Something that worries me

[kearly]

Seattle has been penalized a ton in the last two preseason games. Their opponents were penalized a lot too, though considerably less.

I'll defend the Seahawks for being the victim of some fringe/bad calls, but I think part of it could be a new emphasis by the league this year to de-emphasize physical play. Seattle is a great team, but when they are getting smacked with 10+ penalties in a given game, they put themselves in position to maybe lose a game they should have won.

If officiating stays this tight in the regular season, it's going to hurt Seattle quite a bit, it would be like adding a turnover a game in terms of impact. Sure, it will hurt our opponents too, but it will almost always hurt us more. The crappy thing is, I don't think there is really a whole lot that can be done about it. Seattle plays hard and when you play hard you are going to rack up penalties even with fair officiating. But with tight officiating, yuck. If they call games tight all season, we are in for a lot of ugly football. I pray this will not be the case.

On the bright side, officiating has been remarkably lenient in the playoffs, so hopefully that doesn't change.

 

[JSeahawks]

I think its just a preseason thing. Every sports league in the world is way more strict in the preseason trying to condition the players to what they want. Then they let off once the real thing starts.

Of course there will still be blown calls, but I don't think it will be the penalty every 3 or 4 plays like we've been seeing.

 

[Evil_Shenanigans]

We coughed up over 175 yards to the refs last night. Effectively adding that to our opponent's total. Not cool at all. But how much can you directly affect without detriment to your teams play?

 

[hox]

Our players play to the whistle. They just can't do dumb stuff like piling on after the play is over. Sweezy will improve though. Giacomini was the same way until he learned to control it.

 

[AROS]

Pete was adamant that the majority of the issue behind all the penalties is the players trying too hard, not trusting the system at times. He thinks it's easily correctable. I sure hope so. It's been a brutal preseason in terms of penalties and I agree, if the refs continue to call it like they have been, that's going to have a huge impact on our highly physical team.

 

[chris98251]

I think they back off, pre season is always about emphasizing rules and introducing new rules, besides that many penaltys would make NFL games 4 hrs long versus three and the networks would be screaming and fans turning the dial to watch Heidi for real rather then the other way around due to boredom.

 

[truehawksfan]

I also read the same story, where PC commented the players are trying too hard.

And, don't the Hawks have refs at TC to help them understand the new rules? That just re-confirms what PC thinks.

Plus, it is the preseason for both the players and refs.

 

[Ad Hawk]

Can we clean up our play? Absolutely. But if that's been an emphasis of PC and the coaching staff since game one and yet our trajectory has been worse, not better in regards to penalties, then we've got come coaching challenges that need to be addressed.

There is one other thing...

The league calls penalties in the preseason in abundance to reveal their power to do so when it suits them. They league has now set a standard against which the Hawks won't later be able to argue should games in regular season/playoffs go against them via penalty. They'll simply point to the preseason and say, "you were the most penalized team in pre-season; we called a fair game."

In this way, they can control our destiny as bookmaker, media, and market profits are affected by any success we may have. Even though Seattle is becoming a better-known and loved team in many places outside of the great PNW due in part to our sucess, the bandwagonners aren't enough to fill the financial coffers of the NFL.

Is this a conspiracy? No, I don't think so. But the league has made a statement about physical (read: Hawks') style of play being unacceptable and can now stick us with it whenever they choose.

 

[Scottemojo]

Last year we started terrible with penalties too. Got better. Odd as it is, the play hard penalties don't bother me. The procedural ones drive me nuts. C'mon Okung. You are better than that.

I think Pete and Co will have to have practices officiated as tightly as games if they want this to change.

 

[Ad Hawk]

I think Pete and Co will have to have practices officiated as tightly as games if they want this to change.

Good call.

Where there is a coachable solution, I want to see improvement.

 

[Hawks46]

Last year we started terrible with penalties too. Got better. Odd as it is, the play hard penalties don't bother me. The procedural ones drive me nuts. C'mon Okung. You are better than that.

I think Pete and Co will have to have practices officiated as tightly as games if they want this to change.

I agree, with both you and Kearly. I mentioned this in another post, but if the refs keep calling the games this way, it's going to negate a lot of the advantages we have on defense. I saw a lot of procedural penalties and a lot of penalties on ST, where it's easier to see.

I'd say we could probably rule out 30% of the calls as bad, as long as they're not replicating the bad call ratio in the regular season. We've got some poor personal foul and PI calls, which adds a disproportionate amount of yardage. Take away the two craptastic defensive PI calls last night and we get back about 60 yards.

 

[hawkfan68]

The Seahawks are the smashmouth physical type of team that football should be all about.....the problem is NFL is going the opposite direction. I hope this doesn't cost them games.

