We survived.
Here is something I noticed about week 1 so far. The Broncos trailed the visiting Ravens at halftime before going crazy in the second half. The final score was a 22-point blowout. On Sunday there were 13 more games. 10 of those games were decided by a touchdown or less. It seems like week 1 is always like that. Tons of close, weird, even ugly football games.
While I wouldn't say this was an impressive win, I would say this. Only 5 home teams have lost in week 1 so far. Buffalo, Carolina, Cleveland, Jacksonville, and Pittsburgh. Given how miserable Pittsburgh looked both at the end of last season and in their season opener, I'm tempted to say that the best team to lose at home this weekend was Carolina. Maybe you could argue for Buffalo as they put up a great fight vs. New England, but they have a rookie read option QB, and seem like a good bet for 6 wins this year.
Cam Newton isn't that great against us, but he's a stat monster against the rest of the league and as you saw today, that defense in Carolina is legit. This was a 10 am win in the summer heat in our dark jerseys. In wacky week one. With our top pass rushers, and Brandon Browner, out of action. Every win is big when you are competing in the NFC West, but this one was bigger than most.
Now the Seahawks are 1-0, and we have one fewer 10am start to dread.
One thing I learned from this preseason is that my Random Thoughts thread wasn't nearly as good as my DVR reviews in terms of accuracy. There were a lot of things I felt pretty confident in that changed upon further review when watching every play on DVR 10-15 times over. So if I say I thought a player looked good or bad, let me be the first to say that I am doing so with incomplete information, and maybe I saw it wrong. I would say, maybe 10-15% of the time, I saw some detail incorrectly when going off the cuff.
With that in mind, here are my post game impressions, in no particular order:
-Game Ball to Doug Baldwin. Sure, Russell Wilson had one of those less than perfect yet heroic outings where he finishes with a 115 passer rating and you wonder how it got that high before looking at his stat line and wondering why it wasn't even higher. Baldwin's line of 7 catches for 91 yards does not do justice to the clutch gene he possessed throughout this game. Of Baldwin's 7 catches, 5 produced first downs and 4 of them converted 3rd downs. His tip-toe catch at the sideline on Wilson's ill-advised desperation heave was something to behold.
-All our WRs looked good (I'd even lump Stephen Williams in there, he took the top off the defense and almost made a very tough, game-breaking catch). Sidney Rice was money. Golden Tate was money, and continued to show laughter inducing "wtf did that seriously just happen" type slipperiness after the catch. I really liked what Tate gave us in punt returns, too. And of course, Kearse had the terrific TD catch on a perfect deep pass from Wilson.
-I've said before that Wilson's distance accuracy can be a problem at times. It's been a problem since college. Today, he overthrew Stephen Williams by just a couple feet. Williams went full extension and almost hauled the pass in. Maybe 40% of the time, Williams catches it anyway and maybe he even rolls into the endzone for the TD. This was one of the times he didn't get it. But he came close and it was a great effort. He's human, it happens.
-Remember when Pete "iced" the kicker in the Atlanta game, but did so under the impression that the kicker was barred from a "practice kick?" Well, the kicker took the practice kick anyway, and the refs stared off into space and did nothing to punish him for it. That this practice kicked was wide right is irrelevant- the kicker was trying to get a refresher on the "feel" for how to kick the football. And guess what? He split the uprights on the second kick, the one that actually counted- no easy feat from 49 yards out.
Throwing a deep bomb to a receiver running at his own unique rate of speed is a similar thing. It's tricky as hell to judge that, and nobody bats 1.000 guessing where the vectors will cross. So what does Seattle do after Wilson just barely misses Stephen Williams? Well, they draw up the same exact fricken' play of course. Why wouldn't they? Result- Wilson splits the uprights, this time to Jermaine Kearse (who, it bears repeating, made an awesome catch). It's such genius, why do teams not do this more often? Are they afraid of defenses having heightened awareness? Because, personally, the last time I'd expect a deep bomb is on 2nd and 10 after 1st and 10 was an incomplete pass attempt deep. To the exact same spot no less.
-I was screaming at my TV for 3 quarters asking where those deep bombs were.
-On at least one play, Seattle lined up Zach Miller at fullback. We still don't know exactly what they are thinking in that regard. Is it a new wrinkle that they haven't really shown us yet? Or are they compensating for a lack of true depth at FB?
-Any time you hear about backup O-lineman coming in for the other team, tune that stuff out. It doesn't often mean what you think it might. When Denver and Green Bay played us this preseason with an injury ravaged OL, did we get much pressure then? I could really care less about the Panthers having two backup guards in there. As long as we continue to run 3-4 type personnel on the field, our pass rush will be based on what our OLBs generate, and without Clemons, Avril, and Irvin out there, I don't think that's really a fair standard to judge, even if Schofield is a useful reserve and Mayowa may one day be another Schofield.
-With that said, boy, did the Panthers do a great job of giving Cam Newton time today. And he used that time to make some incredibly accurate throws with zip. I predicted that Newton would struggle against our style of defense, but he finished with 125 passing yards despite making several outstanding throws. The drops really hurt him. Still, I'm a little shocked. Did that really happen? 125 yards? Really?
