Can we overcome our passing offense?

seahawks08

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Impact of Percy can be something that takes a while to settle. Like it or not, a superstar trade is not easy for a team to absorb. The playbook needed tweaking, the QB needs some retooling, the WRs, assignments all of them changes. It takes a while, but as the run game gets stronger, the passing game will open up. RW will gain confidence again and things will just fall in place. Changing the playbook mid season is hard to install after changing everything you learned in training camp, it is like we are in preseason mode again. I am sure we have an upside from here on out.
 
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Rob12

Rob12

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AVL":1dzo2k32 said:
No.

There has to be a better verb to title with than overcome, but I guess the OP had to go with a negative feel.

Overcome is just fine. And yeah, I do have a negative feel right now when it comes to our bottom of the barrel passing game. I am far from a worrying, negative fan... But what I've seen from our passing game over the past three weeks has left me concerned - and it's not like there's help coming. I believe it can improve over time, but I do feel it's an area that we have to overcome. For as effectively as we run the football, moving the chains through the air should not be as difficult as it is for this team.

The sky is not falling, I agree. But we have to get better, and fast. Our upcoming schedule has the makings to be brutal.
 

olyfan63

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Jacknut16":3f9jxkz5 said:
Anthony!":3f9jxkz5 said:
rideaducati":3f9jxkz5 said:
MontanaHawk05":3f9jxkz5 said:
Not without weapons, no.

Russell Wilson is showing all the signs of a QB who doesn't trust his receivers. He's standing in the pocket refusing to throw, double-clutching, tucking off and running. And I don't blame him. There isn't a single true difference-maker anywhere on this team, except maybe Doug Baldwin. When are we going to start acknowledging the difference that lacking Percy Harvin, Golden Tate, and Zach Miller makes on this offense?

Russell Wilson is showing the signs of a QB that has had a different starting offensive line for many consecutive weeks. He hasn't had time to make it to his second read very often and is clutching because he knows the guy isn't as open as he wants him to be, but if he doesn't throw the ball or run, he will probably get sacked.

The receivers are fine. When the linemen get time together, the passing game will get better.

The sky is not falling.


All true but we need to understand certain people cough cough Spindoctor, cough cough Jacknut have agendas and their agenda is to show they were right when they said Wilson was bad. You heard very little out of them the first 4 games, then a little after the 5th and then nothing after the 6h and now after 7 & 8 their back, Just so happens when we hear form them its when he plays bad, when he plays well which is more often than not, they say very little other than to deflect how good he is playing so it seems like it is because of everyone but Wilson. Jacknut has been doing this on 2+ forums ever since Wilson was drafted. There are lot fo thing stacked against Wilson right now, some of it is himself, some oline, some wr, some play calling and route trees. All that said he will work it out, after pretty much carrying this team for 5 of the first 6 games I think he can get a little slack on the last 3 especially since despite the passing game he is still been essential to our wins in other ways, something most QBs cannot do. As I have showed compared to other top QBs he has very little around him, see below

Luck – 3rd pass blocking o-line and has TY Hilton, Wyane, Nicks to throw to
P Manning- 2nd pass blocking o-line and he has Thomas, Welker, Sanders
Brady 7th ranked pass blocking o-line (ours is now ranked 28th) and he has Gronk, Edelman
Rodger o-line ranked 17th in pass blocking and has Nelson, Cobb to throw to
Brees o-line ranked 6th and he has Graham, cooks, Colson,
Ryan 12th pass blocking o-line and he has Hester, Jones, White, Smith
Rivers 11th o-line, and he has Gates, Floyd, Royal, Allen

Wilson 22nd ranked pass blocking oline and he has Baldwin, Kearse, TE-Wilson,

So as I showed above he has very little around him compared to all these others, and all of them would struggle if they had to play with what Wilson has. So relax, he will get it together. He has proven he can and earned the right.

If you are going to continue to bring up my name , stop lying about what I have said.

I have said time and time again I think Wilson is a top 10 QB, I said last season he was the Hawks best player. I have always praised his intelligence, his talent, his ability to make the running game better.

NOW- I no longer think he is the Seahawks best player, although he is still the most important player on the team, as are most every QB in the league.

Unless he plays better the Hawks dont have a prayer in KC this weekend.

I dont think he is a top passer from the pocket, and I dont think he is as accurate as everyone makes him out to be thats it, thats all.
I think when he loses a step, when his legs go, that his days as an effective QB in this league will come to an end.

