So What Have We Learned?

[AROS]

I am really bummed that Pete's tenure came to such an abrupt and frankly, whimper of an end.

We all would have preferred he chewed his gum off into the sunset of retirement after one more Lombardi. But "If and buts were candy and nuts it would be Christmas every day."

Life would be so much more palatable if things went our way. Steve Largent is a Super Bowl champion. So is Dan Marino. Barry Sanders, Bruce Smith, Junior Seau....On and on and on.

Watching the Conference Championships this weekend sort of underscored the fragility of life in the NFL. A game of inches is the usual mantra. Crazy shit happens in games. Look no further than the Lions helmet bounce that ended up a touchdown for the 49ers. The Lions had 6 things in the game that would have put the game away for them, and in all 6 things, they came away 0-6.

I looked around and what did I see?
Broken-hearted people staring at me
All searching 'cause they still believe

The vaunted 9ers defense looked like absolute below average - or "mid" as my kid would say - in the first half. Purdy looked like the 23rd ranked QB in the first half. Then, suddenly, the tables are turned and their defense wakes up as Purdy does and here they are in "Insufferable Week" where the only NFL-related news and coverage is circle jerking them up to kickoff and perhaps beyond depending on the outcome.

So what have we learned?

Life is horrifically fickle in the NFL. You are either winning and the darling, or losing and the pariah. Pete Carroll spent the vast majority winning games. He was one of the coaches sprinkled with pixie dust along with Belichick. Then, almost as if overnight, the players and fans soured on his approach. Suddenly, the basketball hoop and shooting competition, the loud music blaring at practice, went from a charming, progressive, forward-thinking methodology of team building principles to simply became a distraction in the end.

There's dust collecting on that lone Lombardi displayed in the entry way of VMAC in Renton, Washington.

I'm not so sure I will live to see its twin.

Sometimes offense wins championships. Many times defense does. But on this eve of selecting an entire new coach, era and regime, I am struggling to answer the question of my post.

What have we learned?

 

[chris98251]

The souring was due to seeing a loss of focus on the filed of play, the team not learning and repeating the same mistakes over and over, that was not happening before, yes we had penalties of aggression here and there, but not the continual loss of composure, yes we seen missed assignments, but those were corrected and not repeated game after game by the same players.

Those things and the fact we had a player that cost a bunch of money but was hardly on the field and when he was appeared to play for himself and not the team hurt us.

That was not the type of team we had winning division championships and a Super Bowl, yes we had a coddled Wilson but he was wanting to win and his goals and the teams aligned for a period even if he alienated other players.

Accountability failed, no player bigger then the team failed, we all seen it, that's why Pete is no longer here.

 

[DeSeahawk]

I am really bummed that Pete's tenure came to such an abrupt and frankly, whimper of an end.

We all would have preferred he chewed his gum off into the sunset of retirement after one more Lombardi. But "If and buts were candy and nuts it would be Christmas every day."

Life would be so much more palatable if things went our way. Steve Largent is a Super Bowl champion. So is Dan Marino. Barry Sanders, Bruce Smith, Junior Seau....On and on and on.

Watching the Conference Championships this weekend sort of underscored the fragility of life in the NFL. A game of inches is the usual mantra. Crazy shit happens in games. Look no further than the Lions helmet bounce that ended up a touchdown for the 49ers. The Lions had 6 things in the game that would have put the game away for them, and in all 6 things, they came away 0-6.

I looked around and what did I see?
Broken-hearted people staring at me
All searching 'cause they still believe

The vaunted 9ers defense looked like absolute below average - or "mid" as my kid would say - in the first half. Purdy looked like the 23rd ranked QB in the first half. Then, suddenly, the tables are turned and their defense wakes up as Purdy does and here they are in "Insufferable Week" where the only NFL-related news and coverage is circle jerking them up to kickoff and perhaps beyond depending on the outcome.

So what have we learned?

Life is horrifically fickle in the NFL. You are either winning and the darling, or losing and the pariah. Pete Carroll spent the vast majority winning games. He was one of the coaches sprinkled with pixie dust along with Belichick. Then, almost as if overnight, the players and fans soured on his approach. Suddenly, the basketball hoop and shooting competition, the loud music blaring at practice, went from a charming, progressive, forward-thinking methodology of team building principles to simply became a distraction in the end.

There's dust collecting on that lone Lombardi displayed in the entry way of VMAC in Renton, Washington.

I'm not so sure I will live to see its twin.

Sometimes offense wins championships. Many times defense does. But on this eve of selecting an entire new coach, era and regime, I am struggling to answer the question of my post.

What have we learned?

Great post. And really like the Whitesnake quote !

 

[AROS]

Great post. And really like the Whitesnake quote !

 

[HomerJHawk]

Change is inevitable. Don't be afraid to embrace it. You learn and grow from change.

 

[renofox]

We have learned the Golden Rule in the NFL:

Innovate or Die.

The Seahawks won a SB with fresh ideas - throwing player prototypes out the window and going smashmouth in a finesse league, among other things.

JS nailed it in his presser. The Seahawks became "stagnant" and got "stale". From ~2018 this year's team was the same as last year's team, and next year's team was bound to look the same, ad nauseam. We've been complaining about the high-floor, low-ceiling approach for years.

