

I actually agree. Gotta do a better job in coverage.

 

[sutz]

Hopefully our D has a better first half and doesn't have to rely on a plethora of dropped passes.

Frankly, I think our pass rush against Detroit has been undervalued around here, and at least some of those drops were because of timing issues from pressuring Stafford. We may have not made the sacks, but we were collapsing the pocket and moving him off his spot most of the night.

I actually agree. Gotta do a better job in coverage.

Almost goes without saying. JJ is always a challenge, even for Sherm. I'm really hoping our run game can shorten the game a bit and keep Mattie off the field.

 

[Seahawks4eva]

What's that saying again? Offenses that can make up for bad defenses win championships? Wait, that's not it, hmm. I told my buddy I think it was better for us not to have a bye. We really hadn't hit our normal end of the season stride yet and figured this game could help with that. Looks like it did.

 

[Vancanhawksfan]

So...let's talk about being your definition of being "wildly inconsistent" again.

Ok.

Offensive line (How many sacks on Wilson?)
Run game (87 yds vs worst run D in league? 26 coming on 1 play?)

What game was it when Seattle had like negative first half yards? The 3 pt LA game? 6 pt AZ game? Or 5 pt TB game? I can't remember but if that offense shows up... well...

The irony here is all these games were on the road. Name one good road performance outside of the NE game...

Anyone? Anyone?

That ladies and gentlemen is why this fan is confident in a team that averaged 35 a game at home.

You see, you're cherry picking though without thinking things through.

Every team in the NFL has a weakness. We all know and acknowledge that the Seattle offensive line is theirs. If the Seahawks had a dominant O line we probably wouldn't lose a game, but it is what it is.

Yet Wilson had his lowest sack total this season (41 sacks) in 5 years since his rookie season (33 sacks)...but he also had 50% more attempts this year than in 2012 as well. That seems pretty consistent to me.

So you want to critique their run game. I get it. They rank lower in the NFL. But Thomas Rawls also had a broken leg for much of the season AND Wilson has been banged up and injured all year.

...but you didn't want to mention their latest game here because you want to point out their inconsistencies - which occurred much to do with injuries.

Note that Wilson was healthy enough to ditch the knee brace against the Lions this week AND that Rawls is back now - and lo and behold things loosened up. Thomas smashed through for 160 yards and Wilson had a great day throwing, and any of us who follows the Hawks knows that the read-option all of a sudden looks like its going to be there for him if they choose to run with it.


But you know the best part - for all these horribly "inconsistent" performances you're rattling off from earlier in the season, despite those "inconsistencies" the Seahawks are still always within a hair of winning those games and despite the losses still only finished a 1/2 game behind Atlanta...

Its a pretty good place to be to know that you're always able to win games even if you're playing like crap because you know that when things all start clicking your opponents will have nothing for you.

Keeping in mind that the Seahawks beat Atlanta this year too and would have held the tie-breaker over the Falcons because of that win if Hauschka didn't shank a 27 yard attempt against the Cards. If it weren't for that and you were playing in the Clink next week I'd bet you wouldn't even dare come and pop off like you are right now.

You're pretty confident considering Atlanta has a 0.333 win percentage against the Seahawks all time. If you want to talk about consistency the one thing that we can almost always count on is for Atlanta to lose, or worse, choke against the Seahawks.

 

[Grahamhawker]

Well said, Vancan, but it is wasted on trolls.

 

[semiahmoo]

The Lions game was sweet, but Atlanta is a far superior team than Detroit.

Our Hawks had more attitude this past week than I've seen from them in a while.

Maybe, just maybe, they can pull off a little upset in Atlanta. I like that they're not favored. Might make them even more angry/aggressive like they used to be a few years back.

RW looked better as far as overall mobility, but his side to side is still much slower and he is still putting up some weirdly bad throws from time to time on what were relatively easy targets. Hopefully he continues to feel better/healthier/stronger by next weekend.

As for Rawls - that running attack came out of nowhere - at least from this season's perspective. Guy runs hard, but still fear he doesn't have the body to hold up season-to-season. But if he can finish out THIS season like he did on Sat, there'll be a lot of happy-happy Hawks fans.

It was a flat out FUN Seahawks game to watch - and that's been the exception and not the rule this season.

Hope the fun times keep on rollin'! :0190l:

 

[TheLegendOfBoom]

Seattles Achilles heal has been the second and nickel corner. If the pass rush is negated by Atlantas offensive line, the Seahawks are in for a long day. Matt Ryan can torch Shead and Lane. Sure, Sherm can keep Julio in check but other than Sherm, our secondary is in for a helluva difficult matchup. My prediction is the key will be how Seattle covers with Wagner and Wright. If Ryan can hit the empty zones in our cover 3 defense, the falcons will win.

I'm not high on our offensive line being able to double team Atlantas defensive tackles efficiently and creating holes for Rawls. I think Atlanta will stop our run.

It's possible the Hawks can win but I think we get behind early and the run game gets stopped by Atlantas defense.

 

[chris98251]

Well Seahawks fans this sort of sums up how we do things.

[youtube]kFOdkBFzX50[/youtube]

 

[WmHBonney]

Its funny, but I don't think most of us round here exactly ignore the New England game. Think that was one where:
1) the media wrote us off on a short week
2) we had the team relatively healthy (Prosise included)
3) we played a defense who does not have a dominant pass rush
4) played on turf, not grass (who'd have thought it but this makes a big difference to us it seems in terms of the defense relying on speed)

Sound familiar?

I'd be staggered, utterly staggered if you see a Seattle offense that puts up single digit points as you're alluding to above. I'd wager anything for that bet.

I've got 3 Hawk fans at work offering to bet me straight up on Seattle winning in Atlanta. $200 each. They apparently want bragging rights for the next year.

Confident bunch I'll tell ya. Of course I'm gonna take those bets. Be a fool not to.

As for Seattle... I'd wager they score more than 6 too.

You gonna be $600 poorer.

 

[IndyHawk]

The Lions game was sweet, but Atlanta is a far superior team than Detroit.

Our Hawks had more attitude this past week than I've seen from them in a while.

Maybe, just maybe, they can pull off a little upset in Atlanta. I like that they're not favored. Might make them even more angry/aggressive like they used to be a few years back.

RW looked better as far as overall mobility, but his side to side is still much slower and he is still putting up some weirdly bad throws from time to time on what were relatively easy targets. Hopefully he continues to feel better/healthier/stronger by next weekend.

As for Rawls - that running attack came out of nowhere - at least from this season's perspective. Guy runs hard, but still fear he doesn't have the body to hold up season-to-season. But if he can finish out THIS season like he did on Sat, there'll be a lot of happy-happy Hawks fans.

It was a flat out FUN Seahawks game to watch - and that's been the exception and not the rule this season.

Hope the fun times keep on rollin'! :0190l:

You just shocked me..A positive post :irishdrinkers: