Seahawks move UP to #5 in DVOA Rankings, there is hope!

[Munzter]

Hi everyone,
I've been following this forum for years, but this is my first time posting. :2:

It seems doom and gloom abounds currently on the forum.

I come bringing a beacon of hope for the Hawks' 2015 season.

Not sure how many of you follow DVOA rankings, but I do, and currently the Hawks sit at #5, above all teams remaining on their schedule excluding Arizona :shock: . http://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-r ... oa-ratings

Also per DVOA, the Hawks actually played a better game then the Cards did on Sunday, but got killed by ticky-tacky penalties. Without the semi-ridiculous penalties, the Hawks likely would have won this game.

There is a very good chance the Hawks win 6 of their last 7 games, with the Cards game being a toss up. This means there is a good chance the Hawks finish 10-6, and possibly 11-5, clinching a wild card playoff berth, and who knows, maybe even the division .

Also, go back and look at the Hawks' 2012 schedule/ record. It looks eerily familiar.

Stay hopeful 12s!

Munzter

 

[SomersetHawk]

Any team that high after week 10 never made the play-offs?

 

[Seymour]

Dang, must have done a ton of research to wait a full year to post that??

 

[Munzter]

Dang, must have done a ton of research to wait a full year to post that??

I joined right after the 2014 Thanksgiving day game against the niners, with the plan to post a picture of Sherman carrying away the turkey, but with a whining Jim Harbaugh head edited in to be the turkey's head. Never got around to it though.

After seeing the DVOA rankings today, and reading the mood of the forum, decided now would be a good time to post and bring hope. :th2thumbs:

 

[Seymour]

Dang, must have done a ton of research to wait a full year to post that??

I joined right after the 2014 Thanksgiving day game against the niners, with the plan to post a picture of Sherman carrying away the turkey, but with a whining Jim Harbaugh head edited in to be the turkey's head. Never got around to it though.

After seeing the DVOA rankings today, and reading the mood of the forum, decided now would be a good time to post and bring hope. :th2thumbs:

Just joking of course, optimism is hard to come by right now so thank you for the lift! :th2thumbs:

 

[Alexander]

I figured the Hawks DVOA for the game would be respectable, since they kept it close and there's a very large opponent adjustment for playing the Cardinals.

What I did not expect was how lopsided the VOA was (i.e., before adjusting for quality of opponent). 39.4% for SEA versus -23.1% for AZ. I guess it makes some sense if you think about it. The offense scored on every (or almost every) drive that didn't begin with a 10+ yard penalty. The Hawks are probably more likely than the average team to draw multiple offensive holding calls per game, but even by their low standards, starting four straight drives with a 10- or 15-yard penalty is a bit fluky, and not something you can really expect every week. If even two of those drives don't start with a penalty, we might be looking at a very different storyline this week.

This is definitely a team that could go on a playoff run, especially if they continue to improve in certain areas. Of course, at 4-5, getting to the playoffs is going to be tough. At a minimum they're going to need to beat either the #2 DVOA team (@AZ) or the #6 DVOA team (PIT).

 

[grizbob]

:th2thumbs: :th2thumbs:

 

[Munzter]

Any team that high after week 10 never made the play-offs?

Here is what I pulled from Football Outsiders for the past couple of years. The answer to your question is yes.

2014
Philadelphia was #5 at week 10, finished #7, missed playoffs

2013
Chicago was #5 at week 10, finished #11, missed playoffs

2012
Chicago was #5 at week 10, finished #6, missed playoffs.

That's as far back as I'm going. Based off this, being #5 at week 10 is not a good indication of making the playoffs, but I also didn't look at what each team's remaining schedule was and whether they had to play teams above them to finish off the season. Some teams start hot and disappear at the end of the season, where as other teams start cold and get hot at the end of the season (like the Seahawks). I'm hopeful that latter will occur this season, with the Hawks squeaking in to the playoffs.

