Now, about the offense

[BandWagon11Hawk]

First off - short time lurker here, medium time american football fan, grew up in Seattle. Judge as harshly on any of the above as you want.

Obviously I get all the chatter about the defense, especially coming from my bandwagon glory days.

But there's something on offense that has been bugging me for a while, I've seen a post or two mention it, and just wondering if it's because I'm a medium time fan, or don't fully get x's and o's, (hell I was the kicker in high school).

The thing is: it seems to me that RW goes for the sky / moon / touchdown shot FAR too often. And I get it, he's good, and can throw like certainly no one I have ever known of.

But there are a couple of plays for example in the last game, 3rd quarter 14:49 3rd and 10, 3rd quarter 2:07 3rd and 7 (near miss to lockett under pressure) - that I don't understand why force the long ball, when on both plays it seems like a much easier first down to Olsen and then Metcalf respectively. I'm sure there are other examples and maybe someone can post better screen shots than I can.

Same thing with just generally playing against defenses, I think the ?Vikings? game they played deep cover 2, and all game it felt like RW was still trying to just beat even that over the top.

If we play way off the ball, other teams just slice and dice us up the field.

So is my impression that we don't take the easy plays and RW is just trying to show off what a boss he is, every play, correct?
Would we be better taking those easy yards I mention or are those easy yards not as easy as they look to a kicker?
And why can't we scheme easy pickups on opposing blitzes seemingly ever?

Thanks for setting me straight, again only seen a few people reference it and would love to understand it better.


I realize some of this stuff is posted here - and I'm not knowledgeable enough about scheming up screens, etc to totally parse it all: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=168751

Ah, and here too! I missed some threads in my lurking this week:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=168747

Good post / explanation here by Oly also:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=168796

 

[Jerhawk]

Outstanding first post! Welcome aboard!

And I completely agree. I don't understand Wilson's refusal to take the easy play and accept what the defense gives you.
The first half of that Vikings game was a great example. He continued to want to force the ball down field rather than just checking it down, resulting in 3 and outs and our defense having to be on the field more than they need to be.

Now, some of that falls on playcalling.
This upcoming game especially, they need to shorten the pass routes or Donald will feast on Wilson.

We're all very lucky to have Wilson, so there will probably be some posters that will counter that Wilson/the offense isn't the problem. But this is a team sport and there are situations where Wilson can take a cheap 5 yards rather than a deep incompletions. It'll at least keep the chains and clock moving.

 

[Seahawkfan80]

It is a possibility that our previous methods are still on board. It is still about the ball and maintaining possession. Crossing routes were not in the playbook for a while as it was about maintaining possession more than getting yards on crossing routes. A minor glitch in the matrix has allowed us a few crossing routes to be used now but I think that is about to be fixed. The matrix is a hard set program after all.

RW is a great qb and did not have the time usually allowed him to practice scheme and route running with his receivers/rbs. This is again a glitch in the matrix and will probably be fixed soon.

These are only presumptions based on the knowledge that we are in that matrix. I think we are anyway. I could be wrong and may be a glitch too....maybe they will fix me?????

:twisted:

 

[Fade]

Pete hates dink and dunk. Wilson is the greatest deep ball thrower of all time.

 

[TwistedHusky]

Wilson's strength is the deep ball.

Additionally, Lockett and Metcalf are great at getting open in coverage, as Wilson is fantastic at reading the coverage after the snap.

(Best link on this is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjrHuG2LfXg )

But look at Pete's emphasis on defense. Anything to avoid getting burned deep, remember?

Stands to reason that since he feels preventing the deep ball is so important on defense - he would think that is because the deep ball was so valuable on offense.

You don't remember all those years of 3 and out offense when we would either run the ball or Wilson would repeatedly shoot for the moon on long shots that had little chance of going? (Mainly because refs would not call pass interference on such cheap attempts to draw PI calls)

Pete loves the big plays and so emphasizes it. He also feels it is important to prevent big plays.

(In my mind, you want the big plays when you give up TDs on defense. That shortens TOP, puts their defense back out there with little rest, and gives your high powered offense the ball back to score. The objective should be to prevent their offense from scoring consistently, not to prevent scoring. But only if you can score consistently, which we can.)

So that is a Pete thing. Always has been cept in 2016(?) when we had our RBs hurt and Wilson had to throw more. We had a lot of short/intermediate plays to Baldwin and that offense looked almost as good as this one did. So Wilson is capable, we just don't ask him to do it. He has before.

 

[LTH]

First off - short time lurker here, medium time american football fan, grew up in Seattle. Judge as harshly on any of the above as you want.

Obviously I get all the chatter about the defense, especially coming from my bandwagon glory days.

