Hawknballs
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Apologies in advance. I will be the first to admit that this week's post lacks some effort. Usually I start this over the weekend but since the game was on a monday, I didn't get going until yesterday and the game didn't exactly light a fire under me to analyze things. To top it off about the time I did get going on it, I was about halfway through when news about Rice came down.
That being said, FORWARD.
I’m struggling to find the words to talk about this game but after sitting through the mostly miserable three and a half hours of it I’m honestly sick of thinking about it. The O-line was awful and that’s pretty much the whole story. The D played decent and obviously saved the day for us since our offense could do nothing, but they also surrendered 200 yards rushing against a team that until that point had been poor at running the ball. Going in, I knew their defense was good but I figured we would weather that storm and create too many stops and opportunities on defense to not put up some points. Instead, their defense was the perfect storm to match up against our ravaged o-line. Bowie was no match for Chris Long and McQuistan incapable of reacting to the Quinn. Sweezy, a.k.a. “The Drivekiller” gave up a couple penalties on successful plays that really threw us out of rhythm. I’d like to move on from that game, and since we are at the half way point, look forward a few games to hopefully better times. I think a huge part of why this game just feels so crappy is because we waited 11 days to watch it on Monday Night Football, and it just wasn’t fun to watch.
All I will add to this is that we hear it all the time – good teams find ways to win games. So far we’ve done that a couple times now. The Rams may have done us a favor, in showing us our own weaknesses up close and personal while still coming away with the W. We can focus on patching those holes as the season goes on and as guys come back from injury.
Also, after the game I watched "The Walking Dead" on DVR with my wife. Fittingly enough the episode started focused on a picture of a boat on a stormy sea which read, "Smooth Seas Do Not Make Good Sailors". Lets be thankful we have had an experience to learn from without also costing us a W.
If you want a more in-depth analysys, check with Danny Kelly on Field Gulls. It sounds at the end of the article like he’s willing to subject himself to watching this again. I personally want to just forget about it and chalk it down as a bad 1/8th of the season so far.
http://www.fieldgulls.com/seahawks-game ... inable-way
So here we are heading into week 9. The Seattle Seahawks are 7-1 and currently hold the top spot in the NFC. All things considered, it would be hard to argue against the Seahawks having the NFL’s best/most complete defense. A +9 Turnover margin is good enough to tie for first place, as we both protect and take away the football. We get to the QB 16.3% of the time when we send more than four pass rushers, which is tops in the league. We give up the third fewest points per game and second fewest yards per game than any team in the league. The Legion of Boom itself has picked off 11 balls, which is more than 27 other teams have, total.
What’s most impressive is that a great home field advantage can really fuel a good defense, but we’ve only had three games so far in Seattle. Four of our last five games have been on the road. We are 3-0 in the division for the first time since 2006, with two of those games away. Four of our last six games will be at home, including a rematch with the Rams to finish the season, and hopefully exorcise this week’s demons.
Our next three opponents (vs. Tampa, @Atlanta, vs. Minnesota) have a combined record of 3-18, and after those games we will finally have our bye week. At some point within these three games, we should finally see Percy Harvin on the field, which could go a long way in keeping pressure off Wilson as teams scramble to keep him accounted for. Okung is eligible to return beginning week 11, which would be the home game against the Vikings. News on Giacomini is less definitive, but it’s my assumption that he will be back no later than week 11 as well. My personal time table for seeing the “complete” team on the field would be that game. Perhaps they would hold guys out until after the bye, but then we face the Saints at home and the 49ers on the road. My gut tells me we want to see all these guys get through a game before we face the two remaining teams on our schedule that have winning records.
Fun Fact of the week:
Golden Tate has accounted for all of Seattle’s scoring in the past two Seasons during their Monday Night Football appearances. In those two games, Tate’s stat line: 8 catches for 161 yards and 4 TD’s.
The Good:
• Panthers over Bucs
• Lions over Cowboys
• Giants over Eagles
• Broncos over Redskins
The Neutral:
• Cardinals over Falcons
The Cardinals shouldn't really matter to us at this point, so giving the Falcons less to play for when we meet is to the good.
The Not-So-Good:
• Saints over Bills
• 49ers over Jaguars
• Packers over Vikings
Note: this is not list of picks based on teams I believe will win, or necessarily want to win. Picks in Green are simply the teams for which a win helps the Seahawks a.) Make the playoffs and b.) attain a high playoff seed.
The Walter Jones Division (important games):
Saints @ Jets
Chargers @ Redskins
Bears @ Packers
The Saints pick is obvious; Chargers and Bears picks are mostly based around wanting the Redskins and Packers to have lower winning percentages and therefore strength of schedule, even though at this point there is no way they are going to likely get as low as our uncommon opponents with the 49ers for tie breaking purposes, the Giants and the Vikings.
