Why Do We Care How Dominate We Are?

AROS

Administrator
Administrator
Moderator
Joined
Feb 23, 2007
Messages
18,958
Reaction score
7,669
Location
Sultan, WA
So much of the game experience is the prefunking with old and new friends. No matter what is going on with the team, no matter their record, we have this communion that bonds us together.

Today, the wife and I went to Temple as per usual for prefunking festivities. We saw Seatown, Hawkstorian, Bart and a few others, and hung out with some other friends of ours. My wife is usually the calm, even-keeled one during a game. Today she was a firecracker! Sure, maybe the extra Manny's played a small role but I was honestly shocked by her demeanor. "What is going on with you?" I said to her in the 2nd quarter.

"This is NOT what I expected!"

That is the first time my wife has ever shown any real displeasure over the product on the field. Like many of us, we expected to not just beat the Titans at home, but smoke 'em.

What is it about expectations that makes some of us not appreciate a victory? Walking out of the game today I swear it was a loss. Why do we care if we win by 35 or 3? Speaking for me personally, I buy into the paradigm that we are an elite team in the NFL. When we suddenly don't look so elite, it's like a slap in the face to my reality. Plus, you're talking about 37 years of being perpetually disappointed by the team I love that is so hard to remove from my DNA overnight.

I don't want to feel like we lost the game when we won like I feel a lot of fans did walking out of the game. Not literally, but emotionally, I felt that, no more closer than my wife.

So if we end up 14-2 this year but win most of those games like we won today...

Will you not be able to enjoy the success as much as if we smoked every team we beat? Today's win was a wake up call in how the dynamics of a game effects my perception about how good we are and how enjoyable the games are for me...And my wife apparently.
 

Greenhell

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 30, 2009
Messages
3,539
Reaction score
53
I'm enjoying every single game. Blow out or no blow out. Wins like this help to build character and keep the players humble knowing on any given Sunday it could be them on the losing end. I kinda feel sorry for Bronco fans. Actually, no I don't. They're expecting blow outs and Madden like stats every weekend. Boy is reality gonna smack them down real hard soon.
 

amill87

New member
Joined
Jan 23, 2011
Messages
1,374
Reaction score
0
I kind of touched on this in another thread but I think the end of last season put some unrealistic expectations in our heads. Just because we are finding ways to win ugly does not mean we aren't elite. There aren't too many elite teams that blow out every team they are "supposed" to (btw who decided we were supposed to blow the titans out? They aren't the bottom of the league anymore).

Any team can look good when they are getting breaks and things are going their way (which is generally what happens in blowouts). I remember thinking last year about the Niners how it was all well and good they looked good when things were going well, but I had this idea that they would fall short under adversity (and low and behold when it came down to clutch time, they couldn't finish).

Is there a single Hawk fan who will ever feel like this team can't overcome any adversity so long as Wilson is in the game?
 

AgentDib

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
5,468
Reaction score
1,240
Location
Bothell
To some degree I think every fan cares about both sides of this coin: whether we win (W/L outcome), and how well we play (perception of strength). The two are interdependent because how we play affects our perceptions of whether we will win in the future. The Chiefs and the Broncos are both 6-0, but if you read the respective forums it becomes apparent that Chief fans do not seem nearly as happy due to their own problems on offense, namely unease about Alex Smith playing too safe to get the ball to a physical receiver who doesn't get much separation (Dwayne Bowe).

