4th most efficient offense.

Wow last year if you asked any media analyst about the Seattle offense you would have been told that the team is pedestrian and RW is only a game manager and that it was ONLY the defense that allowed Seattle to win the SB.

Well looks like maybe the media hacks need to do a bit more research before they rush to their judgments. According to this article the Hawks had the 4th best efficient offense in the NFL.

Now then ADD that to a smothering defense and a great special teams and what do you get?????












SUPER BOWL baby. Go Hawks!!!!

http://nfl.si.com/2014/06/16/points-per ... r-broncos/

It's an interesting measure: points scored/# of plays run.

One reason we ran so few plays last year was because we were in the bottom half of the league in third down conversions, at least in part due to the offensive line's injury struggles and our league-worst sack rate.

I agree with Tom Brady that the only stat that really matters is points scored, and we were tied with Green Bay for 8th in that category, which is not bad especially under the circumstances.

Nice, what I also took from it is that they took away all Defensive/ST scores and Seahawks ranked 4th overall just on Offense.

People talk about the Seahawks Offense and how its "Average @ Best" but they disregard all the injuries, all the tough defenses they had to face, the difficult traveling schedule (not the playing schedule), and fail to miss that per snap it was the youngest offense in the NFL last season.

Is still finished 8th in points and I believe 7th in DVOA. At one point after the Saints game it only trailed the Broncos in DVOA. And I still firmly believe they went vanilla and held back their razzle dazzle while facing tough defenses vs SF, NYG, and ARI b/c vs the Rams in a must win game they definitely seemed Bevell game-planned a lot better as well as made adjustments much quicker instead of Bevell forcing the same play over and over again.

It seemed like feast or famine for a lot of our offensive drives; we'd drive down the field a good ways, or just stick the defense back out on the field two minutes later.

Despite having a high-scoring offense by points per game and that it's even better considering the number of tough defenses we faced, we did rank 15th in three-and-out percentage: http://www.sportingcharts.com/nfl/stats ... tage/2013/

hawknation2014":30bqe0l0 said:

One reason we ran so few plays last year was because we were in the bottom half of the league in third down conversions

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I guess that is technically correct...we were 17th, right in the middle.

IMHO it's kind of a reflection of our philosophy. We're always looking for 'explosive' plays, which are inherently a bit high risk/high reward type plays. When we throw, it tends to be downfield, looking for yards in big chunks, and not so much in grind it out plays, our run-first philosophy notwithstanding. Sure, we run a lot, but we do so with the strategy in mind to pull the safeties down into the box, so we can go over the top on them.

With Harvin being healthy ( ray: ), and the addition of Richardson, I would expect even more this year.

Hawk nation we also had to be near the top in drive killing penalties. Our offense was conservative and built on "staying on schedule". How many times did one of our OL jump the count or hold to take us out of the Redzone and instead leave us at 2nd and 20? How many long runs did we see negated? More than Most would be my guess. When these things occurred more often than not we went with the safe play in the risk / reward scenario.

* edited to add that as much as I complained about this during the season the stradagy netted us a Owl!

Well, this is my theory after watching the entire season, reading that article and seeing some stats thrown in by fellow .netters:

We were league average or a bit worse on 3rd down %, and 3 and outs. Our passing offense was towards the bottom of the league in terms of attemps and yards. Our run game was, what...3rd ?

From watching the games, it was evident to me that when our rushing offense struggled, our entire offense struggled as is shown by the stats. Some folks were complaining that our route trees for WRs are extremely simple and easy to figure out due to our passing game being predicated off of play action and a strong run game.

My theory is that much of our offensive efficiency is due to having an elite defense that led the league in turnovers, thus putting our offense in a lot of favorable situations where they could score easily, without a lot of plays run. Honestly, I'd also theorize/speculate (I haven't done the research) that if you took out the points where the defense basically handed them to the offense with great field position, we'd be a league average offense (I'd speculate the same thing about SF).