-The biggest surprise of the game was how exactingly it went to my pregame predictions. I almost never get >90% of the details right, so when it (very rarely) happens, it kind of freaks me out. It was still very frustrating; seeing it coming doesn't really help much. I hate being right sometimes. Except the part where I said we'd probably win. The one part that threw me off was the Panthers netting 5.0 yards per rush play, the exact same number they netted per pass play. With our gigantic 3-4ish front I figured they'd be lucky to get 2 yards a rush on us. I guess reports of DeAngelo Williams demise were premature after all. Or is Williams actually washed up and we have some problematic symptoms? I guess we'll find out.
-I thought Coleman was a mixed bag in the preseason. He was great in Carolina. His run blocking was solid and his receiving ability came through for us over and over again. If you want to blame the lack of rushing success, blame it on Carolina for having an awesome front seven, and maybe save a little on the side for James Carpenter. Derrick Coleman should be blame free.
-Seattle outgained Carolina 370 to 243. You'd think Seattle would have dominated with a line like that, but it didn't feel that way at all. Also, time of possession was almost dead even.
-I thought Seattle's defense looked pretty soft at times, but I am so proud of them for how they handled the heat and the 10 am start. We saw last year how those two factors turned them into wet noodles by the 4th quarter of the Miami game. Not so, this time.
-I'm not going to watch the DVR again, and I'd probably need to be sure, but I thought James Carpenter's lack of athleticism continuously plagued Seattle's trap game (pulling linemen). Star Lotulelei had a nice game blowing up our traps and pulls, really their whole front seven did, but when a Panther's player was breaking into the backfield it was usually because Carpenter was too slow at doing something. I am growing in confidence that Carpenter lacks the needed athleticism to play ZBS. He might have to move to a man blocking scheme to realize his full potential. I hope I am wrong, but it feels like he's been showing those kind of signs for a while, and today I thought they were blindingly obvious.
-I thought the rest of our OL did fine considering the opponent and the circumstances. When Wilson was running for his life, it was only because he held the ball so long so often. Lynch didn't have much place to run the football but you would expect that against a front seven like Carolina's. The running game did seem to be opening up some in the 4th quarter, FWIW.
-The officiating in this game was reasonably good and evenly called, with bad calls benefiting both teams at different points. I did think the 21 yard intentional grounding against us looked highly dubious though- it appeared to reach the line of scrimmage and there was even a receiver in the area.
-John Ryan had a fantastic game. It's kind of weird to think he only punted 4 times. At one point he had a 69 yarder that netted 58. One of his punts was downed inside the 20. Two others were fair caught right at the 20 yard line. Ted Ginn was not a factor. Ryan got excellent hang time to go with the distance on his kicks.
-The play of the game for me was the tag team forced fumble by Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas. Without that fumble, do we win the game? Maybe not. After we recovered that fumble, I was able to breathe easy for the first time in the game.
-I loved how Seattle won the game on offense. Is anybody better at grinding out the last 5 minutes of a game than our team?
-NFL.com, you can kindly suck it for ranking Cam Newton ahead of Russell Wilson this offseason.
-Red Bryant started at 5-tech and we had a big man playing the left end spot for most of the game. McDaniel took some snaps there as did Bennett.
-Our pass rush wasn't all bad: Schofield had a nice sack and Mayowa showed he needs to hit the weights this offseason after failing to complete a "should have been" coverage sack later in the game.
-I think Russell Wilson is already a HoF caliber QB. However, there is still something that keeps him just a bit below guys like Manning and Brees for me. He just holds the ball way, way, way too long sometimes. It's as if the quick hit aspect of the West Coast offense isn't even in our playbook. Now, he usually makes it work and I won't argue with success, but it also means we'll have some 15 yard sacks, some 21 yard intentional groundings, and a near safety that turned into a near pick 6. By the end of this season, I would really like to see Seattle develop an offense that gets him to commit to a decision (run or pass) in 5 seconds or less with consistency.
If you watched the 49ers game today, you saw just how scary Kaepernick has become. And it's because he's gotten proficient at unloading the ball in 4 seconds or less. Wilson needs to grab that trait too. Wilson can pretend he's Fran Tarkenton til he's 35 if he wants to, and he'll probably still go to the HoF with a couple rings. So I'm not exactly complaining or MMQB'ing. I'm just saying, his running around with the ball in his hands for 6-7 seconds needs to happen less often. He needs to be finding targets sooner than that. I'm not sure if it's Wilson who needs fixing, our WRs who need fixing, or our OC that needs fixing. But this strikes me as a hindrance to Wilson's potential. When Brees and Manning have 115 QB rating outings, they make it look so easy. When Wilson does it, he makes it look heroic. I'd like to see him look a little less heroic and a little more unstoppable.
-Next week is going to be much tougher than I thought. This is Jim Harbaugh's best team. Kaepernick is the real deal guys.
