In Defense of our Offense

In defense of Seattle’s Offense
We’ve been grinding it out with some of the top defenses of the league through the end of the season and the playoffs. Save for the Rams game, they have been heart attack causing, stomach cramping, sleepless night inducing affairs.

Personally they have been enough to completely kill the excitement of winning the NFC Championship. I just didn’t have the energy after the game to get jacked up. I think the best way to describe my feelings after the game would be “relief”.

So now that the hangover has worn off, I start asking the questions around what could hurt us during the next game. I’ve been over on the Bronco’s boards and a majority of fans think there is no way our offense can keep up with Payton F'ing Manning IF they shut down Marshawn Lynch.

Denver fans, you don't think that every team this season has had the same thought. Guess what, we ended the Season 13-3, largely on our run game. You think your 19th ranked defense is going to shut him down… well that’s a defensive conversation and not for this discussion. Seriously, good luck shutting down Marshawn Lynch, aka Beast Mode, with the Super Bowl on the line.

So “What IF” then they shut down Beast Mode (I know just give me a little latitude here). People including me (until I did this research) think that Russell has suddenly become a game manager and can no longer "carry the team".

They also think Russell can’t go toe to toe with Manning if it becomes a shootout.

And to me (and I think some other folks), this has been a huge cause for concern. We’ve blamed:
1) Play calling,
2) Fanatic no mistake passing (no INT under any circumstances, OR don’t take chances)
3) No more Russell Wilson positive rushing yardage (Planned QB runs shut down)
4) Bad Offensive line play
5) “Poor”, “Average”, “Mediocre”, “Pedestrian Receiving core”
6) No TE Involvement
7) Injuries


In that context, I’ve had to questions spinning around in my head.
1) What happened to the high flying offense of last year?
2) Has the offensive “Style” change negatively impacted offensive production?

To be frank, in my mind, the answers are, Yes and Yes. (BUT, continue reading)

Well let’s look at the difference between the 2012 and 2013 Seasons

The following table is broken down by points scored by Seattle against defenses ranked 15 and under, and defenses ranked 15 and higher. Two Tables one for the 2012 Season and one for the 2013 Season.


Ok, so the point. My expectation was there would be a large drop off in at least one of these categories. The point of the layout was because my assumption is there would be a drop in per game point production. Further I split between top and bottom defenses to see if this had an effect.

Well the results are exactly the same year to year. Which really blew my mind. In fact for teams with a 15th (Like the one we are going to play in the SB) or worse defense our points per game actually went up by +1.25 points per game.


That’s better in 2013, and last year we had 3 50 point games at the end of the Season. To me this may hint at a move towards better consistency.

Personally, this epiphany made me feel a lot better about this game. I believe the Seahawks can go toe to toe with Payton Manning if the game turns into a shootout (with the balancing factor being Seattle Defense). Which though that’s a possibility against the #1 offense in the league, I trust our defense to not let a game get out of hand (because besides TB, they have not let a game get out of hand).

There are larger discussions around receiving when making these points, but I feel that’s been addressed:
Here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=86129
and Here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=83820
and Here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=80639

The conclusion I’ve come to is the Seahawks have not been having “problems” on offense. They’ve just been playing top defensive teams that got better from last year until now(AZ, SF, NYG, etc, etc). So don’t let the analysts smoke and mirror you into thinking there are major issues with our offense. We can score as many points as it will take to defeat the Broncos.

The only team that can beat the Seahawks now is the Seahawks.

We all we got, we all we need.

Go Hawks!

solid

I personally think a couple of things:

First, our OL isn't very good, and they overachieved last year. This year, they've been banged up, and still aren't very good. Against good/elite defensive lines, we're struggling very badly to do anything, run or pass. When our offense doesn't run well, it's hard for us to move the ball. It seems like if we come out and are prepared to pass, we can pass and do a good job...but I haven't seen in game adjustments that get results (other than halftime adjustments).

The other thing is related: our OL isn't very good and was very injured this year. Wilson got the crap beat out of him, so he's bailing from the pocket early, bailing when he shouldn't, and (I think) panicking isn't the right word....but he's got less faith in his protection and has a...shall we say, inflated sense of urgency when hasn't had to. He gets a bit happy in the pocket where I didn't see him do that last year.

This is causing him to miss some reads. Our WRs aren't all that bad really, but there are tons of guys that are open and Wilson isn't seeing them. I think this is due to our OL issues; he had the same issues last year, but he was a rookie. This year, you would expect some growth, but the OL stunted that I believe.

I also believe that he got beat up enough behind this OL, so he's not running it to avoid more punishment. Maybe ego is at stake here as well; he's had a ton of national pundits calling him a "read option" and "running" QB and maybe he doesn't like that.

THe issues aren't huge, and they're fixable, but we've seen what we're going to get for our offense in the Superbowl. It's not going to change (unless they pull out all the stops and go back to the last half of 2012) and it is what it is until we can work out some stuff in the offseason. If they execute, our offense is still good enough to win us a championship.