But there's something on offense that has been bugging me for a while, I've seen a post or two mention it, and just wondering if it's because I'm a medium time fan, or don't fully get x's and o's, (hell I was the kicker in high school).

The thing is: it seems to me that RW goes for the sky / moon / touchdown shot FAR too often. And I get it, he's good, and can throw like certainly no one I have ever known of.

But there are a couple of plays for example in the last game, 3rd quarter 14:49 3rd and 10, 3rd quarter 2:07 3rd and 7 (near miss to lockett under pressure) - that I don't understand why force the long ball, when on both plays it seems like a much easier first down to Olsen and then Metcalf respectively. I'm sure there are other examples and maybe someone can post better screen shots than I can.

Same thing with just generally playing against defenses, I think the ?Vikings? game they played deep cover 2, and all game it felt like RW was still trying to just beat even that over the top.

If we play way off the ball, other teams just slice and dice us up the field.

So is my impression that we don't take the easy plays and RW is just trying to show off what a boss he is, every play, correct?
Would we be better taking those easy yards I mention or are those easy yards not as easy as they look to a kicker?
And why can't we scheme easy pickups on opposing blitzes seemingly ever?

Thanks for setting me straight, again only seen a few people reference it and would love to understand it better.


I realize some of this stuff is posted here - and I'm not knowledgeable enough about scheming up screens, etc to totally parse it all: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=168751

Ah, and here too! I missed some threads in my lurking this week:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=168747

Good post / explanation here by Oly also:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=168796

That's just Russ and the Seahawks IMO... If your gonna be great you have to take the shot down field especially when nobody thinks you can or should do it... sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn't... when they hit it Wilson is a Hero when he doesn't... ehhh not so much... but He is going to take that shot because he wants to be great and most of the time he is... they take the shot because they believe they are going to hit it more often than not...at least that's the way I see it...


LTH

 

[hoxrox]

Sometimes you take the deep ball, sometimes you just gotta move the chains. But every time you can't be too predictable. And that's kind of what happened on those picks when Russ threw into double coverage, when there was a man underneath who may have been able to YAC for a first down.

And if you're going deep, make sure the protections are good... Homer is on the team probably only because he can pass block, but Dallas definitely needs some work. If you can't pass block, then don't go for the deep ball all the time.

Case in point, on 3rd and 16, Caroll called for a blitz, and we got burned bad by a screen that went for mega yards after catch. Deep ball is awesome, but don't be one dimensional is all I'm saying. Mix it up more.

 

[Welshers]

Are you guys really complaining about the top ranked offense in the entire nfl?

 

[BandWagon11Hawk]

Are you guys really complaining about the top ranked offense in the entire nfl?

I forgot the point of the season was to be ranked #1.

And once you're ranked #1, of course, there is nothing you can do to get better. :sarcasm_off:

Listen to your own offense sometime after a game, they will be the first to tell you things can improve even in a great game.


The point of this post was curiosity on if there are aspects I don't understand around this area. Did your teachers in school tell you you were complaining if you asked questions in class?

 

[John63]

okay first its great you see that those people were supposedly open, from the angle you had on TV. However, that does not mean they were open when it was their turn in the progression. It does not mean you saw everything the way Wilson did. Maybe Wilson saw someone lurking you did not? Maybe they were not open when he looked their way. Maybe there was no throwing lane. A lot of reasons why he chose to do what he did, that makes more sense than him just ignoring the chance to get what you feel would have been a first down.

 

[John63]

Are you guys really complaining about the top ranked offense in the entire nfl?

I forgot the point of the season was to be ranked #1.

And once you're ranked #1, of course, there is nothing you can do to get better. :sarcasm_off:

Listen to your own offense sometime after a game, they will be the first to tell you things can improve even in a great game.


The point of this post was curiosity on if there are aspects I don't understand around this area. Did your teachers in school tell you you were complaining if you asked questions in class?

Hmm interesting and yet when some complain that we can't get farther than round 2 in the playoffs we are told to be happy.

as to the OP easy to do form the confines of a coach with a TV view and not what the QB sees, or what the progression is, or the throwing lanes etc etc.

 

[Maelstrom787]

The deep game works, and with a weapon like DK, the reward outweighs the risk.

This team is moving the chains at a significantly higher rate than the rest of the league on first and second downs, so why not? The efficiency isn't dipping too hard with the moonshots, keep going for it.

 

[BandWagon11Hawk]

The deep game works, and with a weapon like DK, the reward outweighs the risk.

This team is moving the chains at a significantly higher rate than the rest of the league on first and second downs, so why not? The efficiency isn't dipping too hard with the moonshots, keep going for it.

Yeah, my question isn't "why do we throw the deep ball?".