Conclusion: There's a lot of talk about it being a passing league, then people use statistics to prove that running teams can win a lot of games and make deep playoff runs. Thing is, when teams stuffed our run and then blitzed us (not giving us time for routes to develop) it gave us a hell of a time and we generally didn't fare well. When we kept SF from beating us on the ground with Gore and Kaepernick, honestly not a one of us was worried that they'd beat us through the air.

So, SF goes out and gets Stevie Johnson and makes a concerted effort to shore up their WR corps.

What this tells us is that to be truly dominating, we need to have a balanced offense. Not necessarily pass more, but be better at it. That's why I think Harvin being back, and us drafting Norwood (yes, I think he makes the team, and makes a noticeable impact this season) is going to do a ton for our offense. If we can sustain more drives, we'll be more efficient and also control the clock a bit better. If teams stuff the run, we have to be able to gut out the tough passes and pick up difficult 3rd downs more often.

In addition to third down conversions, the other thing we were just below average in was time of possession (ranked 17th in the league). It's surprising for a team with such an efficient QB, great running back, dominant defense to be just below average in those categories. Again, I attribute this mostly to the offensive line and its poor third down blocking.

brimsalabim":3j8o1fhp said:

Hawk nation we also had to be near the top in drive killing penalties. Our offense was conservative and built on "staying on schedule". How many times did one of our OL jump the count or hold to take us out of the Redzone and instead leave us at 2nd and 20? How many long runs did we see negated? More than Most would be my guess. When these things occurred more often than not we went with the safe play in the risk / reward scenario.

* edited to add that as much as I complained about this during the season the stradagy netted us a Owl!

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Good point. We were also dead last in offensive penalties (8.0 per game), which is also mostly attributable to the offensive line and its injuries.

First in defense, turnover margin, and broken tackles. Dead last in sacks allowed rate, converting first downs in short yardage situations, and offensive penalties. We're beginning to see a trend here as the offensive line negated many of the league leading areas of our offense, leading to just below average rankings in third down conversions and time of possession.

Hawks46":13c5650x said:

My theory is that much of our offensive efficiency is due to having an elite defense that led the league in turnovers, thus putting our offense in a lot of favorable situations where they could score easily, without a lot of plays run.

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That common perception is not supported by the data.

I researched average offensive drive starting position a while back... and from the best in the league to the worst in the league, the difference was only 7.4 yards (KC was #1 at 32.74 yard line and Wash. was #32 at 25.35).

Seattle fell in at #3 at the 31.28 yard line.

By comparison, Denver was near the league average at #17 with the 27.70 yard line.... a difference of only 3.6 yards difference from Seattle... less than an average rush play in the league, which is 4.15 yards/carry.

BTW, the Whiners were #2 in the league starting their offensive drives on average at the 31.56 yard line.

New England and Pittsburgh rounded out the top 5, after KC, SF, and SEA.

hawknation2014":349w5x8g said:

In addition to third down conversions, the other thing we were just below average in was time of possession (ranked 17th in the league). It's surprising for a team with such an efficient QB, great running back, dominant defense to be just below average in those categories. Again, I attribute this mostly to the offensive line and its poor third down blocking.

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Defenses took advantage of the injuries on our O-Line, and did a pretty good job at pressuring/containing/sacking RW, BUT, Wilson, more often than not, completed passes at key times, that nullified the Defenses stacking the box.
winding up making it to the big dance, and being Super Bowl Champions is proof of just how proficient, and efficient the Seahawks were on BOTH sides of the ball, hell, ALL aspects of the team.
I find it pretty amazing, that with all the injuries/brain farts/miscues, how many games the Seahawks won.
"Don't be the weakest link in the chain"

rainger":2apaw5us said:

Wow last year if you asked any media analyst about the Seattle offense you would have been told that the team is pedestrian and RW is only a game manager and that it was ONLY the defense that allowed Seattle to win the SB.

Well looks like maybe the media hacks need to do a bit more research before they rush to their judgments. According to this article the Hawks had the 4th best efficient offense in the NFL.

Now then ADD that to a smothering defense and a great special teams and what do you get?????

Click to expand...

Such an accomplishment requires a QB that can properly manage the game.