There's a lot of great posts here so that's always nice to see, but I'm not sure which ones to respond to specifically.
One interesting stat page I just looked at was for "Team Net Turnover Points". How many takeaway points you have (scoring after getting an interception or fumble) and how many Giveaway points you have.
http://www.sportingcharts.com/nfl/stats ... tics/2013/
So the Seahawks are doing very well in this category with 92 takeaway points which is 3rd in the league. So we are averaging about 7 points per game off of our opponents turnovers.
We also are ranked #5 in giveaway points with 33 points this entire season.
Our net turnover points when you take both these statistics together is +59 points this season, 4th best in the league.
And if it makes anyone feel any better the Giants are the worst in the league at -69, which kind of explains why they have struggled so much this year.
But although this is a very good indication of how good our defense is, and our offensive ability to capitalize off our defense, it's still kind of an unpredictable advantage to me on a game by game basis.
That's why I think it's also important to consider our yards per game as well. I don't think we should ever be counting on winning the turnover battle as our key to victory. We should be prepared to outscore the opponent under any conditions. Sometimes those conditions require a lot of yards and we are pretty average in that regard.
I also agree with the other poster who said that statistically the better teams chances to win increase the more plays there are in the game.
So sometimes trying to slow everything down can come back to bite us. So I disagree with the poster who said that the defense giving up the Gore run is the reason we lost the game. Technically that may be true, but if our gameplan is that we have to count on our defense not giving up one big play the entire game to win? Not a wise plan, we should plan to give ourselves enough of a lead that we can survive that kind of thing. With our play calling last week I think we really deserved to lose, it just was very timid and ineffective offensive calls.
Like others have said our play calling at home seems to be much more explosive, I really think we would have destroyed the 49ers with that stuff even at their own house but I guess we'll never know.
I guess to me it just comes down to I'd rather take a little bit of a gamble with Russell's capability to lead us to victory than play it safe in such a close competitive game. We should never be trying to force the running game when it's not working when we have such an incredible QB.
Another poster mentioned that our running game is what causes the passing game to be effective forcing the defense to stack up the line. But that works both ways, if they are backing off to defend our passing game then it opens up all kinds of super easy running plays for Wilson, and Lynch or short throws for Tate and Harvin.
So I think the whole key here is finding the right balance, calling plays at the right time, and being unpredictable. This thread was not meant to throw the running game under the bus. We just need to utilize both our run and passing game to it's full potential CONSISTENTLY. Bevell just seems very inconsistent and I do disagree with his calls on a regular basis.
I just really don't want to see another loss where I feel like we didn't give ourselves a chance to take over the game. We shouldn't count on our defense to win every game for us. Our offense needs to be able to give us a big enough lead so when those bad plays inevitably happen we won't lose from just one play (gore rush) or one drive (falcons in playoffs last year marching down field super easy).