DavidSeven":2pfikur5 said:
MontanaHawk05":2pfikur5 said:
It's not a "gut feeling" that Bevell is calling play-action on fourth down, or deep sideline bombs on 3rd and short, or FBs in motion as wide receivers, or Graham blocking on crucial 3rd downs. There are clear instances of dumb playcalls where Bevell is trying so hard to be unpredictable that he just gets dumb.
This isn't like the mid-level manager taking heat over stats, it's more like a mid-level manager taking heat because he got witnessed verbally abusing employees or putting people on projects they're terrible at.
And as Kearly said...even if you can ignore all that stuff, Russell Wilson needs better than an average OC. He probably needs one of the league's best, someone with real creativity.
At the end of the day, you are judged by the overall performance, which is measured in statistical performance and wins. Both are areas that our offense has excelled in over the last three years.
We've excelled because Russell Wilson can improvise against fourth-quarter defenses exhausted by our run game. Most Wilson scrambles are a sign that the play has broken down. Now I acknowledge that a LOT of plays break down in the NFL, more than most people realize; the five-seconds-of-protection accomplishments pulled off regularly by Dallas' offensive line are actually broken plays themselves, pushed far beyond whatever the OC originally intended. But Seattle, I feel, has a much higher lucky-to-intentional ratio than even most teams thanks to Wilson. It's not a comfortable situation for a lot of us, and the question of whether it's sustainable for more than a couple seasons is still an open question.
I don't mean to make this personal, because I sense you're a smarter and more level-headed guy than most, but you've almost flat-out admitted that you're being contrarian. I agree that scapegoat mentality is annoying and there have been times I pushed back against it, too. One such time was the anti-Ruskell sentiment after 2008. One bad season was too early to be calling for his head like some were, and there were too many other factors involved. So I sat back and waited another season. It turns out that sometimes, mobs are right. Ruskell's drafting tactics just weren't cutting the mustard, and his staffing decisions proved to be fatal. (That was the downfall of John Morgan over at Fieldgulls. He let his contempt for common fan narratives drive him consistently in the opposite direction, and he ended up a Ruskell apologist without realizing it.)
As far as reasons for seemingly dumb play calls...do you remember the game after the Beastquake? The 2010 divisional-round road game at Chicago, Hasselbeck's last game as a Seahawk? You might recall that we went down early after a big 3rd down TD play to their tight end (I think Greg Olsen, don't remember). Most fans reflexively blamed the first defender they saw trailing the TE in covering, in this case Lawyer Milloy, and just assumed he'd lost too much speed to be covering guys down the seam. Put him out to pasture and all that.
In reality (and most fans still don't realize this), the TD happened because Milloy had been caught off-guard by a ridiculous play-call, courtesy of mad scientist OC Mike Martz. It had been 3rd and 5.
You don't call seam bombs on 3rd and 5, even if the safety does abandon the deep middle. It's just a low-percentage play, and there are literally dozens of higher-percentage plays that you could run to pick up the first. High risk, high reward. In this case, it worked because Cutler made an ace throw. Martz gambled that Milloy would be caught flat-footed just long enough by a call he never expected, and it paid off. But had it failed, Martz would have been crucified for the call, and rightfully so.
I suspect Bevell's bizarro play calls are of a similar vein. He's hoping to catch his opponents off guard with unconventional stuff. In other words, "getting cute". Except that Martz was better at cute than Bevell, and working with more talent at WR, TE, and OL. I also suspect that much of it is Pete's greed for the big play, since a 50-yard bomb is statistically equivalent to a handful of punts. "Run-first offense" is often just code for play action.
So I don't just appeal to "they know what they're doing" when it comes to NFL staffing decisions, especially after Ruskell, Mora, and Knapp. A lot of coaches out there are in over their head. There's a subtle narrative of players chafing under Bevell that goes all the way back to his days in Minnesota. We've also got throughlines of our playbook being too well-known, DBs running our WR's routes for them, and Seattle players not being used to their strengths. I agree that Wilson and the OL share part of the blame, as well as an almost completely unremarkable WR corps. But the Bevell narratives are starting to harden their own ruts - they're consistent and harder to avoid with each week.
I don't think Bevell is horrible. But I think he's predictable at the wrong times, unpredictable at the wrong times, too simplistic, too slow to adjust, and not a good fit for a unique QB like Wilson. And if we want to avoid a decade of Colts-like playoff flirtations, it might be time to see if we can upgrade.