At the start of a season there are still a lot of games to be played and so fans want to see their team play well so they can project more wins going forward. As the season progresses, however, that perception matters less and less until eventually the only thing that matters in the playoffs is whether you win or lose. Week 6 is early enough that it is reasonable for fans to care about poor performance as much as they care about the individual outcome of the game, but this will change as the season progresses.
 

hawkfan1975

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2011
Messages
731
Reaction score
0
Because....it's Tennessee(And we're at home)?
*guess as for the displeasure
 
OP
OP
AROS

AROS

Administrator
Administrator
Moderator
Joined
Feb 23, 2007
Messages
18,958
Reaction score
7,669
Location
Sultan, WA
AgentDib":z3jpwimb said:
To some degree I think every fan cares about both sides of this coin: whether we win (W/L outcome), and how well we play (perception of strength). The two are interdependent because how we play affects our perceptions of whether we will win in the future. The Chiefs and the Broncos are both 6-0, but if you read the respective forums it becomes apparent that Chief fans do not seem nearly as happy due to their own problems on offense, namely unease about Alex Smith playing too safe to get the ball to a physical receiver who doesn't get much separation (Dwayne Bowe).

At the start of a season there are still a lot of games to be played and so fans want to see their team play well so they can project more wins going forward. As the season progresses, however, that perception matters less and less until eventually the only thing that matters in the playoffs is whether you win or lose. Week 6 is early enough that it is reasonable for fans to care about poor performance as much as they care about the individual outcome of the game, but this will change as the season progresses.

Good stuff!
 

RolandDeschain

Well-known member
Joined
May 1, 2009
Messages
33,116
Reaction score
943
Location
Kissimmee, FL
It's very simple, IMO. If we keep dicking around, shooting ourselves in the foot, relying on the luck of penalties to get half of our drives into the red zone, etc.; these things will make us one & done in the playoffs.

It astounds me that anyone here thinks that coaches look at a game and say "Well, we won, so we must be doing things very well", or anything remotely related to that. Honestly, we're lucky we won this game in some ways. We're the better team, but the Titans were playing their BACKUP quarterback and even he, Fitzpatrick, managed to drive down on us a few times.

Some of you guys may be fine being a "paper tiger" like Denver was last year, 13-3 looks like an elite powerhouse on paper, but they got exposed in the playoffs. Defend it by saying the Ravens went on to win the Super Bowl so there's no shame in that all you want, but just like last year, Denver's covering up weaknesses with their ridiculous scoring and the fact that they've played against a lot of soft targets. I see some similar tendencies with the Seahawks; except we're relying on our defense to carry the team, not the offense, and part of the problem is our defense has been inconsistent last week and this week. Even if they get back to form, relying on one aspect of the team while the other keeps just misfiring like a gun with a broken firing pin is going to be a problem when the games really matter come January.

I'm not trying to make it sound like I'm crying about our team, we're still doing very well overall; but we are capable of more, even with our broken-down O-line at the moment. :)
 

hoxrox

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 5, 2009
Messages
3,299
Reaction score
1,972
I don't expect us to dominate every game, but I do expect us to be much better than what we showed today, especially at home.

People that say "yea but we're 5-1" are naive. I don't think Carroll, or the team, is thinking that way. We're not running away with the division any time soon. We know it's going to come to the very end. And we know how important HFA is. Any one game could cost us the division like it did last year. And a poor showing like today is going to cost us games against better teams.
 

253hawk

Active member
Joined
Sep 13, 2013
Messages
3,322
Reaction score
15
Location
PNW
Football is organized chaos; it's unrealistic to have any sort of expectations met. It's 'Any Given Sunday' for a reason. The NFL has the most parity out of any major professional sport, despite whatever W/L anyone has.

We're 9-10 in games that have come down to a single possession since our last 2+ score loss. That could easily be 0-19 or 19-0, but it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is getting the W and gearing up for the next week. Right now it's a 10 game season and we're through the toughest part of our schedule (IMO anyway) with a depleted OL and not even firing on all cylinders yet.

Weird side note: Hawks are the only team that have played all 4 of their non-conf games already.
 

RolandDeschain

Well-known member
Joined
May 1, 2009
Messages
33,116
Reaction score
943
Location
Kissimmee, FL
hoxrox":1yqjdswv said:
I don't think Carroll, or the team, is thinking that way.

