So the defense that has clamped down on Tony Romo, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Cam Newton, and Alex Smith is suddenly "overrated" because of one loss? It's "terrible on third down" because it's played against a lot of excellent 3rd-down QB's (which, BTW, is part of the definition of an elite QB)? Seven good games get erased by the eighth?

Am I the only one who thinks this is just a tad bit overreactionary? I'm not gonna buy it. Plenty of other explanations.

People were silly from the beginning to think that this offense was nothing more than Calvin Johnson bailing out a terrible QB. Matt Stafford won this game on the back of uber-accurate passes into great coverage. There are plays that even the best defense can't reliably beat, and Stafford had a bunch of them today. This was the 8th-ranked DVOA offense. It is not embarrassing to lose to them. Young and Broyles on a team with Megaton, Pettigrew, and Scheffler could make this a scary offense for years to come.

(Imagine if we had that many weapons, instead of Charly Martin and Golden "Let's Get Cute" Tate. Sheesh, 7 catches and he still manages to make most of them pointless. STRETCH FOR THE FIRST DOWN AND QUIT HASSELTOSSING, YOU AWKWARD ROLE-PLAYER.)

And not all of Stafford's passes took him five seconds to establish, so don't blame the pass rush for ALL of them. If you're gonna look there, remember that Jason Jones' absence counts for a lot. We were all grumbling about the lack of interior pressure from a good 3-tech last ye4ar - well, today we reverted to that ineffective play and our secondary couldn't cope. But Stafford also made some awesome stick throws into tight coverage today that would have been hard to defend by anyone. Tom Brady made similar throws. I didn't see anyone calling our D "underrated" then. We're just labeling this defense based purely on whether we won or lost.

My inevitable takeaway: This was the most NFL-ish game the Seahawks have played in a long time. A "normal" score instead of a collection of field goals. Actual scoring. No glaring issues that can't be mitigated by better health. No ill effects from youth, self-destruction, or general lack of talent or identity. Just a throwdown by two increasingly complete teams. Sustained scoring by both sides. Spotty but good execution on both sides. Both teams wanting it, playing hard despite losing players. Both QB's proving they can marshal fourth-quarter scoring drives. And in the end, the game came down to whichever team had the last word in the fourth-quarter, and whose injuries were more crucial. That team was Seattle, despite hanging tough with real points in a ROAD game. It felt more like an NFL playoff game than any game Seattle has played under Russell Wilson yet.

Big positives:

* Clutch conversions on the 4th-qtr drive by a pocket-climbing Wilson. QBOTF play from him today despite missing Doug Baldwin AND Braylon Edwards. On the road.

* Almost no penalties. On the road.

* D held Stafford to a merely okay 7.2, further proving that they forced Stafford to earn every yard of this game (he was simply up to the challenge). On the road.

* Zach Miller finally showing up. On the road.

* Further chemistry between RW and Sidney Rice. On the road.

* Run defense floundered early but quickly got their feet back under them. On the road.

* Lynch ran hard and broke 100 yards again. On the road.

* We lost by only four points. On the road.

* Did I mention this was all on the road?


So let's just...simmer down, folks. I know this was a must-win conference game, but for the millionth time, it was rich to expect this team to compete in the playoffs with such few offensive weapons. We'll get there. And the run game/defense will still be here.

And for those of you silly enough to actually put Pete on a hot seat...seriously, you have an estrogen buildup somewhere. Go to a specialist and get it drained or something.

_________________
GO HAWKS!!!

Visit my Seahawks blog at 17power.blogspot.com!

Follow me on Twitter at @17power

Like I said in another thread, we're a young team still learning how to win.

We'll be fine.

Btw, excellent post, hope it doesnt get buried in all the overreaction, whining and crying.

_________________

Where can I get those glasses ?

_________________

I am not buying it either. If we stopped them on the last drive - no one is saying any of this. They are one of the best offenses in the league - at home after getting beat in a game where they should have scored four TDs against the #1 defense on the road.

I loved how our offense played even without a steady running game. We finally passed on first down with good success on the road.

But give credit to Detroit. They are a good team.

_________________
Beast Mode...try BORG MODE

Driver of the PC/JS Bandwagon since 2010

If you want to see things clearly, you just need to make an appointment with your optometrist.

This defense has been very good through 7 games with some problems that we've been seeing all year, they lose 1 game due to those same problems and suddenly this defense has never been very good. That means what? Perfect play all season or "you suck Seahawks!"?

