Note in regards to SoS Argument

hawker84

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i would suggest your making the same mistake every apponent that has faced us, and that's looking at our offensive numbers and using them to come to a conclusion our offense is some how mediocre.... and i'll tell you just like i told all of them, it is not wise to look at those numbers and come to a conclusion...

our offense was extremely vanilla for the better part of the first half, we relied heavily on the run game and Defense to win the ball games, because Wilson was a rookie and was handcuffed by our coaching staff... if you look at the first half numbers you will see our pass offense was close to last, but at the same time, our pass attempts were probably close to last in the league...

now it is completely flipped.. you ask anybody on this board, who they have more confidense in , our Offense or our Defense, and i'm pretty sure 95% will say the offense.. i'm not going to get into numbers and stats, all i'm going to say is, if you want to have an accurate judgement of our offense, look at the numbers from the Chicago game on... yes the blow outs helped, but the numbers are consistant and they improved and became more balanced every game since Chicago.. Why? because the coaching staff finally realized they can trust RW and opened the playbook up....

we are the most complete and balanced team you will face this year..... our offense will show up sunday, but you better hope our defense doesn't ....
 

Chapow

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Look guys, we all know that the running up the score thing is BS. I mean, when you start putting in backups early in the 3rd quarter and the other team still can't stop you, what are you supposed to do? Take a knee because you don't want to hurt their feelings even though there's still 25 minutes left in the game?

When the other team throws it straight to you, what are supposed to do? Are they supposed to not intercept it?

When they muff a punt, what are you supposed to do? Don't go after the ball?

You have to play the whole 60 minutes right? Please, someone tell me what the Seahawks (2nd and 3rd stringers) were supposed to do?

Every time these backups get a chance to get in a game, it's a chance to show what they've got. Many of them are literally playing for their livelihood. They can't just go out there and slack off just because the other team is getting their asses kicked.

Anyway, whatever, it doesn't matter what the facts are or what anyone says, apparently some people are just going to believe that "Pete Carroll runs up the score" no matter what.
 
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Falcan Moore

Falcan Moore

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hawker84":1mutpo95 said:
i would suggest your making the same mistake every apponent that has faced us, and that's looking at our offensive numbers and using them to come to a conclusion our offense is some how mediocre.... and i'll tell you just like i told all of them, it is not wise to look at those numbers and come to a conclusion...

our offense was extremely vanilla for the better part of the first half, we relied heavily on the run game and Defense to win the ball games, because Wilson was a rookie and was handcuffed by our coaching staff... if you look at the first half numbers you will see our pass offense was close to last, but at the same time, our pass attempts were probably close to last in the league...

now it is completely flipped.. you ask anybody on this board, who they have more confidense in , our Offense or our Defense, and i'm pretty sure 95% will say the offense.. i'm not going to get into numbers and stats, all i'm going to say is, if you want to have an accurate judgement of our offense, look at the numbers from the Chicago game on... yes the blow outs helped, but the numbers are consistant and they improved and became more balanced every game since Chicago.. Why? because the coaching staff finally realized they can trust RW and opened the playbook up....

we are the most complete and balanced team you will face this year..... our offense will show up sunday, but you better hope our defense doesn't ....
I didn't say your offense is mediocre...I said the opposite. I said that defenses make your already potent offense appear less impressive due to the toughness of your division in the defense category. Your offense is great. I don't know where you're getting that I don't think they are. I said that we're a good bit better offensively, and that we score more consistently than you guys. Maybe that's what you're getting at?
 

hidn

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See you Monday for your crow serving then "Falcan Moore" ...

Cant wait to make that my signature next week when you get blown out of your own place. Overconfidence... the Redskin fans had it too.
 
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Falcan Moore

Falcan Moore

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hidn":3bvswclh said:
See you Monday for your crow serving then "Falcan Moore" ...