I think you're probably correct that the offense hasn't regressed this year but has instead been playing tougher defenses (and also playing tougher defenses more conservatively as part of a winning game plan more often than not).

The Seahawks offense has scored exactly 23 points in four (22.22%) of its games this year. Not sure what that tells us, but I thought it was interesting.

Boiler":1vqwow2h said:

...and also playing tougher defenses more conservatively as part of a winning game plan more often than not.

Click to expand...

That's a really great point.

Don't forget, most defenses have focused more on keeping the ends rushing upfield to contain Russ and not allow him out of the pocket. This has led to coverage sacks, and sacks where Russ runs into a d lineman "selfie"

Hawks46":wwpgw4r3 said:

I personally think a couple of things:

First, our OL isn't very good, and they overachieved last year. This year, they've been banged up, and still aren't very good. Against good/elite defensive lines, we're struggling very badly to do anything, run or pass. When our offense doesn't run well, it's hard for us to move the ball. It seems like if we come out and are prepared to pass, we can pass and do a good job...but I haven't seen in game adjustments that get results (other than halftime adjustments).

The other thing is related: our OL isn't very good and was very injured this year. Wilson got the crap beat out of him, so he's bailing from the pocket early, bailing when he shouldn't, and (I think) panicking isn't the right word....but he's got less faith in his protection and has a...shall we say, inflated sense of urgency when hasn't had to. He gets a bit happy in the pocket where I didn't see him do that last year.

This is causing him to miss some reads. Our WRs aren't all that bad really, but there are tons of guys that are open and Wilson isn't seeing them. I think this is due to our OL issues; he had the same issues last year, but he was a rookie. This year, you would expect some growth, but the OL stunted that I believe.

I also believe that he got beat up enough behind this OL, so he's not running it to avoid more punishment. Maybe ego is at stake here as well; he's had a ton of national pundits calling him a "read option" and "running" QB and maybe he doesn't like that.

THe issues aren't huge, and they're fixable, but we've seen what we're going to get for our offense in the Superbowl. It's not going to change (unless they pull out all the stops and go back to the last half of 2012) and it is what it is until we can work out some stuff in the offseason. If they execute, our offense is still good enough to win us a championship.

Click to expand...

Agree with this and the OP. Just would add we played some of those top defenses twice (three times in SF's case) as they are in our own division or, in the Saints case, conference. This allowed them to gameplan around Rw and the rest of our offense better. As a result, teams have done a better job of containing RW which seems to me to be the major difference this year.

49thHawk":1g2ahz6b said:

Hawks46":1g2ahz6b said:

I personally think a couple of things:

First, our OL isn't very good, and they overachieved last year. This year, they've been banged up, and still aren't very good. Against good/elite defensive lines, we're struggling very badly to do anything, run or pass. When our offense doesn't run well, it's hard for us to move the ball. It seems like if we come out and are prepared to pass, we can pass and do a good job...but I haven't seen in game adjustments that get results (other than halftime adjustments).

The other thing is related: our OL isn't very good and was very injured this year. Wilson got the crap beat out of him, so he's bailing from the pocket early, bailing when he shouldn't, and (I think) panicking isn't the right word....but he's got less faith in his protection and has a...shall we say, inflated sense of urgency when hasn't had to. He gets a bit happy in the pocket where I didn't see him do that last year.

This is causing him to miss some reads. Our WRs aren't all that bad really, but there are tons of guys that are open and Wilson isn't seeing them. I think this is due to our OL issues; he had the same issues last year, but he was a rookie. This year, you would expect some growth, but the OL stunted that I believe.

I also believe that he got beat up enough behind this OL, so he's not running it to avoid more punishment. Maybe ego is at stake here as well; he's had a ton of national pundits calling him a "read option" and "running" QB and maybe he doesn't like that.

THe issues aren't huge, and they're fixable, but we've seen what we're going to get for our offense in the Superbowl. It's not going to change (unless they pull out all the stops and go back to the last half of 2012) and it is what it is until we can work out some stuff in the offseason. If they execute, our offense is still good enough to win us a championship.

Click to expand...

Agree with this and the OP. Just would add we played some of those top defenses twice (three times in SF's case) as they are in our own division or, in the Saints case, conference. This allowed them to gameplan around Rw and the rest of our offense better. As a result, teams have done a better job of containing RW which seems to me to be the major difference this year.

Click to expand...

Hawk46: Stats don't lie, and our offensive line ended #32 in the league in pass protection. whether that was the quality of Defenses we played, or the high amount of injuries we sustained at those positions, it is what it is. Just the Fact we are going Mcq to Bowie and then to Carpenter/Mcq shows we are still unhappy at the left guard. Add in the maddeningly frustrating lack of positive QB yardage and it can get a little frustrating. But I would say, I think it's more of plan that's still being "honed" then a comedy of errors.

49er: Agreed, as teams we know each other really well, which is why they turn into such dog fights every time. Io mean we destroyed Arizona at home, then they come up and take us out in our house. The NFC West is just a black hole of destruction.