It was time for a change.

We can only hope the results are better than what we've had.

 

[QWERTY]

I think we learned that Aros is a great mod?

Also PWN25 is a bad mod that someone posted.

 

[rjdriver]

I learned that Detroit fans are clearly paying for some deep, deep, deep, generational or pre existential type of sin. I'm guessing they were close advocates of Satan before being sent to Earth as a Lion fan. That, or every single one of them has some unknown genealogical tie to Khan, Nero, Stalin, or Hitler.

There is no other explanation.

That second half of the NFCCG was potentially franchise changing. It was just a 30 minute extended version of the "interception". It's sometimes hard to recover from that (as we know).

 

[Ozzy]

I think we learned that Aros is a great mod?

Also PWN25 is a bad mod that someone posted.

I’m easily the worst.

 

[OneLofaTatupu]

We have learned the Golden Rule in life
Innovate or Die.

Fixed that for ya

 

[TheLegendOfBoom]

I think the main thing you gotta take with the Carroll era is, when you have an open window, to compete and win a Super Bowl, you do not get cute, you do everything you can to ensure your chances of winning.

Play the percentage instead of “outsmarting” people.

The not handing it to Lynch was a play in which the probability of success was lower than handing it to Lynch to score.

And it forever burned Carroll’s legacy.

Play the better odds, every time in those situations and don’t try to get cute….

 

[Wheetie]

I think the main thing you gotta take with the Carroll era is, when you have an open window, to compete and win a Super Bowl, you do not get cute, you do everything you can to ensure your chances of winning.

Play the percentage instead of “outsmarting” people.

The not handing it to Lynch was a play in which the probability of success was lower than handing it to Lynch to score.

And it forever burned Carroll’s legacy.

Play the better odds, every time in those situations and don’t try to get cute….

Kick the FG Campbell!

 

[TheLegendOfBoom]

Kick the FG Campbell!

Exactly!!!

 

[SoulfishHawk]

We've learned that the Niners were HANDED two "wins" in the post season. Brutal.
And not kicking the two FG's was ridiculous.

 

[JustTheTip]

I’m easily the worst.

Damn it, that is my title. Ask all the heavy hitters.

 

[olyfan63]

We learned that Pete's "winning model" did not evolve to keep up with rule changes on D, did not evolve to be able to stop Shanahan and McVay offenses, Pete had an itchy trigger finger on "shiny object' player acquisitions that crippled the salary cap and depleted the Seahawks draft capital ("ate our seed corn"), because Pete was delusional about how "close" the team was, and especially we learned that if you pay a limited QB as if he's elite, you can't get enough talent around him to overcome his limitations.

The best Pete will forever be the years with rookie-contract Russell, free agent signings Avril, Bennett, and rookie contract Sherman, Bobby, Kam, etc., basically everything right up to the moment of "The Pick" in SB 49. Love Pete, but, sadly, he didn't fully adjust and got a bit delusional at the end. And he never really did stop either of the Shanahan and McVay offensive juggernauts.

 

[olyfan63]

I’m easily the worst.

I did read that thread with amusement, and can sympathize with whatever challenges Ranger was having, but never experienced those challenges personally. Sorry, but you're at least, to quote Richard Sherman, "mediocre", no right to claim the lofty title "worst" IMO. You'll have to try harder to piss more people off to have any claim.

I forgot who said this, but "If you don't piss off the occasional person, you're playing it much too safe." Of course, that has to be balanced with the corollary, "Therefore, make no unnecessary enemies, because friends come and go, but enemies are forever."

 

[Ozzy]

I did read that thread with amusement, and can sympathize with whatever challenges Ranger was having, but never experienced those challenges personally. Sorry, but you're at least, to quote Richard Sherman, "mediocre", no right to claim the lofty title "worst" IMO. You'll have to try harder to piss more people off to have any claim.

I forgot who said this, but "If you don't piss off the occasional person, you're playing it much too safe." Of course, that has to be balanced with the corollary, "Therefore, make no unnecessary enemies, because friends come and go, but enemies are forever."

Very true. I have never even dealt with the individual who posted that so no clue what he's talking about.

We all try to be fair. I think sometimes people expect mods to not have opinions but I don't think that's fair. We can debate, disagree etc just like everyone else but we should also avoid making stuff personal just like everyone else too. I like everyone else have fallen short of the standard a time or two but generally try to avoid it. It's hard because we're all passionate about this stuff and can get a little carried away.

 

[Seahawker]

I’m easily the worst.

Now I don't know about that, I used to think your Colchuck/Asgard avatar pic made you one of the best, lol. But yes, Aros is pretty darn good.

 

[GeekHawk]

Change is inevitable. Don't be afraid to embrace it. You learn and grow from change.

I've said it before, but it's been a few years. So here we go again:

'Change' is not inherently good, nor is it inherently bad. 'Change' is just 'differentness'. However, it *can* be for the better or for the worse.

Let's not forget, we changed from Chuck Knox to Flores. From Holmgren to Mora. Now, from PC to ??? OTOH, we changed from Erickson to Holmgren, and from Mora to PC. I'd say we're 2 for 4 in these. Hopefully we go 3-5 with this latest change. But, "hope is not a plan".