Carroll is definitely NOT thinking that way, I guarantee it. Anybody who thinks otherwise needs to watch his Monday presser from any of our blowouts late last year over Arizona, San Francisco, or Buffalo, then watch his Monday presser tomorrow. Carroll knows we didn't get much done today, despite the win. He's far from stupid.
 

djb28

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 5, 2007
Messages
2,364
Reaction score
222
I am just happy we find ways to win. Ways to win the close game. Ways to bounce back from the bad games. Isn't that all we ever wanted? Now that we got it, It doesn't seem to be enough.
 

Vpk0718

New member
Joined
Apr 22, 2010
Messages
554
Reaction score
0
That was a 3-2 team with a top 10 defense (people seem to think they were scrubs and we should have demolished them), and, if not for a fluke play, we win by 2+ possessions.

Sloppy play can be cleaned up. Last year's team was sloppy too in the beginning. If it's not cleaned up later in the season I will be disappointed then, but there are very few things I am disappointed in with today's game.
 

Fudwamper

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 30, 2009
Messages
1,457
Reaction score
107
Sloppy play. I think it is because this team can dominate if it did not have so much sloppy mental mistakes/plays/inconsistencies.
 

NINEster

Well-known member
Joined
May 19, 2012
Messages
2,071
Reaction score
59
My take on all this:

Seattle is no longer under the radar.

Their coming out party late last season as a team equal to or maybe better than SF meant teams were going to give it their all and focus on dealing with them during the offseason. Just like the 49ers had to deal with all of last season. Welcome to being elite.

Teams have begun to understand that playing Seattle and sf is about aggressive physicality. Giants fans tell me that their 2011 loss to the Seahawk was the most dominant slapping around they can recall in recent years. A lot of this is mental, and while the NFC west juggernauts still have that edge it is tough to do week in and week out when you are going up against the entire league.

Right now Denver is playing this villainous role themselves and seeing it harder and harder each week. Their two closest wins come against not the best teams so far. Jacksonville still gets paid to play in this league and it showed yesterday.

After our humbling loss to Seahawks and colts we've readjusted expectations for the short term and just want wins. Knew Cards would be tough, and will be fine with squeaking out two more wins until the bye. After losing in Minnesota last year in a stunner, the modern nfl has reminded me this is not the good ole days where the regular season is a formality.

The one thing I'm seeing is how hard it is to win games purely on defense. The real difference in this vs last years teams are the offenses are not putting teams in holes quickly. The way our defenses play, scoring 21 to 28 in a half is demoralizing. 10-14 not so much.
 

TheHawkster

Active member
Joined
Mar 5, 2007
Messages
2,284
Reaction score
1
Location
Puyallup
No mercy!................. Got a problem with that?

cobra_kai.jpg
 

amill87

New member
Joined
Jan 23, 2011
Messages
1,374
Reaction score
0
It's a good thing the Super Bowl isn't played in October. We haven't even come close to peaking yet.

Being the naive fan that I am, let me clarify my thought process. It isn't that I think the team is perfect. It's that I feel like this team can win any game regardless how they are playing. They are that good. There will be days they make it hard but they have consistently found a way to do it. They revel in it, just listen to Sherman post game.
 

drdiags

New member
Joined
Mar 1, 2007
Messages
10,682
Reaction score
1
Location
Kent, Washington
I don't expect domination, except maybe the Jaguars. What I would like to see though is clean football. Losing isn't the end of the world to me. But blown assignments, stupid penalties and people trying to do more than just their jobs irks me.

Right now, I would just like to see the team continue stacking wins while cleaning things up. Those who are dismissive of other NFL teams are due to have their spirits broken. I just see the Cardinals coming up. I expect a sloppy, tough and bruising game. I cannot afford myself the luxury of thinking about the Saints or Vikings or anybody else right now.

I try to keep my emotions out of looking at games and if I want to be logical, to look at the opponent in an impartial way. Scott was right about Fitzpatrick. If not for him the Titans game could have been really disastrous.
 
Top