The Ben Obomanu Division (games of moderate significance):
Vikings @ Cowboys
Titans @ Rams
The Kelly Jennings Division (games that, like Jennings himself, don’t really matter.)
Falcons @ Panthers
Eagles @ Raiders
Here we are going Panthers mainly out of the desire to get them believing they can win the division, and drag down the Saints in the process. The Eagles don't matter much at this point but I will keep a team on the list until they are officially eliminated from the playoffs, or the Seahawks have something clinched over them.
Buccaneers @ Seahawks
Seahawks:
Pass Offense: 25
Pass Offense: 28
Rush Offense: 2
Total Offense: 15
Scoring: 9
Pass Defense: 3
Rush Defense: 15
Total Defense: 2
Scoring: 3
Turnover Differential: +9
Bucs:
Buccaneers:
Pass Offense: 26
Rush Offense: 21
Total Offense: 31
Scoring: 31
Pass Defense: 19
Rush Defense: 7
Total Defense: 14
Scoring: 18
Turnover Differential: -1
Vegas Opening Spread:
Seattle -17
After a couple tough matchups on the road, we come home to a winless team that we will beat. I’m only so confident in this because if we lose this game I’m pretty much never getting out of bed again so it won’t really matter if I was ‘wrong’ if I’m already laying despondent and hopeless staring at the ceiling for the rest of the season.
Seriously though, the Buccaneers just aren’t a very good team. It looked early on like they might be competitive, in close losses to the Jets and Saints by a combined three points. They took a beating at New England. Then they lost to the Cardinals, Eagles, Falcons, and most recently, the Panthers, in a game that was over early. The arrow just seems to be pointing down as the team looks to be on a trend that will get their coach fired before too long. There are too many stories around Schiano and his inability to get the team behind him for me to believe that everything is great and they are going to turn it around. To expect them to travel across the country and face a good team on their home field in front of fans who just want to see us beat up on an opponent after a brutal and stressful road-game laden first half to the schedule when they themselves have not much going for them and a coach who is likely on his way out is too much.
The Seahawks are going to want to put this last ugly game behind them. The offense is going to want to come out and execute flawlessly and get things working. It won’t be a cake-walk but I think we do enough to get the job done. Tampa’s inept offense will have a hard time moving the ball and scoring points, and I think the Seahawks offense plays well enough to get the job done. The only concern I really have is that our defense must be exhausted after all the time on the field they saw with a short week.
That being said, FORWARD.
I’m struggling to find the words to talk about this game but after sitting through the mostly miserable three and a half hours of it I’m honestly sick of thinking about it. The O-line was awful and that’s pretty much the whole story. The D played decent and obviously saved the day for us since our offense could do nothing, but they also surrendered 200 yards rushing against a team that until that point had been poor at running the ball. Going in, I knew their defense was good but I figured we would weather that storm and create too many stops and opportunities on defense to not put up some points. Instead, their defense was the perfect storm to match up against our ravaged o-line. Bowie was no match for Chris Long and McQuistan incapable of reacting to the Quinn. Sweezy, a.k.a. “The Drivekiller” gave up a couple penalties on successful plays that really threw us out of rhythm. I’d like to move on from that game, and since we are at the half way point, look forward a few games to hopefully better times. I think a huge part of why this game just feels so crappy is because we waited 11 days to watch it on Monday Night Football, and it just wasn’t fun to watch.
All I will add to this is that we hear it all the time – good teams find ways to win games. So far we’ve done that a couple times now. The Rams may have done us a favor, in showing us our own weaknesses up close and personal while still coming away with the W. We can focus on patching those holes as the season goes on and as guys come back from injury.
Also, after the game I watched "The Walking Dead" on DVR with my wife. Fittingly enough the episode started focused on a picture of a boat on a stormy sea which read, "Smooth Seas Do Not Make Good Sailors". Lets be thankful we have had an experience to learn from without also costing us a W.
If you want a more in-depth analysys, check with Danny Kelly on Field Gulls. It sounds at the end of the article like he’s willing to subject himself to watching this again. I personally want to just forget about it and chalk it down as a bad 1/8th of the season so far.
http://www.fieldgulls.com/seahawks-game ... inable-way
So here we are heading into week 9. The Seattle Seahawks are 7-1 and currently hold the top spot in the NFC. All things considered, it would be hard to argue against the Seahawks having the NFL’s best/most complete defense. A +9 Turnover margin is good enough to tie for first place, as we both protect and take away the football. We get to the QB 16.3% of the time when we send more than four pass rushers, which is tops in the league. We give up the third fewest points per game and second fewest yards per game than any team in the league. The Legion of Boom itself has picked off 11 balls, which is more than 27 other teams have, total.