It's still a good defense. However I will disagree that it isn't embarrassing to lose to the Lions. The Lions were getting beaten by defenses all year who weren't being talked about as the best in the league. For them to have their breakout game against our D is embarrassing, especially in a game where the offense held up their end.

The Seahawks D aren't bums by any stretch but I sure hope they're embarrassed and that this burns them. It isn't overreacting to point out they pissed themselves today. Heck I don't believe there's a single one of them would wouldn't say themselves they never should have played that poorly, road or no.

Thanks for this post Montana.

The Lions were going to break out of their offensive slump eventually. They just decided to do it against us.

*sigh*

_________________
My single greatest contribution to the board: "42-13" (formerly 24-14)

Yes to all of it.

_________________

Official Tharold Simon Fan Club Member

I completely agree. Just a bad game for a still young defense. Still plenty of season to get hot. We all knew the first half of the season was gonna be tough. We got wins where I didn't think we'd get wins and losses from teams I never thought we'd lose to. We can still make a push, let's not panic!

That's how I feel. Stafford was elite today.

_________________
GO HAWKS!!!

Visit my Seahawks blog at 17power.blogspot.com!

Follow me on Twitter at @17power

Not in the tampon section.

_________________
Tanzania¹²

Exactly

We have the 3rd youngest team in the league. It takes time to develop players, learn to win and be consistent play after play. We are growing, we are getting better, we are improving. I really enjoin watching the growth of this team. This team is heading in the right direction and it will become good for a long time but it just takes time to gel. More time then the average fan has patience for.

And we can still call ourselves a number one defense, because it was just inevitable after all. The mighty Lions HAD to breakout against someone, and if it's us, well, we may as well not make the plane trip. I mean nobody could have stopped them today, nobody.

Please. Our defense is very, very good, but best in the league? If Megatron doesn't drop half his passes today then they rack up even more yards.

You're not gonna buy this overrated defense overreaction?! What?! You mean its possible for an opposing offense to be the one making good plays rather than us playing bad!? How dare you!

_________________
----

Probably yes,,, what ain't you buyin'?, a Defense that had the job of keeping the 2 & 4 Lions from going downfield in their last drive from just waltzing to the other end?..........Plenty of other EXcuses, not explanations.
I love all the positives you mention, but they don't mean squat in a loss.

I tend to agree Montana, but my issue is this: Detroit did this to us, where they haven't all year long to anyone else.

EVERY other team dictated to Detroit how their offense would go. An Elite defense dictates the offense's tempo. We didn't, and haven't all year long on 3rd down. You can credit opposing offenses and QBs, but giving up 3rd and 8's, 3rd and 12's, and 3rd and 15's with alarming regularity isn't teams taking the play from us, it's us giving the play to them. The AVERAGE NFL defense gets teams out in 3rd and long more often than not. We're the other way around. Does that make us overrated ? Maybe. We're sure not an elite defense yet though. Or I should say, we're an elite defense at home. Which means our team has to be near perfect in today's NFC to get a homefield advantage through the playoffs for us to ever have a shot at a Superbowl the way things stand.

" Lynch ran hard and broke 100 yards again. On the road."

This is an empty 100 yards, really. Lynch had a 77 yard run, other than that, all his runs averaged barely over 2 yards per carry. If you looked at the line score, and saw Lynch had 12 yards for 105 yards, one might ask "why the hell didn't we run Lynch more?" The answer is that the Lions' DL is elite and controlled the line of scrimmage for the most part, which is why our passing offense was much better today.

browner on the post game said they were running zone coverage on that final play... why the hell would they run zone coverage at the 1 yard line?

You could have left it at



And I think it would have been sufficient. It was pretty clear today that he's a massive part of our scheme.

I think an elite defense finds a way to overcome not having Jason Jones. The Lions just lost Burleson and Megatron may as well have been injured the way he played today.

i feel you can come up with every excuse in the book to justify today's performance by the D. we're young, lions are good, coaching.. none of it matters. the bottom line is , we can't cover short middle of the field plays, can't cover backs out of the back field, can't cover TE's... can't get off the field on 3rd and longs... these issues need to be addressed period, we're running out of time... the offense is improving, the defense is regressing... all the excuses in the book is not going to change things... IMO it starts with the coaching.... it's time some of these coaches start taking accountablility , swallow their pride or whatever, realize they're schemes are not working, make adjustments and get us back on track... that's starts with Carrol...

_________________
On to the Next Episode