On another note, 3 of the Hawks' 5 losses are against the 3 of the 4 top DVOA ranked teams, with 1 of the 2 remaining losses coming against a tough divisional opponent (Rams) and the other coming against a Packers team that was playing well at the time + no Bam Bam. On top of that, the Hawks have led each game in the fourth quarter. What that tells me is that the Hawks can hang with the best in the league, but just haven't had bounces go their way this year.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

Seahawks are likely to be the best team to miss the playoffs this year.

 

[kearly]

Very interesting.

Just my opinion, but I thought the SNF Cardinals game last weekend was the worst officiated game the Seahawks had played in since the Colts in 2013. Its not that Seattle didn't catch breaks, its that the officials made probably about 10 impactful errors in the game and only 1-2 of them went against AZ. And for Seattle's offense in particular, having to wait until your down 19-0 to get started because of a series of phantom penalties setting up 1st and 20 and 1st and 25s and having more than half of Arizona's scoring drives kept alive by calls that Seattle wasn't getting, it probably made the officials as big a part of the game as either team was.

And as someone mentioned here a few days ago, when the officials didn't start Seattle off 1st and 20, Seattle pretty much always scored. And when the officials didn't give the Cardinals offense second life, Seattle usually got the stop, so to me a pro-Seattle DVOA discrepancy of some sort is justified, even if it seems surprising in light of the box scores from the game.

What I really like about FO is that when their formula spits out a surprising result that appears illogical to some, they are very humble and genuinely look at the flaws in their system and try to explain how those flaws can sometimes be magnified. I think Seattle played the better game than AZ, but I don't think it was a 88 DVOA swing between the two teams, and FO spends the bulk of their analysis this week talking about how this could have happened in their system.

 

[Stuey]

So when is the DVOA playoffs?

 

[Hawks46]

Nice, here's statistical analysis of how the refs screwed us. Sweet.

Still won't get us into the playoffs. :twisted:

 

[knownone]

Very interesting.

Just my opinion, but I thought the SNF Cardinals game last weekend was the worst officiated game the Seahawks had played in since the Colts in 2013. Its not that Seattle didn't catch breaks, its that the officials made probably about 10 impactful errors in the game and only 1-2 of them went against AZ. And for Seattle's offense in particular, having to wait until your down 19-0 to get started because of a series of phantom penalties setting up 1st and 20 and 1st and 25s and having more than half of Arizona's scoring drives kept alive by calls that Seattle wasn't getting, it probably made the officials as big a part of the game as either team was.

And as someone mentioned here a few days ago, when the officials didn't start Seattle off 1st and 20, Seattle pretty much always scored. And when the officials didn't give the Cardinals offense second life, Seattle usually got the stop, so to me a pro-Seattle DVOA discrepancy of some sort is justified, even if it seems surprising in light of the box scores from the game.

What I really like about FO is that when their formula spits out a surprising result that appears illogical to some, they are very humble and genuinely look at the flaws in their system and try to explain how those flaws can sometimes be magnified. I think Seattle played the better game than AZ, but I don't think it was a 88 DVOA swing between the two teams, and FO spends the bulk of their analysis this week talking about how this could have happened in their system.

100% agree. I've spent some time officiating, I kind of feel like I know a little of what the crews are trying to do, yet I spent a lot of that game just flabbergasted. The calls weren't consistent for both teams, you set a precedent when you throw your penalty flag, you are saying "this is what i'm calling a foul" and when you don't enforce that both ways it makes every ones job harder.

Watching the ALL-22 it's hard to come away with anything. Seattle on tape looked the better team.

 

[hawks85]

Seahawks are likely to be the best team to miss the playoffs this year.

i agree, but and i mean but if we can clean up the little stuff we can make a run at 11-5 easy. we are not getting beat down every game to where we are saying WTF is going on. we have been in every game despite all oline talk bevell etc... the little stuff is making us look like the jags, bucs, ravens, cowboys no pun intended to those fan bases.

 

[Seafan]

No it doesn't give any hope, we still have the same QB.

 

[NJSeahawk]

I like this thread.