Cant wait to make that my signature next week when you get blown out of your own place. Overconfidence... the Redskin fans had it too.
2562612-FrySquint-gif.gif
 

hawker84

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"On the other hand, you've been held to less than 20 points on six occasions, so it's apparent that you can be stopped. Our lowest point output of 17 is still better than five of your games. Yet you think that we're afraid we'll get out butts kicked and embarrassed"?

this is what i'm getting at.. we've been held to less than 20 pts 6 times.. how many of those times were in the first half of the season.? how many times were we held to that in the second half of the season.?

my point is, our offense was weak in the first half, much stronger in the second half.. it would be wise of an apponent to not go by the 1st half stats.
 

theENGLISHseahawk

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Falcons are a legit 13-3. No doubt about that.

They've had a few close ones at home that maybe should've been easier games... but still a legit 13-3.

It will take a near flawless game from us to win this.
 

hidn

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Falcan Moore":2zp7hke5 said:
hidn":2zp7hke5 said:
See you Monday for your crow serving then "Falcan Moore" ...

Cant wait to make that my signature next week when you get blown out of your own place. Overconfidence... the Redskin fans had it too.
2562612-FrySquint-gif.gif


All I'm saying is, don't be surprised when your coach is doing this again on Sunday, my brutha.

slideshow_1417586_falcons-saints.jpg
 

camdawg

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treefidy":ukgj9hb8 said:
I would never argue the running up the score issue. It's the freakin' NFL. If you can not stop a team, that is your problem. Do your job!

I can definitely see that your offensive numbers are driven up by a 58-0 win against a 5-11 team and a 50-17 win against a 6-10 team who also allowed 52, 48, 45, 37, & 35 points to other teams this season. However, you did what you should have against those teams and blew them out.

If you want to take the SoS argument further, you can argue that the NFC South played some of the easiest ranked schedules in football, yet every team in the NFC South finished 3-3 against each other in division play, and was for some reason considered the weakest division in the NFC (every team finished with a winning record outside of division). Compare that to the NFC West where the Rams (7-8-1) finished with the best record in the west at 4-1-1, and the Cardinals the worst at 1-5. Meaning only the Niners and Seahawks finished with a winning record outside of the division. You can see there was a clear cellar dweller for everyone to beat up on.

Regardless, none of that stuff really matters, and after typing it I feel I wasted a few minutes of time. What matters most will be Sunday at 10:00am PT when our two teams meet.

This should be one of the best games of the season, and I for one can't wait.

Rise up Falcons!

You did not waste your time. Welcome to the board. Obviously Falcons fans are going to feel confident in their #1 seed team taking care of business, and we probably aren't going to agree. But almost all Falcons fans have been reasonable, unlike the majority of Redskins fans.

Certainly the Rams played most of their best football within the division. But it is a credit to them to have played so well against the 49ers and Seahawks. St. Louis did do some good things outside the division, beating the Redskins, and clobbering the Bucs in Tampa the week before you lost to them (which makes the Falcons loss to Tampa more concerning, IMO-that Bucs team was coming into the Georgia Dome dead on arrival if the Rams game, and bad losing streak were any indication).

The Cardinals became a disaster, once John Skelton and Kevin Kolb were both out injured. When healthy, they beat us, and the Patriots in Foxboro. Really, they were only Skelton or Kolb away from beating the Falcons in the Georgia Dome, to give the NFC West a 4-0 sweep over the NFC East, all in NFC East stadiums.

I absolutely agree it should be a great game, and a very interesting matchup, since we did not play in the regular season. Cheers!
 

formido

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The 2005 Seahawks led the NFL in point differential. This year, Atlanta did not.

Point differential is highly correlated with future wins, more highly correlated than won/loss record. Seattle has a higher point differential than Atlanta this year against a tougher schedule.

You can't dismiss blow-outs against easy teams as skewing point differential. Everyone plays the easy teams. Some teams, like Atlanta, play even easier teams. And, research shows, point differential predicts future wins.

Matchup-wise, why does Seattle win this battle? Because Seattle's secondary neutralizes Atlanta's strength and Seattle's rush offense exploits Atlanta's weakness.