If you dont like my opinion, thats your problem. Not everyone has an agenda as you do.
You will throw the entire team under the bus, you would rather Wilson play well and have us lose, rather than win and have to field question about why he isnt playing well.

There are tough times ahead for the Hawks if we dont have our QB play better.

Remember last year our QB had a shoulder injury (non-throwing shoulder) that was hidden by the team, and wasn't fully himself for a few games near the end of the season?

I say Wilson is injured in a way that affects his throwing motion and his accuracy, but doesn't impact his running. And it's been this way since the end of the Rams game. It's the only conclusion that fits the data. Think about it. Really. From Wilson's point of view, as well as Carroll and Bevell's point of view. If this were the issue, how would Russell approach making throws? Knowing Russell is nicked up and inaccurate, how would Carroll and Bevell and Cable approach game planning? With the Giants secondary beaten up, corners out, why wouldn't we focus on attacking that weakness?

Russell:
He knows he's unable to throw with his normal accuracy.
- Russell sees the open receiver, but the window's not quite big enough for him to make the throw without risking a pick if he's a little off-target. He holds the ball looking for something better.
- Russell sees the open receiver, but it's a throw he knows his arm can't make right now without tweaking his injury. He looks for a different throw that won't tweak his injury. In fact, pretty soon he stops even looking at those routes.
- Upset with himself and his injury, on sideline shows frustration & discouragement we don't normally see from him. After all, he's seeing what's there, , ripe for the picking, but it's extremely frustrating because he has to forego throws he would normally nail, and against a crappy Giants secondary too.
- In post-game interviews, knows he must speak about the throwing inaccuracy like it's a timing problem, out of sync, etc., when he knows it's his injury, but he knows it will heal soon, so he can promise it will get fixed, true, because he will get healthy again.
- Knows he has to run more, and avoid taking sacks. Against Carolina, on the game-winning drive, uses his legs at crunch time more than his arm, but does manage to find a nice window to throw to Luke Willson for the game-winning TD on a throw he knows he has a good chance of making, with little chance of a pick. Kudos to Darrell Bevell for the play design.
- Against the Giants, knows they can be gashed on the read option, and looks for opportunities to run himself while all the Giants go after Beastmode.

Carroll:
- Knows Russell can't make his usual throws. Asks Russell what he DOES feel confident throwing.
- Knows we have 3 winnable games to handle, but we need a way to be strong vs upcoming murderers row
- Knows he needs to find a way to make a smashmouth running game work for 4-6 weeks while Russell heals.
- Decides that best chance of finding good available player to enhance running game is to go to more plays that use a fullback, and odds of picking one up cheap are reasonably good
- Asks Bevell to come up with game plans that emphasizes the run 2:1 or more over pass, and includes the throws that Russell CAN still make, and plan more use of a FB
- Wants to keep the opponent from finding Russell can't make his usual throws and adjusting their defense.
- Blows smoke at pressers, saying it's the OL, it's all the chaos of injuries, Russell just having a bad day, the opponents played great defense, etc., anything that sounds plausible, as a smokescreen to avoid disclosing the real issue...
- Wants Russell to still challenge defense deep, but make sure the ball can't be picked.
- Asks Cable to prepare O-Line for smashmouth running attack, with more use of fullback.
- Tells Schneider to look for good run-blocking Fullback on waiver wire or available FA's
- Gets lucky after Oakland game and snags big monster fullback Tukuafu, 285 lbs of smashmouth fullback.
- Works Garry Gilliam at Mike Tice Outside Tackle, er, Tight End, to be even more smashmouth up front.
- In calculated gamble, holds extra players out of Oakland game, trying to get people healthy while still winning.

Cable:
- Coaches up Tukuafu in a hurry to be involved (or maybe its RB coach, is that still Sherman Smith)
- Coaches up Gilliam at TE, gets him ready for more reps
- Coaches up Bailey to step in at LT and then LG
- Really focuses on run-game blocking during the week of practice, trying to get guys on the same page.

Bevell:
- Designs game plan that features 2/3 running and 1/3 or less passing
- Includes a lot of 2-back sets with a bruiser fullback in game plan, or 1-back sets with Gilliam at TE
- Includes a lot of Russell Wilson read-option runs in game plans
- Figures out ways to throw just enough that defense doesn't catch on to Russell's problem
- Figures out which routes Russell *can* still throw, and puts in passing plays that emphasizes those.