What’s most impressive is that a great home field advantage can really fuel a good defense, but we’ve only had three games so far in Seattle. Four of our last five games have been on the road. We are 3-0 in the division for the first time since 2006, with two of those games away. Four of our last six games will be at home, including a rematch with the Rams to finish the season, and hopefully exorcise this week’s demons.
Our next three opponents (vs. Tampa, @Atlanta, vs. Minnesota) have a combined record of 3-18, and after those games we will finally have our bye week. At some point within these three games, we should finally see Percy Harvin on the field, which could go a long way in keeping pressure off Wilson as teams scramble to keep him accounted for. Okung is eligible to return beginning week 11, which would be the home game against the Vikings. News on Giacomini is less definitive, but it’s my assumption that he will be back no later than week 11 as well. My personal time table for seeing the “complete” team on the field would be that game. Perhaps they would hold guys out until after the bye, but then we face the Saints at home and the 49ers on the road. My gut tells me we want to see all these guys get through a game before we face the two remaining teams on our schedule that have winning records.
Fun Fact of the week:
Golden Tate has accounted for all of Seattle’s scoring in the past two Seasons during their Monday Night Football appearances. In those two games, Tate’s stat line: 8 catches for 161 yards and 4 TD’s.
The Good:
• Panthers over Bucs
• Lions over Cowboys
• Giants over Eagles
• Broncos over Redskins
The Neutral:
• Cardinals over Falcons
The Cardinals shouldn't really matter to us at this point, so giving the Falcons less to play for when we meet is to the good.
The Not-So-Good:
• Saints over Bills
• 49ers over Jaguars
• Packers over Vikings
Note: this is not list of picks based on teams I believe will win, or necessarily want to win. Picks in Green are simply the teams for which a win helps the Seahawks a.) Make the playoffs and b.) attain a high playoff seed.
The Walter Jones Division (important games):
Saints @ Jets
Chargers @ Redskins
Bears @ Packers
The Saints pick is obvious; Chargers and Bears picks are mostly based around wanting the Redskins and Packers to have lower winning percentages and therefore strength of schedule, even though at this point there is no way they are going to likely get as low as our uncommon opponents with the 49ers for tie breaking purposes, the Giants and the Vikings.
The Ben Obomanu Division (games of moderate significance):
Vikings @ Cowboys
Titans @ Rams
The Kelly Jennings Division (games that, like Jennings himself, don’t really matter.)
Falcons @ Panthers
Eagles @ Raiders
Here we are going Panthers mainly out of the desire to get them believing they can win the division, and drag down the Saints in the process. The Eagles don't matter much at this point but I will keep a team on the list until they are officially eliminated from the playoffs, or the Seahawks have something clinched over them.
Buccaneers @ Seahawks
Seahawks:
Pass Offense: 25
Pass Offense: 28
Rush Offense: 2
Total Offense: 15
Scoring: 9
Pass Defense: 3
Rush Defense: 15
Total Defense: 2
Scoring: 3
Turnover Differential: +9
Bucs:
Buccaneers:
Pass Offense: 26
Rush Offense: 21
Total Offense: 31
Scoring: 31
Pass Defense: 19
Rush Defense: 7
Total Defense: 14
Scoring: 18
Turnover Differential: -1
Vegas Opening Spread:
Seattle -17
After a couple tough matchups on the road, we come home to a winless team that we will beat. I’m only so confident in this because if we lose this game I’m pretty much never getting out of bed again so it won’t really matter if I was ‘wrong’ if I’m already laying despondent and hopeless staring at the ceiling for the rest of the season.
Seriously though, the Buccaneers just aren’t a very good team. It looked early on like they might be competitive, in close losses to the Jets and Saints by a combined three points. They took a beating at New England. Then they lost to the Cardinals, Eagles, Falcons, and most recently, the Panthers, in a game that was over early. The arrow just seems to be pointing down as the team looks to be on a trend that will get their coach fired before too long. There are too many stories around Schiano and his inability to get the team behind him for me to believe that everything is great and they are going to turn it around. To expect them to travel across the country and face a good team on their home field in front of fans who just want to see us beat up on an opponent after a brutal and stressful road-game laden first half to the schedule when they themselves have not much going for them and a coach who is likely on his way out is too much.
The Seahawks are going to want to put this last ugly game behind them. The offense is going to want to come out and execute flawlessly and get things working. It won’t be a cake-walk but I think we do enough to get the job done. Tampa’s inept offense will have a hard time moving the ball and scoring points, and I think the Seahawks offense plays well enough to get the job done. The only concern I really have is that our defense must be exhausted after all the time on the field they saw with a short week.