Nevertheless, no one knows how the ball will bounce. Obviously a 13-3 team has a very legitimate chance of winning the game. But most of the time, they won't. I'd say Seattle wins this game 65% of the times it's played in parallel universes.
 

camdawg

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Falcan Moore":3buch5j3 said:
Now, back to the thread's intention - addressing the argument about strength of schedule. I could just make the same point that's been made by others, about how the 2005 Seahawks are comparable to the 2012 Falcons in terms of respect, but that's an eyeball test, and as such, I'm sure won't be respected a heck of a lot.

To illustrate this, the Falcons were only held under 20 points twice in the year - once against Dallas (19 points), and once in the meaningless last game of the year against the Bucs (17 points). With Dallas, we were playing in a tough environment and had constant failure in the red zone, whereas with the Bucs, we were obviously screwing around with plays, almost treating it like a preseason game, except with the starters in. On one occasion, we ran three screen plays in a row. I sh*t you not. It was testing things out, a very vanilla gameplan besides the fact, since it wasn't trick plays we were running - it was just stuff we wanted to practice.

Can't wait for the game on Sunday...good luck to both teams. Just...a bit more luck to ours. ;)

:2:

I'm sure the schedule talk must get pretty old. You can only play the teams on your schedule, and you should not have to apologize for your 13-3 record. We definitely went through the same thing in 2005.

The only concern I'd have is that the Falcons seemed to often only play just well enough to get the win against a bad team, rather than hammer them like they perhaps should. The 2005 Seahawks had a few games like that too. We barely beat a poor Tennessee team on the road that year, 28-24. But we had a few games where we put the hammer down to show we could do it-the Texans game, the 49ers home game, and the Monday Night humiliation delivered to Philly in the Linc.

Except for the great performance against the Giants, the part of Atlanta's season I've been able to watch so far (Arizona through the final game), it seems like the Falcons struggle to play with great intensity. I'm sure they'll play inspired in this game, but I think that can maybe be a dangerous habit. Intensity may be a tough thing to have an on-off switch for.
 

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Falcan Moore":3l6kg3eh said:
Thanks for the replies. I suppose I might be seeing it in a different way from most of you, and that's all good, but I did watch the entirety of the games I mentioned I felt they ran up the score. I do think that the win against the Niners was fantastic, especially since I dislike the 49ers for all the beatdowns they put on our team before my time. And I don't underestimate you guys at all. I just think that the game will be significantly closer than most do, and that people who bring up past failures of this team and strength of schedule should have the past brought to bear on them as well.

For all the people who would disagree if I said the Falcons would win JUST because they beat the Seahawks in 2010 and 2011, some would be the same people saying the Falcons are at a disadvantage because of their past playoff record. I'd be wrong to suggest we'd win because of what happened in past years, just as you'd be wrong to suggest we're the same team as years previous. We added two coordinators with vastly different philosophies. We've beaten every team on our schedule. There isn't much more you can do to prove a point when you're dealt an easy schedule.

Honestly though, good discussion...I might do a weapons write-up and comparison later to compare Seattle and Atlanta and some of the matchups...in all honesty, I'd say Sherman and Browner are great, but your safeties have been just as impressive this year. Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor are flat out ballers.

This comment annoyed me, though...

impacthawk":3l6kg3eh said:
Listen, Atlanta can only line up and play the teams in front of them. You won't see me arguing with you about Strength of Schedule weaknesses. It is more of a battle tested argument that tips the scales in the Hawks favor. I would imagine you would feel even more confident if your team had beaten teams with a stronger collective record....just to get them ready for the playoffs. As it is, you're just not quite sure what to expect with you're team on Sunday. Am I right?

No, you're actually very much wrong. The thing I like about this team is that, despite the fact that we're playing down to weaker teams, we're also playing our best games in the spotlight, against the best teams we face. 3-0 against winning teams. 4-0 on prime time. 1 TD and 10 INTs in three games from Brees and the two Mannings. We've allowed the least passing touchdowns of any team in the NFL, and while you can point and say teams can just run on us and that's why, that doesn't explain our 5th ranked defense against better offenses than you faced. Just using the statistics here.