 

[Reaneypark]

It's becoming unwatchable. That's a problem. Like Gregg Eastrrbrook likes to point out, there is no law that says football has to be the most popular sport in America. Honestly if what we have to look forward to is what we saw last night, I'm probably going to check out. I don't watch to see refs huddle after each play.

 

[Blitzer88]

It better not last into the regular season as it will kill us if it does

 

[Russ Willstrong]

Im sure you guys realize it's preseason for refs too. IMO the focus on rule changes and the offseason rust caused refs to make several bogus calls. They will review their officiating in preparation for the regular season.

 

[HawkWow]

Seattle has been penalized a ton in the last two preseason games. Their opponents were penalized a lot too, though considerably less.

I'll defend the Seahawks for being the victim of some fringe/bad calls, but I think part of it could be a new emphasis by the league this year to de-emphasize physical play. Seattle is a great team, but when they are getting smacked with 10+ penalties in a given game, they put themselves in position to maybe lose a game they should have won.

If officiating stays this tight in the regular season, it's going to hurt Seattle quite a bit, it would be like adding a turnover a game in terms of impact. Sure, it will hurt our opponents too, but it will almost always hurt us more. The crappy thing is, I don't think there is really a whole lot that can be done about it. Seattle plays hard and when you play hard you are going to rack up penalties even with fair officiating. But with tight officiating, yuck. If they call games tight all season, we are in for a lot of ugly football. I pray this will not be the case.

On the bright side, officiating has been remarkably lenient in the playoffs, so hopefully that doesn't change.

I'm at the beach with the Mrs today, ranting to her of exactly what you speak of. Probably wasn't that great of a beach day for her.

Last year Harbaugh went sniveling to Goodell with his "Seahawks are mean" BS. I was surprised we (to my knowledge) didn't get a letter from the league cautioning about the physical play of our DBs, immediately after. Scares me to think Goodell, always looking to tweak sh*t, might have decided to let us play out 2012 with this style, then make an example of us (and a few others) come 2013 (and beyond).

When the league loses an ambassador like Jr. Seau, they are going to implement change. I think change is happening now and no team in the league will be penalized, figuratively and literally, more so than us (IMO). Now, I understand and share the concern for the health of the players, but if it's not going to be football...they need to call it something else.

I also fear we still don't have a true leader in the locker room. This is a young team that likes each other a lot. Maybe too much. Someone needs to step up and get in the face of the player that jumps on a pile or hits a guy (way) out of bounds. We are being scrutinized and if we're going to get through this re-shaping of the NFL, we better be extra tight, or watch borderline flags become compulsory flags on a regular basis.

 

[kobebryant]

It is frustrating and tough to watch. Though it seems to come with the territory and be a bit of a trade-off that physical teams have to swallow. I wish I had the link but I read somewhere recently that number of penalties taken does not negatively affect quality of team, in fact the inverse somewhat rings truer - as if I recall correctly from the article, 3 of the 4 most penalized teams last year where the Ravens,49ers and Seahawks. Link : http://www.nflpenalties.com/ top 4 by total number of penalties:

Ravens,Rams,49ers,Seahawks

Yes, it would be nice to be near the bottom of the league in penalties while maintaining this level of violence,physicality and toughness, but I am just not sure that it is doable.

 

[SeaTown81]

I'm a bit worried, too.

Bobby Wagner got penalized yesterday for the exact same thing Kam Chancellor did to Vernon Davis last year. Hitting a guy hard in the chest with text book form.

Kearly's right. The league is going crazy about limiting certain types of plays. And it seems as if the Hawks are in the cross hairs even if they follow the rule book by the letter simply because they hit so hard. That's something that worries me. Procedural penalties, I don't mind. Because they can be fixed on our end. Refs being paranoid about how hard our guys hit the other team, that sucks. Because our guys stand to be punished for doing no wrong, or will end up holding back in fear of flags. Not good.

 

[rigelian]

I'm a bit worried, too.

Bobby Wagner got penalized yesterday for the exact same thing Kam Chancellor did to Vernon Davis last year. Hitting a guy hard in the chest with text book form.

The Vernon Davis hit "bad call" didn't bother me too much because at full speed it "looked" like it was helmet to helmet. In the end it was just a error made at the margin of human ability. The Bobby Wagner hit? Not so much. I thought it was a mistake pure and simple. Almost as if the officials were operating under the assumption that unless your not sure... err to the side of it being illegal.

I this is what the officials are doing, it could be a problem for a team that plays fast and hits hard.

 

[grizbob]

The injury to Sanchez yesterday isn't going to help