The honest truth is...

This team was just not that good. If it weren't for elite QB play of Russ, this would be a 7-9/8-8 team at best. We started 2-4, it is a statistical anomaly that we got this far.

I disagree. If you include all the injuries, this was a 10-6 team. In fact, 12-13 wins team if some of the key players didn't get injured.

SeahawksFanForever":6tta0r6a said:

I disagree. If you include all the injuries, this was a 10-6 team. In fact, 12-13 wins team if some of the key players didn't get injured.

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Yeah I disagree, I mean lets look at our injuries Lynch, Rawls, and graham. What other biggies were there? Well guess what he is right thanks to Wilson we went 10-6. Without Wilson we are 8-8 or worse with or without the injures. We won games without Lynch, Rawls, and Graham.

I totally disagree.

We have more talent than any other roster in the NFL, and that includes the Panthers and all their All Pro selections.

Yes we didn't PLAY very good, but that doesn't mean the talent and potential isn't there. This team has the talent, the pedigree and the experience to win any game they play.

IMO this year was wasted because of too many distractions, too many selfish players, a SB hangover and a severe lack of focus and energy that wasn't turned on until it was too late.

Not good? Nope. Not focused and hungry to win the 14 or 15 games they SHOULD have won? Yep.

Anthony!":2d276obu said:

SeahawksFanForever":2d276obu said:

I disagree. If you include all the injuries, this was a 10-6 team. In fact, 12-13 wins team if some of the key players didn't get injured.

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Yeah I disagree, I mean lets look at our injuries Lynch, Rawls, and graham. What other biggies were there? Well guess what he is right thanks to Wilson we went 10-6. Without Wilson we are 8-8 or worse with or without the injures. We won games without Lynch, Rawls, and Graham.

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I didn't say anything about Wilson in my post. I talked about the team and Wilson is a part of that team. Put it any way you want, this wasn't a 7-8 wins team.

This is absurd. If anything we underperformed our ability by poor execution.

We have the #1 defense in the league. That alone is usually at least an 9-7 season even with a crap offense.

But then we had the 4th most yards per game on offense and 4th most points per game.

We are also headed by a top 5 league QB heading into his prime.

I still maintain we didn't really get focused until midway through the season. That is when all the distractions of the offseason were buried. But by then, the writing was on the wall. The NFC was too strong to win 3 straight road games. In a weaker year, we definitely could have made the Super Bowl as the wild card but I think Arizona, Carolina and even Green Bay/Minnesota are just really good teams and having to go through some combination of them on the road would have been a tall task. But you give us a bye and a home game and we probably go back to the Super Bowl.

If we had played like the last 8 games from the start and we didn't have all those injuries on offense then we would have gotten 13+ wins.

Good team with great players but lacked execution, suffered some injuries and seemed to be missing that "it" factor this year. Thought 10 wins was fair (should've been 11) given it all... Disappointed in the way it ended.

I do hope this ending re-invigorates the team for next year. It will be Wilsons team from here on out

Honest truth is we under performed for much of the season.

WilliamCooper":m1pfew29 said:

This team was just not that good. If it weren't for elite QB play of Russ, this would be a 7-9/8-8 team at best. We started 2-4, it is a statistical anomaly that we got this far.

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Your "Honest Truth" doesn't jive with mine, and I wager that it doesn't coincide with the majority of the fans.
As was already mentioned, this team is chock full of outstanding role players, with a smattering of players that in the first part of the Season that were just too green to handle the 1st class opposition that they faced early on, I mean going 4 & 2 set off an alarm to Pete and his Coaching staff.
1. - - Kam can take his share of the blame for some of the Defensive misfiring, it was his holdout that forced Richards to try and re-construct a scheme for the missing pieces in the Secondary.
I mean, no Chancellor, or Maxwell, and NO CONTINUITY, forced the moving of Sherman & Thomas away from their usual area of expertise, to cover for their selfish BROTHER, now, couple that with having Williams playing in place of Maxwell, not having Kam in there to shore up the coverage...........IT WAS A MESS.
2.- - The Offensive Line that was being groomed for the Run Game was a sieve in Pass Protection, now, how much of the blame goes to Cable, when he's being charged with the duties of building a rush blocking scheme, and then having to shift the greenhorn O-Linemen over to being a Pass Protection unit because Marshawn Lynch is hurt, I don't know?
But I do know that Wilson had to readjust to make up for not having Lynch in there with him to attack the opposing Defenses.
Then after losing the promising RB Thomas Rawls to injury, even more of the load shifted onto the shoulders of Russell Wilson.
Bevell & Cable had to get their inexperienced O-Linemen to try and form some kind of protective pocket for RW to step into, and Wilson also had to work at getting the ball out faster...and he did so with flying colors.
It wasn't like he was going to get a lot of time for plays to develop (like Newton did for most of the game yesterday)
I'm betting that IF Wilson were to have that kind of time to pick & choose from a pocket?, he'd destroy ANY Defense.

