kearly
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I'm fine with giving opponents credit. I thought the Texans and Bucs beat the daylights out of us in those first halves because they played amazingly good football. I think Arizona's defense played a very good game, and their DC had the perfect game plan for Seattle's base offense.
I am also almost never a guy that pins a loss on playcalling.
But I think this game was 80% Seattle beating themselves and 20% Arizona beating Seattle. And I think the refusal to adapt all game long and force the same losing game plan with stubbornness was probably the biggest reason for Seattle's loss today. Arizona pretty much gameplanned Seattle's vanilla offense to a tee, and rather than get creative with designed QB runs, screens, or bubble screens, it was more and more of square peg meet round hole. Is that Bevell's fault or is it Pete's? I honestly don't know.
All I know is, barring a couple of nice catches by Kearse, this was undoubtedly the most unclutch game of the Russell Wilson era, offensively. Without a doubt. All those thin margin plays our offense relies on kept coming up snake eyes over and over again.
I never expected Wilson to win MVP. I'm not expecting Pete to get coach of the year, and I'm even kind of skeptical that JS gets GM of the year. And we're definitely not getting a RoY this year. All I wanted was for Wilson to go 17-0 at home to start his career and get that record. That's all I wanted to have over the next month. If Seattle had done that and gotten bounced in the SB, as much as that would have sucked, I understand that you can't win every SB. But this felt like low hanging fruit, and they blew it in the most painful way possible.
This loss also raises serious questions about the offense going forward. Certain styles of defense have shut them down a lot like how certain styles of defense shut down Colin Kaepernick. And when they aren't playing those specific defenses, I would guess they are averaging over 30 points a game. It could just be a case of us having a very basic OC who sucks at adjusting. I hope it's that simple.
BTW, the ball clearly hit the ground on that last interception. Not only the dirt flying in the air, but the physics of how it bounced made it very obvious. That has to be one of the worst replay decisions of the entire NFL season, when factoring the magnitude of it especially. I also think Pete's lost challenge on a fumble was a poor officiating decision too. From one angle you could see the runner lying on top of a seahawk, his knees did not touch early, and his arm did not touch early either, then on the other angle you can see the ball come out when he's 18 inches off the ground. I'm a little more forgiving of that one, but that was a botched review as well. How rare to have two of those in against Seattle in the same game, in the same 4th quarter of a tight game.
On Malcolm Smith's interception, he probably gets to the end zone if Chancellor and Bennett look for blocks competently. If you don't know what I mean, watch that play again. Chancellor has an easy chance to block the eventual tackler but turns around and blocks a non-factor player for no reason, and Bennett is caught watching the whole way instead of helping to seal a block inside the five. Hauschka misses a chip shot, after Lynch came inches short. Floyd's TD was bobbled after Maxwell made a nice play to break up the pass. So many layers of unreal this game was.
If Seattle ends up a wildcard, words can't express how mind blowing the journey to that wildcard will be.
I am also almost never a guy that pins a loss on playcalling.
But I think this game was 80% Seattle beating themselves and 20% Arizona beating Seattle. And I think the refusal to adapt all game long and force the same losing game plan with stubbornness was probably the biggest reason for Seattle's loss today. Arizona pretty much gameplanned Seattle's vanilla offense to a tee, and rather than get creative with designed QB runs, screens, or bubble screens, it was more and more of square peg meet round hole. Is that Bevell's fault or is it Pete's? I honestly don't know.
All I know is, barring a couple of nice catches by Kearse, this was undoubtedly the most unclutch game of the Russell Wilson era, offensively. Without a doubt. All those thin margin plays our offense relies on kept coming up snake eyes over and over again.
I never expected Wilson to win MVP. I'm not expecting Pete to get coach of the year, and I'm even kind of skeptical that JS gets GM of the year. And we're definitely not getting a RoY this year. All I wanted was for Wilson to go 17-0 at home to start his career and get that record. That's all I wanted to have over the next month. If Seattle had done that and gotten bounced in the SB, as much as that would have sucked, I understand that you can't win every SB. But this felt like low hanging fruit, and they blew it in the most painful way possible.
This loss also raises serious questions about the offense going forward. Certain styles of defense have shut them down a lot like how certain styles of defense shut down Colin Kaepernick. And when they aren't playing those specific defenses, I would guess they are averaging over 30 points a game. It could just be a case of us having a very basic OC who sucks at adjusting. I hope it's that simple.
BTW, the ball clearly hit the ground on that last interception. Not only the dirt flying in the air, but the physics of how it bounced made it very obvious. That has to be one of the worst replay decisions of the entire NFL season, when factoring the magnitude of it especially. I also think Pete's lost challenge on a fumble was a poor officiating decision too. From one angle you could see the runner lying on top of a seahawk, his knees did not touch early, and his arm did not touch early either, then on the other angle you can see the ball come out when he's 18 inches off the ground. I'm a little more forgiving of that one, but that was a botched review as well. How rare to have two of those in against Seattle in the same game, in the same 4th quarter of a tight game.
On Malcolm Smith's interception, he probably gets to the end zone if Chancellor and Bennett look for blocks competently. If you don't know what I mean, watch that play again. Chancellor has an easy chance to block the eventual tackler but turns around and blocks a non-factor player for no reason, and Bennett is caught watching the whole way instead of helping to seal a block inside the five. Hauschka misses a chip shot, after Lynch came inches short. Floyd's TD was bobbled after Maxwell made a nice play to break up the pass. So many layers of unreal this game was.
If Seattle ends up a wildcard, words can't express how mind blowing the journey to that wildcard will be.