Schneider:
-Knows Russell is injured, with about 4-6 weeks to get through before healing complete and accuracy returns.
- Starts looking for free-agent FB and TE players who can fill in the gaps, for "Ground Pete" remainder of season
- Scores Tukuafu at FB to add to team
- Scores Moeaki at TE to add to team (We'll see how that works out vs. KC)

So, sure, all the other stuff is a factor, but the key is that Russell just can't physically do it, to make all his normal throws. It's not that Russell doesn't trust his receivers, it's that he doesn't trust his own arm. Pete comes up with a plan B to give the team the best chance of winning in the meantime, then gets everyone on board to turn that plan into reality. 3 weeks later, we are 6-3.

For KC this week, we are going to bring the smashmouth to their house and make them try to stop us. Now, we've lost our ex-QB and QB-wannabe runners and receivers (MRob, Tate, Rice) but we still have the deadly arm of Marshawn Lynch. Expect to see a couple trick plays in the first half, with Lynch throwing to PRich off a sweep, and maybe a Flea-Flicker type of play or two. Maybe even a few RW read-option jump passes to the TE like the play at Carolina. If we hit big on one of those, we probably win; in any case, we have to keep KC's DB's honest.
 

RiverDog

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Barthawk":25ny5gyy said:
350 yards rushing.. set a team record, highest amount by any NFL team this year, we just beat another NFL team by 21 points and the point of emphasis is a passing game that was average yesterday.. maybe because we were rushing for damn near 8 ypc that we didn't feel the need to push it with the pass game.

Several points: We were playing at home against an inferior opponent. We were behind at halftime, due largely to the fact that the offense played terrible. Russell had two picks. Sure, we played really well in the second half, but 2 quarters of good football isn't going to be good enough to win most games, and our toughest games lie ahead of us, not behind.

The passing game wasn't average, it stunk. Fortunately the Giants have the worst rushing defense in the league so we had an option, which was to feed the Beast.

Personally I'm not satisfied with beating up on a dead from the neck up Giants team by 21 points. I want another Lombardi. We are not going to get another one unless we fix our passing game, which is the theme of this tread.
 

Anthony!

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RiverDog":15dlzu5a said:
Barthawk":15dlzu5a said:
350 yards rushing.. set a team record, highest amount by any NFL team this year, we just beat another NFL team by 21 points and the point of emphasis is a passing game that was average yesterday.. maybe because we were rushing for damn near 8 ypc that we didn't feel the need to push it with the pass game.

Several points: We were playing at home against an inferior opponent. We were behind at halftime, due largely to the fact that the offense played terrible. Russell had two picks. Sure, we played really well in the second half, but 2 quarters of good football isn't going to be good enough to win most games, and our toughest games lie ahead of us, not behind.

The passing game wasn't average, it stunk. Fortunately the Giants have the worst rushing defense in the league so we had an option, which was to feed the Beast.

Personally I'm not satisfied with beating up on a dead from the neck up Giants team by 21 points. I want another Lombardi. We are not going to get another one unless we fix our passing game, which is the theme of this tread.


And the point of fact is there are many things impacting the passing game, and it may not be an easy fix. The reality is we may not have the pieces need to get a really good passing game. Our oline is not designed for pass blocking and are not good at it. Our Wr are not the kind that can get open consistently on their own, we have no real #1 or big Wr or go to WR like a Dez Bryant. Our WRs are not making plays on the ball at all, example the int to Baldwin a Wr who fought for the ball ie Tate would have caught it. Now some on here thinks the WR should not have to do anything other than run a route an catch a perfect pass from their QB, But to anyone with any knowledge of the game we know that WRs are suppose to fight for the ball, make plays etc. If they did not than no QB including the big 4 would look very good. Wilson has been off for whatever reason. Our play calling and route trees are not great, the nature of the way they want Wilson to play is an issue as well. Most of this is verified by the fact that when Wilson is running the 2 minute drill and he is allowed to do what he wants things go well for the most part. Why because he gets to make any throw he wants, he gets to get rid of the ball quicker, he helps the oline and wr with his movement, etc etc.

So it may be hard to fix, until we can upgrade the oline for pass protection and get a #/go to/big WR. Of course an easy fix might be to run the 2 minute drill more often, say 4-5 times a game.
 
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