Seattle's recent woes could be the D they faced

Looking at this list of top defensive rankings, many of Seattle opponents are near the top.

Now, Denver is down bottom 1/3, so the bowl could be sweet for us.

http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats? ... 447263-n=1

I have a feeling we're going to shred Denver.

That offense of their's is pretty darn good sure, but what defenses have they faced? The best D they faced was maybe KC or Baltimore. Everyone else was average or worse. That "record setting season" their O just had is a bit of a paper tiger in relation to the level of competition they've faced. They're built to win shootouts and their pedestrian D allows an average of 25 points a game. I don't think our all-world defense allows this thing to turn into a shootout, so if Denver has a hope of winning, they'd better hope their defense brings their big boy pants to New Jersey because our offense just hung 23 on the second best defense in the league. Beast is beasting and Russell is swinging back into form.

I think our D line is going to collapse the pocket and put a ton of pressure on Manning. Yes he gets the ball out quickly, but he's not going to have anyone to get it out TO because all his recievers will be getting jammed into nothingness at the LOS. They're going to have to commit to getting their run game working early in order to keep our rushers honest, because if our guys start pinning their ears back; it'll get real ugly real fast.

Damn... Why do we have to wait 2 weeks? I want to play NOW!!! ;P

I agree the D's are part of it but I still feel play calling is part too. Just looking at this game is interesting. In a broad stroke no detail version this is how I seen this game.

We come out aggressive evidenced by the play action naked bootleg what appeared to be a deep shot attempt that went horribly wrong. Recognizing the jitters, and rightfully so, we went more conservative to settle it down. SF scores again making it 10-0 and we again have to dial up the O aggressiveness and claw our way back for rest of 2nd, 3rd, and half of 4th qtrs. With the D clearly dominating the 2nd half and some oddball bad things happening on the O side, we again dial back into the grind it out mode in 4th qtr and let our superior D do what they do.

I am really not all that thrilled w/ Bevell''s playcalling of late but I thought he did much better this game w/ some screens, slants, crossing routes, mixing up throwing early downs and running.

I do believe Bevell's play calling does have a lot to do w/ what PC wants strategy wise. Personally, I am of the more aggresive go get it, leave no doubt style myself but understand PC's ideas. I just hate when it occasionally backfires ala atlanta,indy, such. Anytime you play this keep it close, grind it out, tight margin of victory there is always the "oops" chance where you lose it by less than 7 pts. My biggest issue w/ this is in the playoffs where you are done w/ 1 lousy "oops".

In summation, I think a lot of our offensive "woes" lately has been from this playing it close to the vest type of play calling where we are doing just enough type stuff. Certainly, there are many other factors that affect us including Oline, WR's injuries/abilities, and types of teams we face.

I think we will again do what is necessary depending on the flow of the game, like it or hate it. If our D is eating up the donkeys and they seem to have trouble scoring, we will slow play it and try to grind it like last few games. If we get behind early, we open up the O and let em rip for awhile.

The Saints and 49ers have better defenses than any team from the AFC. So yeah, the offense slump could be because of the defenses faced. The other thought is many coaches change their philosophy once the postseason begins. I believe that is the case here. The goal is just to get to the next game in the postseason. Well now there isn't a next game after the Superbowl. So I believe the strategy will change somewhat. Maybe they become more creative and less conservative on offense. We'll see in two weeks.

I liked the play calling. Usually I can call what's coming, and I guessed run on about 4-5 PA passes. And they were in spots where we've run the ball in that situation all year long.

Add in some wrinkles with Percy and it's going to be good.

Evidently, the media is now talking like Denver's run defense is actually good, which the numbers don't bear out. I think if we can establish the run, we're going to murder that team. Running and ball control keeps Manning on the sideline and the Defense fresh. Then we kill them over the top with PA. Their secondary isn't that good at all.

Hawks46":30nvoyqr said:

I liked the play calling. Usually I can call what's coming, and I guessed run on about 4-5 PA passes. And they were in spots where we've run the ball in that situation all year long.

Add in some wrinkles with Percy and it's going to be good.

Evidently, the media is now talking like Denver's run defense is actually good, which the numbers don't bear out. I think if we can establish the run, we're going to murder that team. Running and ball control keeps Manning on the sideline and the Defense fresh. Then we kill them over the top with PA. Their secondary isn't that good at all.

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The Denver rush D is artificially good. It looks good statistically on paper because Manning forces teams to abandon the running game to keep up on the score board, thus low rushing stats. Another reason their passing defense looks artificially poor, more yards put up as teams try to keep up. The truth lies somewhere in the middle that they have an average defense. While our O isn't going to destroy them every possession, it will be the best movement up and down the field that we have seen in weeks.

This is what I have been saying since the playoffs started. Don't get me wrong, I just honestly believe that the only time that the Hawks offense truly couldn't work at all was the AZ game. Everything else was situational and in games that they won anyways. They lost a close one in SF but were able to move the ball on the road.

Other than STL, every game that followed the bye week was against a defense ranked no less than 7. Even the giants. That has to play hell on offensive performance. In fact for the entire season only 3 teams they played had a defense ranked lower than the Broncos.

I'd like to see more designed runs or RO for Russell. Kaep gashed us on those and I think we could that against Denver's D too. Don't think they've faced a mobile QB all year.

Recent woes? We've scored 46 points in the post season against two top 5 defenses. Denver scored 50 against two middle of the road defenses. Seems like their high powered offense isn't looking as sharp lately.

Seattle didnt want the D

CANHawk":j7jb4xee said:

I don't think our all-world defense allows this thing to turn into a shootout, so if Denver has a hope of winning, they'd better hope their defense brings their big boy pants to New Jersey because our offense just hung 23 on the second best defense in the league.

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FWIW, based on NFL defensive regular season stats, Denver recently beat the #7 ranked defense (Houston) by 24 points (37-13) in week 16... San Fran finished the regular season ranked 5th.

MileHighFish":2yhakxqa said:

FWIW, based on NFL defensive regular season stats, Denver recently beat the #7 ranked defense (Houston) by 24 points (37-13) in week 16... San Fran finished the regular season ranked 5th.

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The NFL's standard of ranking is stupid. Yardage means little. Points allowed when factoring in how many good offenses a defense has played is where it's at. Go look at Football Outsiders' list, that's the most accurate one in existence. http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamdef

Lynch will run all over the Broncos, I full expect 100+ from him.