If you're not over the loss, don't open this one.

[Seahawkfan80]

That run almost looks like the Gore run a couple years back.....

 

[Jiggy]

IMO the Seahawks lost this game on two plays. This was one of them.

 

[HomerJHawk]

Looked like BWagz might had a shot at a tackle but he hesitated, or slipped, or Shead bumped
into him throwing off his timing?

 

[TeamoftheCentury]

TeamoftheCentury --

Absolutely agreed that there's definitely some trade-off on this one, and that for a guy like ET what we're talking about on one play can lead to what I'm criticizing him for while on another play can lead to a great splash play that people celebrate him for.

Also worth saying is that as far as safety play goes I definitely lean toward to the conservative end of the spectrum, and that's definitely not true of everybody. :th2thumbs:

I agree, in general. Keep everything in front of you. Last line of Defense. But, it's football and even when they're trying to do that while sticking to their assignments, things happen. There's good players, blatant holds , etc. on the other side of the ball. (There's been some other good analysis on this which might exonerate ET from any blame on this one.) No matter the case, ET is quite the player. I personally don't care if he's remembered one day as one of the greatest players all time at the position or not. I just care that he's part of a multi Super Bowl Championship team over the life of his career.

 

[SimonHatcher]

In my opinion it is impossible to say who made the mistake without knowing the play call.

Was KJ supposed to take on the fullbacks inside shoulder and "spill" to ET and McCray (ET's approach suggests that it was that), or was KJ run "force" and ET supposed to fill inside (KJ took an angle for force rather than spill).

Run fits are critical, slight errors don't always show up until a play like this is blocked really well.

 

[Northwest Seahawk]

Been watching that first play from scrimmage and now that I've had some time to process the loss, it feels a lot less like a slip was the problem and a lot more like a poorly executed defensive play by Seattle.

I don't think Kam not being on the field for this one mattered either. Looked like K.J. pulled up to fill the gap and it gave the fullback time to come off of another block and pick him up. Earl slips but it looks like he took a bad angle, Bobby got washed out, Shead took a bad angle and Bane got held in the middle (he almost had the TFL).

What say you?

I have no idea what ET was trying to do but he was horribly out of position.

 

[theENGLISHseahawk]

Mebane blows that thing up. Everyone else lets him down.

 

[Northwest Seahawk]

Mebane blows that thing up. Everyone else lets him down.

Wags and Shead were both blocked by the same guy unreal.

 

[ctrcat]

Mebane blows that thing up. Everyone else lets him down.

Wags and Shead were both blocked by the same guy unreal.

Andrew Norwell is a heck of a football player, especially for a guy that even most hardcore fans of other teams don't know.

For starters he was the only OG in the league to have >500 snaps (he had >900) without a single penalty.

 

[HawKnPeppa]

That run almost looks like the Gore run a couple years back.....

It's a counter move (misdirection), that the Niners used to catch people on. Caught the Hawks on it in the early going until they got wise to it. Seems some complacency has set in cuz they weren't expecting it. Wonderfully executed though.

 

[Scottemojo]

It isn't coincidence that the Panthers chose to test a cutback lane in the resodded portion of the field.

 

[HawKnPeppa]

Looked like BWagz might had a shot at a tackle but he hesitated, or slipped, or Shead bumped
into him throwing off his timing?

B-Wagz is where the misread started. He almost immediately looked and moved in the opposite direction, as if he thought he already knew what was coming. Even when Bane broke though he headed in a direction as if Stewart were going the other way. Huge domino effect with that, and the players not able to recover because of poor footing compounded it.

 

[AbsolutNET]

If you want to see an example of perfect zone blocking, look at how Rubin and Wags get locked up. Rubin was responsible for the gap at the point of attack and completely failed

 

[Popeyejones]

B-Wagz is where the misread started. He almost immediately looked and moved in the opposite direction, as if he thought he already knew what was coming.

It's because he's keying on Tolbert. Still a bad play on is part, but that's what happened.

 

[HawkerD]

If we recover the fumble on the second play it is a different game

 

[lukerguy]

1) This play alone didn't lose the game for them.
2) Some of you must have never played sports before. No one is perfect on every play. There's a lot of finger shaking.
3) They learned from it. After this point they held the rest of the running game to like 70 yards which is insane given Cam's running ability.
4) There's no other core of D that I'd rather have moving forward.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

Can anyone post a GIF of the pick 6 play and the sack on the play before? I would love for people to see how bad our interior o-line plays against a team with good DTs. Britt got absolutely OWNED by Short on the pick 6.

This part of the team has got to be upgraded in the offseason.

 

[TheLegendOfBoom]

Gaps weren't controlled properly. Carolina won the game from the trenches.

This is why I said earlier the Hawks lacked a pure inside tackle rusher. They really move Bennett around only to mask their lack of interior pass rush.

Get pass rushing DT's and maulers on the oline is a must!

 

[Hawks46]

It must feel like 2nd Christmas for 49er fans.

As if 9ers fans even had a 1st Christmas this year. :lol:

ET slips, but he's already taken himself out of the play by crossing his feet over (to get moving in the wrong direction) even before that happens.

Lookng at it again it just looks like he totally guessed wrong (probably because of how late developing Tolbert's block was) and was trying to fill the five hole (inside of Olson), which is pretty gaping, and got left with his pants down when Stewart went through the 3 hole (where Rubin was supposed to be).

IMO this is really the ONLY way to make sense of him crossing his feet like that (which he shouldn't be doing anyway) and over-pursuing into an empty gap.

The more I watch this, while I still don't like what ET does on this play, I become more understanding of at least what he's trying to do and sympathetic to the position he's in.

Good example of what TeamoftheCentury is talking about too. If ET guesses right that's a HUGE play for him, but if he guesses wrong (which he did) and a couple other people don't maintain their assignments we're talking the 80 yard run we saw.

(also worth saying is that he might not have *guessed* wrong and was simply a little over-aggressive in maintaining his gap assignment which ended up leaving things open at the third level).

He's playing percentages, and the hole to the outside was much larger. Stewart went inside of Tolbert, which was more like a crease than a hole. I can't blame him for taking that angle, pushing the play to the inside is what you're supposed to to as that's where your help is.

 

[Hawks46]

I've said this here before (and it has pissed people off before :lol: ) but the one thing that for me makes ET a great player and not an all-time great player is that he has a nasty habit of over-pursuing and lunging rather than keeping ball carriers in front of him, breaking down, and wrapping up.

If he was an LB you'd just kind of live with this, but for all of the things he's tops in the league at, it's just really not what you want to see from a safety, particularly in the Hawks' scheme.

Five things I see on this play:

1) At the first level that's on Rubin. That's his gap and I know he's getting doubled before the scrape off, but c'mon dude, you need to at least try a little harder to hold your gap.
2) Great block by Tolbert, who's not really known for his blocking.
3) Wagner just really can't let a LG come from across the formation on a combo block and still beat him to his upside shoulder. C'mon, dude. As soon as you see those pulling guards you should already know exactly where the block on you is coming from.
4) Shead needs to see what's happening there and not run himself out of the play. C'mon dude.
5) Not the first or last time I've seen that from ET, and seriously, it's the difference between him being great and an all-time great, IMO.

This pretty much sums up how I've felt about Wagner this season. You don't get blocked that far downfield on a running play if you're a ILB. Wagner has just been kind of "out there" on the field this year. He's made way less impact plays than last year. I really hope it's just fatigue from all the long seasons and not apathy after he got paid.