Sarlacc83":13iz7qsa said:
FWIW, I don't hold Richards necessarily accountable nor even think he's done a bad job; I do think, however, he'll continue to improve due to experience which matches with the thread title. Because, yes, blitzing Rodgers is deadly, but that doesn't mean that if you're having a bit of trouble corralling him when he escapes that you don't keep someone on the edge to spy on him once in awhile, too - especially if your DL keeps opening up the edge like they did last night. (That needs to get corrected most of all. The DE's folding the tackles into the QB while the DTs push up the middle.)
Problem is that if you send a guy, he'll just throw where that guy came from. He's insanely good against the blitz. If you are going to blitz him, it should be rarely and creatively. Which is pretty much exactly what Richard did.
Hasselbeck":13iz7qsa said:
Very bold statement. I think we're 0-2 with or without Unger. With or without Kam.
IMO, I think it's very likely that we'd have won the Rams game with Kam. If nothing else than for the simple reason that it would have prevented Bailey from sabotaging our defense. The Packers game would have been closer with Kam. I think we're probably 1-1 if the holdout had never happened.
I don't miss Unger. He was good when healthy, but he couldn't be depended upon to stay healthy or make decent snaps. He was outplayed last season by Patrick Lewis. It's true that Nowak has been awful in the run game so far, but to me that has nothing to do with JS reading the tea-leaves and everything to do with Tom Cable filling Unger's spot with his latest teacher's pet.
Tical21":13iz7qsa said:
The one thing I did want to comment on was Shead. So far he's the only player I have analyzed from last night's game. Even then, it was the TV copy, so it's a little difficult sometimes to assess a coverage at times. That said, I think when they watch the tape, they're going to be pretty disappointed in him, particularly in his run fits. If we're going to play 8 in the box, he's got to get up and fill, and he was really passive.
I commented after the game that Seattle's entire defense has been playing flat-footed so far this year. It's not just Shead, it's the rest of our DBs and most unforgivably, our star LBs. Rather than attack the runner, they wait to let him make the first move, even with multiple seahawk defenders around the ball carrier. In the process, they basically concede 3-5 yards of YAC each time.
When Seattle's D is at their best, they are aggressive and attack runners to eliminate YAC. Unfortunately, that is an area where Kam's presence and tone setting seems to have a major impact.
I'm not absolving Shead, I think he's well established as a poor safety based on his past performances. But in this game, he didn't kill us the way Bailey did in game one.
By the way, pretty funny how Pete singled out Bailey for praise after game one, then immediately benched his ass and never let him see the light of day in game two.
