Are Pete and Bevell fooling us.

[skater18000]

Could this all be an attempt to hide your hand till the playoffs. Hide percy, C.Michael, (some) Luke Willson, hide the creativity, hide the distribution plays to our weapons.

Why does it feel like every pass against 1 on 1 man to man coverage is a boring fade, slant, in, out, post or corner route. Maybe they're saving the double moves and the pick routes for the playoffs.

As for the running game, this may be a real concern, although it was against the best run defense in football. I have a feeling we're holding back on some counters, traps and stretches that I'm waiting to see.

Could it be that we are instead of resting our starters to prevent injury, we're eased down the playbook and it's potential. When was the last time we did that trick play where marshawn throws it back to Russell and Russell chucks deep to Tate or Kearse (week 10 vs Atlanta). Something's up here because either one our offensive coordinator is an idiot for lacking creativity or they're are mischievously intelligent because they think this their great convoluted plan. I also haven't seen the inside zone spilt in awhile. Seems to me we've let the foot off the breaks, but at the cost of losing leaves me a bit confused. This is my highest of optimistic outlooks that I could come up with.

 

[plyka]

This is delusional thinking here. They are not hiding anything. If they lose next week they will almost surely have to be in the 5th seed. They are also now risking injury to Wilson/Okung/Sherm/Earl. The difference between a 5th seed and a 1st seed? Playing 3 games ON THE ROAD versus playing 2 games at home and getting to the superbowl. They are going to risk this for nothing?

 

[Vpk0718]

If they were playing vanilla without the first seed wrapped up I'd want them all fired. That is inexcusable.

 

[el capitan]

I don't think so, if they wanted to hide the offense from our playoff opponents then they could just start TJack. I think we just played horrendous football and got beat by a team that's playing better right now.

 

[skater18000]

Were we possibly too confident that we could win with a vanilla approach.

 

[TheHawkster]

If you spring a trap too late, there's no plan B.
We can't afford to slow play teams anymore.

Its time for Russell to push the envelope
and get some distance early.

The playoffs begin now.

 

[The Outfield]

Maybe they're holding back slightly, but our poor performance against the cards would have to be holding back A LOT.

 

[skater18000]

Is my logic somewhat reasonable?

 

[seahawks08]

I don't think they his anything. We need HFA, that's always been the goal. I think we pulled RW early in the giants game that might have impacted his throws a little bit. We need to refocus and we should be just fine. The intensity was just not there until the 4th quarter and the play calling also was not there.

 

[Decimation]

It's logical but it just would make no sense why the coaches would do this.. we haven't even clinched the first seed yet. Now we are in a must win game and need to put up or shut up. This is for the division crown.

 

[TwistedHusky]

No.

There is a term for the circumstance when a team with the lead but under pressure becomes overly conservative and risk adverse to the point they start losing.

It is called choking.

 

[TheHawkster]

Bevell and Wilson are definitely wary of giving top defenses momentum.
They have been calling extremely safe plays in the past 3 weeks.

I hope they're just being safe or hiding injuries.
Because if we got figured out on offense, we could be in real danger.
It's all up to Russell and I'm fine with that for the next decade or so.

 

[Pandion Haliaetus]

There is compelling evidence that Bevell might be using a simplified game plan according to a poster who is awesome enough to put in the research:

http://seahawks.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=83680&sid=79a11863581c188966e497f18d9f9a5f

 

[Tical21]

There isn't much to hide against press man. If you can't hit the slant and fade when a team begs you to make plays, you need to get better at hitting the slant and the fade. We're going to see the exact same thing this week all game long. It is time to take some slants to the house.

 

[minormillikin]

This idea that we're just saving the real plays/players for the big games is just a fantasy. Just like the fantasy that any team is "unbeatable at home."

Ironically, when we KILL the Rams on Sunday, it might seem like we just pulled out a bunch of plays that we had been saving for later. That won't be the reason we kill the Rams. We will kill the Rams because now the players know that there is no magical force at home that protects them from losing. Preparation will be taken more seriously, execution will be better and the Seahawks will win.

 

[RolandDeschain]

I snickered at the people that thought this after barely beating the Rams in week 17 last year, and I snicker at them now. It's possible we may blow up on offense in the playoffs, but if we do, it's not because of having held anything back.

 

[TheHawkster]

In the 4 games we didn't score 20 pts this year. Russell rushed 11 times. 2.75 times per game.
In the 11 games we did score 20+ pts this year. Russell rushed 80 times. 7.27 times per game.

That somewhat justifies a play calling difference.
Might be about who's D, and more importantly O, is playing us....
SF, ARI, STL, CAR.....3 division rivals and a top 2 Defense.
One offense is middle of the road, the others, weak but opportunistic.

 

[davidonmi]

there is one thing. They may be waiting to unleash the read option in the playoffs when needed.
Sorry they are not "saving weapons", u don't tinker with ur offense in a win or go home game. If they were going to be utilized come playoff time they would be part of the the offense already

 

[RussellMania]

Hiding players and plays, as well as purposefully tanking for draft picks, happens all the time in pro-sports and it's funny how coaches, leagues, and many analysts will never admit it publicly. Part of the reason I like Bill Simmons is that he would openly talk about this (unfortunately ESPN has cracked the whip on him). Was Coach Carroll trying to lose the game to trick teams into thinking they could beat us? No. But could he have been hiding offensive and defensive schemes? Absolutely. If you don't believe this stuff happens just look at how the Spurs sat their starters when they played the Heat last year so that they couldn't get a feel for them and the league ended up fining them for it.

 

[chris98251]

If your going to accuse them of something, I would say it's play it safe and trying to play low risk offense becasue we had a lead in the division, conference, and seeding, give the defense a free hand to get stops and or turnovers for quicker scores on a short field. That may have worked ok if we could score TD's in the red zone, but it hasn't consistently and it caught up to us against Arizona.