Thanks. Just watched the whole thing.
Some things I forgot about that team:
-Shaun should have been a terrible running back based on many facets of his play, but man did he make up for it with his cut-making ability, burst, vision, and pad level. For a guy that went down so easily most of the time, he shrugged off a lot of tackles in the open field because he kept his pads so low.
-Really miss D-Jack. I always knew he was a great possession receiver but he was a better athlete than I remember.
-Jerramy Stevens drove fans crazy, but he stepped up big in some of our biggest playoff wins. The opening TD in that game is a play only Stevens could have made. He was frustrating, but I wish we'd get a TE in the next couple drafts with the "wow" moments he provided.
-Officials screwed us in that game every bit as bad as the SB. Thankfully the Panthers played a miserable game and it didn't matter.
-I know the stats say Wagner had a better rookie year, but Tatupu did more for that defense than Wagner did for ours in 2012, IMO.
-Kind of amazing how effective that defense was considering that it was loaded with no-names, and all but just a few of them declined immediately after that season.
-Matt really was an elite QB back then. I'm surprised how mobile he looked. I think I'd take 2005 Matt Hasselbeck over 2012 Matt Ryan.
-While I like the current team much more than the 2005 squad, one thing I vastly prefer about the 2005 version was the pace and rhythm which their offense played at. Today, our offense snaps the ball with 1 second on the play clock. Back then, they hustled to the line with 20 seconds to go and snapped the ball almost immediately. They huddled up between plays, but the pace felt very no-huddle. I think that's the perfect pace for an offense to be optimal- something I wish Pete Carroll would learn.