It is - why don't we mix it up more than we do, especially when the deep ball isn't there? Don't short routes keep a defense honest on the deep ball much like a run game keeps a defense honest in a similar but slightly different way?

And perhaps the answer is, we're already mixing it up at the optimal level. Perhaps john63 the opportunities aren't actually there like a think they are. I posited that in my original post, no need to repeat it. But feel free to show me they aren't. And no need to respond to me, and myself, the same poster, as if we're different people.

I like how you ignored 3rd downs. Oh, because we're 30th.

 

[BandWagon11Hawk]

Wilson's strength is the deep ball.

Additionally, Lockett and Metcalf are great at getting open in coverage, as Wilson is fantastic at reading the coverage after the snap.

(Best link on this is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjrHuG2LfXg )
.

This is very educational, great link. And perhaps it does explain my whole question if he's spending the whole time making downfield decisions.

Ie. We can't have his great downfield vision AND checkdown / short game vision. I will buy that.

 

[Maelstrom787]

The deep game works, and with a weapon like DK, the reward outweighs the risk.

This team is moving the chains at a significantly higher rate than the rest of the league on first and second downs, so why not? The efficiency isn't dipping too hard with the moonshots, keep going for it.

Yeah, my question isn't "why do we throw the deep ball?".

It is - why don't we mix it up more than we do, especially when the deep ball isn't there? Don't short routes keep a defense honest on the deep ball much like a run game keeps a defense honest in a similar but slightly different way?

And perhaps the answer is, we're already mixing it up at the optimal level. Perhaps john63 the opportunities aren't actually there like a think they are. I posited that in my original post, no need to repeat it. But feel free to show me they aren't. And no need to respond to me, and myself, the same poster, as if we're different people.

I like how you ignored 3rd downs. Oh, because we're 30th.

My response isn't restating your question as "why do we throw the deep ball?" It's responding to your bold-type statement that it seems they're going for the deepshot too often.

I didn't ignore third down. I provided context as to why, in the grand scheme of things, going for the deep ball so often makes sense. A big part of it is how consistently the team moves the chains PRIOR to third down.

Mixing it up by simply going shorter likely takes a good deal of potential out of the offensive attack because of how absurdly good and efficient they are at deep passing.

I'll concede that they are slow to react to teams who have schemed up a fantastic answer to the deep game, namely Minnesota. Most teams, though, just don't have a great answer for the passing attack.

 

[xray]

With the defense where it is right now , Wilson and the offense as a whole know they need 35 + pts to wins games . All things being equal they hopefully have 30 minutes of ball possession to score that many pts. The run game isn't there right now , so throwing for big yardage makes sense . The problem with having to score a lot of pts. is pressing the pass game too much and risking turnovers . The Hawks need their run game back on track soon . IMO

 

[John63]

With the defense where it is right now , Wilson and the offense as a whole know they need 35 + pts to wins games . All things being equal they hopefully have 30 minutes of ball possession to score that many pts. The run game isn't there right now , so throwing for big yardage makes sense . The problem with having to score a lot of pts. is pressing the pass game too much and risking turnovers . The Hawks need their run game back on track soon . IMO

and setting Wilson up to be crushed like last game hit, hurried, sacked or pressured on over 60% of his drop backs. Now there are things we could have done to mitigate that, like some quick passing, screens etc but for whatever reason the OC and PC decided against it till it was pretty much over. Once again are lack of or unwilling to adapt gets us.

 

[Spin Doctor]

My problem with the offense is the lack of adaptability. It has been this way under Pete's teams since he's gotten here. It drives me up the wall to see these long developing plays when teams are selling out for an obvious blitz. Our offense has been the most effective when we hit them with everything, like at the beginning of the year. We drinked and dunked our way down the field vs. the Falcons and it worked great. Our offense lacks nuance, and variety, we're predictable. Our offense has struggled really hard against blitzes this year, which is to be expected with the style of offense we're running.

People say "but we're number 1 this year" and I say, doesn't matter, this offense is getting punished by better teams such as the Bills and Cardinals.

 

[John63]

My problem with the offense is the lack of adaptability. It has been this way under Pete's teams since he's gotten here. It drives me up the wall to see these long developing plays when teams are selling out for an obvious blitz. Our offense has been the most effective when we hit them with everything, like at the beginning of the year. We drinked and dunked our way down the field vs. the Falcons and it worked great. Our offense lacks nuance, and variety, we're predictable. Our offense has struggled really hard against blitzes this year, which is to be expected with the style of offense we're running.

People say "but we're number 1 this year" and I say, doesn't matter, this offense is getting punished by better teams such as the Bills and Cardinals.

Yup sems the last 3 games we have started reverting