I'm actually very confident in my team come Sunday. It appears that you are too. We both should be. We both have the hungriest and, imho, best teams in the NFL. We're both built to play GB with our fantastic secondaries, and you obviously handled SF. I think we could beat them as well, albeit maybe not as convincingly. That was one heck of a game.

So excited for Sunday.

impacthawk":3l6kg3eh said:
The last part I will mention is the way off perception that Carroll only runs up the score on weaker teams in the NFL. Well, I guess this might concern you on Sunday huh? That you're team just might get it's butt kicked and get embarrassed? Well, don't worry. If the Seahawks need to pull back the throttle, we do so. 2nd and 3rd string guys come in. Problem is, they still execute the offense and defense really well, and your defense still has to show up for every play or we will still score. Carroll can't be accused of running up the score if we do that right? Well my friend, that is exactly how we "Ran up the score" on those other teams this year.......If that is what you want to call it. I call it mercy. Good luck.

We score more on better teams. We score more consistently. We score quicker.

We flat out score, and you can't stop it.

On the other hand, you've been held to less than 20 points on six occasions, so it's apparent that you can be stopped. Our lowest point output of 17 is still better than five of your games. Yet you think that we're afraid we'll get out butts kicked and embarrassed?

I'm not going to start spouting off hateful trash, but I'll just say this - you're in for a show on Sunday. Likely one where two great teams battle to the end. But if one team gets handled...it won't be the one that feels disrespected, that's just getting some of its defensive starters back, the one that has everything to prove. I'll be here to eat my crow if I'm wrong.
I mean this respectfully, but your opinion seems to be based on looking at stats.

How many Seahawk games have you watched from this year?
 

SoCalSeahawk

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Falcan Moore, good post. Here's some points to consider in looking at the two teams. First, they both averaged the same ppg on offense at 26. Using Football Outsiders DVOA, the Falcons did it against the 32nd ranked schedule in terms of defensive opponents. The Seahawks did it against the 3rd toughest in terms of defensive opponents. The quick strike advantage may go to the Falcons, but they are lacking the ability to grind a defense down with a running game and that's going to really work against them when facing the Seahawks. Seattle's secondary will be stifling without having to worry about run support. It will be great match-up on the outside however! And we could only wish that both Roddy White and Richard Sherman were mic'ed up.

Using other teams that scored similarly to the Falcons: When Green Bay, San Francisco and Washington do not play the Seahawks they actually average more points per game than Atlanta did. Seattle held them to 12, 13, 13 and 14 points. When you say that Atlanta cannot be stopped on offense I would buy it if they were close to some record setting pace, but given the ease of defenses they played the results are good, but not great. Only two teams actually scored their season average against the Seahawks. The Lions and the Dolphins. Yes, I just puked having to put that in print. Both times were because of a complete lack of defensive focus in the 4th quarter. It's not happening again. In the eight games against .500 or above teams that Seattle played, they held their opponent to an average of 11 points below their normal output. Those teams and the points below their average were, San Francisco (13 points below - twice), New England (12), Green Bay (16), Dallas (17), Chicago (7), Minnesota (4) and Washington (12). This is what I see happening to Atlanta. I believe they will score 14-17 points.

On defense I believe that the Falcons are very underrated. They have an excellent secondary in terms of pass coverage, I really don't know if they provide much in the way of physical run support. I do know that if Russell Wilson isn't sharper against the Falcons than he was against the Redskins your defense will make him pay. Your linebackers will have their hands full with Beast, Turbin, MRob and Miller. They are all loads to bring down and they will flat wear your guys out. This is the key if you ask me. Are your LBs able to stay physical for 60 minutes? So far the only LBs that have come close are the 49ers in the first game against them. Is the Atlanta D capable of holding Seattle to 17 points? I can't see that happening. I believe that Seattle will put up about their season average, 24-27 points.
 
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Falcan Moore

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Scottemojo":3fhv4l1v said:
I mean this respectfully, but your opinion seems to be based on looking at stats.

