Interesting that it was Dilfer that got me to quit lurking and actually post, but I have to call B.S. on his deep crossing route analysis. Football Outsiders broke this down in the divisional round. Teams only took a shot deep middle 8 times all season. How can you say that is the way to beat the Hawks, when no one in the league tried it?
His second point in that Denver needed to pick on Maxwell was somewhat correct. If you are going to challenge with throws to the outside, it only makes sense to go after Maxwell. As amazing as he played, he was still not up to Sherman's standard. With that said, teams were statistically far better off to try and beat the Hawks with short crossing patterns in the middle, which is exactly what Denver tried to do. Furthermore, Manning does not have the arm to test teams deep consistently. He may have been able to get a few of them out there, with the major risk of throwing a "duck" up for grabs.
The reality is, Denver had no real option to attack Seattle's D besides being able to consistently run the football, which they made 0 attempt to do so. Seattle can be run on, especially when they have the nascar package out there in passing situations. I know hindsight is 20/20, but Denver would have been far better off coming out to start the game in a conventional jumbo package with an extra blocker and just ran a simple dive play. That way you get the jitters of the first play out, and see how the crowd was going to react to things, while maybe picking up 3-4 yards.
As for Dilfer slobbering all over his 2000 Ravens D, someone should remind him that in week 2 of that season, the D gave up 36 points to a 7-9 Jacksonville team. What did the Seahawks do in week 2 this year? Oh, that's right...