After all's said & done, the Seahawks have numerous super stars on the team, but even they can't do it all by themselves.
Almost all the key players are there, the whole thing just needs a little tweaking.
Think about how close we were to winning in those games that got away from us, and even yesterdays game against a 15 & 1 Team...Yeah, these guys ARE THAT GOOD.

This is actually a 12-13 win team that crapped the bed earlier in the season because they didn't properly address the RCB and center positions.

JSeahawks":2gvmn23v said:

Honest truth is we under performed for much of the season.

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Perfect summary in one sentence.

Our window is wide open, we just have to hope John and Pete do a better job of getting rid of the distractions before camp, and if that means getting rid of some star players? I'm all for it, no more wasting our window taking half a season to get our crap together.

WilliamCooper":17c4ju91 said:

This team was just not that good. If it weren't for elite QB play of Russ, this would be a 7-9/8-8 team at best. We started 2-4, it is a statistical anomaly that we got this far.

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Right.. #1 scoring defense in the NFL is only good for .500 w/o Russ playing lights out? i disagree

12thbrah":10pzep9p said:

This is actually a 12-13 win team that crapped the bed earlier in the season because they didn't properly address the RCB and center positions.

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And because the SS was a 'me first' holdout?

hawksfansinceday1":2vlxp9gy said:

12thbrah":2vlxp9gy said:

This is actually a 12-13 win team that crapped the bed earlier in the season because they didn't properly address the RCB and center positions.

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And because the SS was a 'me first' holdout?

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Wasn't just Kam.

Bennett whining, Graham trade split the team more than Pete admits, Russell's contract negotiations and subsequent Hollywooding around town, Lynch threatening to retire if he didn't get more cash.

Ask any coach what the biggest season killer is for SB contending teams, and it's distractions................we had too many before we got focused and hungry again.

Good news is Pete's smart, he's learned and will try to make sure that doesn't happen again.

Barthawk":nkrlv1gu said:

WilliamCooper":nkrlv1gu said:

This team was just not that good. If it weren't for elite QB play of Russ, this would be a 7-9/8-8 team at best. We started 2-4, it is a statistical anomaly that we got this far.

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Right.. #1 scoring defense in the NFL is only good for .500 w/o Russ playing lights out? i disagree

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then lets trade Wilson save the money get an AVG QB and we should be great. R-I-G-H-T. FYI we were 4-5 before they changed the Offense to be more Wilsons offense and he played lights out. So you got your answer, yes were are 500 without it. If not then like I said trade Wilson get an AVG QB and we are set, I mean our #1 defense is worth more than .500 or 8 wins without Wilson, so no worries.

It wouldn't have mattered.

If we had won those Rams games, we would still have been playing in Carolina at some point. And it is very likely we still would have lost.

It wasn't the games they lost at the beginning of the season that killed them (but for the time slot). Carolina matched up perfectly with us and beat us, twice.

The team we fielded was not as good as the team they fielded for the game we were playing against them. With all our pieces could we have beaten them? Absolutely. But without Rawls and Graham? That would be asking a lot. Even then, you notice that most of our defense was just fine and they were able to run pretty effectively against us? Carolina just had our number.

Sgt. Largent":egnbztmc said:

hawksfansinceday1":egnbztmc said:

12thbrah":egnbztmc said:

This is actually a 12-13 win team that crapped the bed earlier in the season because they didn't properly address the RCB and center positions.

Click to expand...

And because the SS was a 'me first' holdout?

Click to expand...

Wasn't just Kam.

Bennett whining, Graham trade split the team more than Pete admits, Russell's contract negotiations and subsequent Hollywooding around town, Lynch threatening to retire if he didn't get more cash.

Ask any coach what the biggest season killer is for SB contending teams, and it's distractions................we had too many before we got focused and hungry again.

Good news is Pete's smart, he's learned and will try to make sure that doesn't happen again.

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Concur with all that youy listed. Good post.

Disagree. It was coaching strategy at least 70%, 30% to injuries, SB hangover, distractions

We lost a lot of games in the first half of the season playing like we had an offensive line and a brutal north and south RB.

Our OL was not good enough to let a hurt lynch run straight ahead. defensive lines were in lynch's face 3 yards behind the line of scrimmage. They ran right through nowak.

The OL could not pass protect long enough to let developing pass plays actually develop. it left russ with receivers not open and halfway into routes before he had to scramble.

Once we changed the offense to spread out defenses along the line and go for shorter hot routes with intermediate and 1 long over the top, we had success.

It was a coaching issue not having the ability to make up for poor OL play. We went back to the same old ways of doing things late in the season and in the post season, and we saw how that went.

Our OL won't be much better any time soon as we don't have the money to go out and get FA guys, even if they were available. We have shown we can operate at a high level with a mediocre line and use the money in other areas.

The games we lost, we lost by a small margin. Even 1 quarter of play in the system we eventually woke up and went to would have won those games.

Say what?

Totally disagree with the OP. The team simply started very slow, that more than any other thing bit them in the rear.

Lots of key injuries, much team discord from self centre individuals, a lot of post XLIX hangover = 2nd Rd playoff exit. The team was very inconsistent and all the 'troubles' contributed to that inconsistency.there was no absence of fight just a continuing inability to start quickly.