How many Seahawk games have you watched from this year?
Seven that I remember, I try to watch them whenever I can. Watched them play GB, CAR, SF both times, ARI, MIA and the last Rams game when I figured we would face you or the Skins.
 

BlueTalons

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But we have the power of Tanzania on our side! This has be way overlooked...it's called "intangibles."
 

kearly

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By any metric that accounts for team efficiency while weighing strength of opponent, Seattle comes out far ahead of Atlanta. Seattle is #1 in Football Outsider's efficiency index and #3 in Advanced NFL Stats team efficiency rankings (which do not account for special teams, and Seattle's ST is among the best group in the NFL). In those same rankings, Atlanta places 10th and 7th.

Atlanta is not a bad team, but they really aren't that much different on paper than they've been for a couple years now. In fact, Atlanta actually scored lower in team efficiency (Football outsiders) in 2012 than they did in 2011 or 2010. They are a solidly above average and highly conventional team that is built to beat ordinary teams. They remind me a ton of Mike Holmgren's Seahawks from 2003-2007, but with a better passing game and less of a rushing attack.

Problem is, Seattle is not an ordinary team. They are an elite team that is hitting it's stride. Seattle is the NFL's most physical team, and they've generally had their way with finesse teams all season (Matt Stafford's amazing performance in Detroit being the only real exception). Seattle's strengths match up with Atlanta's weaknesses, and Atlanta's strengths (big WRs) are countered by Seattle's strengths (even bigger DBs). Brandon Marshall was the only big WR all season to have a big day against this defense, and that was aided by the Browner suspension and some suspect coverage strategy by Carroll/Bradley.

Altanta has a great chance to win, mainly because we don't know how much the loss of Chris Clemons will impact Seattle's defense. It could be backbreaking, or it could actually help the pass rush out (more blitzing). We don't know. It's also a 10am game on Pacific time, and Seattle's 2nd cross country trip in a week. We also have a kicker that just got signed off the street and has played in a year. Will Wilson play with nerves like he did in Washington? Will the penalty bug bite Seattle like it has many times this season? I could definitely see Atlanta winning.

However, I do think that Seattle is clearly the better team, and clearly has the matchup advantage. That's no slouch on Atlanta, they had a 13-3 season. But if they beat Seattle this weekend, it will be the best team they've been in many years. It would be a big way for Matt Ryan to get his first playoff win.
 

RolandDeschain

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Yeah, Falcan Moore; putting in our backup QB 5 minutes into the second half against the Cardinals is running up the score. You clearly don't know what you're talking about in regards to this.
 

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RolandDeschain":30nrghs4 said:
Yeah, Falcan Moore; putting in our backup QB 5 minutes into the second half against the Cardinals is running up the score. You clearly don't know what you're talking about in regards to this.

All this shows is that they probably haven't watched many if any games of the Seahawks this year. I know I can't talk too much on the Falcons for that very reason.
 

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Since we're talking strength of schedule, check this work out from Sando. I remember in 2005 defending our team saying SOS is flawed because of course we have weaker opponents, because we're dishing out loses! So the work done by Sando excludes head to head games and simply looks at the other 15 games to produce W/L records.

The results, Atlanta played the easiest opponents whom had a .438 W/L %. Seattle played the 12th hardest scheduled, facing teams with a winning record at .517%.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcwest/post/_/ ... ther-angle
 

AF_Hawk

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CHawks4L":2nwjttch said:
Since we're talking strength of schedule, check this work out from Sando. I remember in 2005 defending our team saying SOS is flawed because of course we have weaker opponents, because we're dishing out loses! So the work done by Sando excludes head to head games and simply looks at the other 15 games to produce W/L records.

The results, Atlanta played the easiest opponents whom had a .438 W/L %. Seattle played the 12th hardest scheduled, facing teams with a winning record at .517%.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcwest/post/_/ ... ther-angle

Wow, going from last...to last isn't very promising. You play who is on your schedule and I get that, but this weekends game will prove if a tougher SOS prepares you better in battle tested games.
 

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