The Percy Factor

[FlyingGreg]

The most critical aspect of the Harvin situation for me is this:

-- Not having Harvin last season was NOT what kept us from getting to the NFC Championship game.

-- We didn't get to the NFC Championship game because (a) our pass rush was flimsy, especially with out Clem; (b) our defense had a serious bugaboo in giving up late leads (Detroit, Miami, Chicago....even though Wilson's heroics pulled it off....and Atlanta.

I still see pass rush as THE most critical piece of our upcoming season.

Harvin, for me, is a serious luxury purchase and I'm giddy with the anticipation of seeing him in our offense. But we still have a lot of play makers on that offense. If he does get back just in time for the last quarter of the season and the playoffs, that's kind of like a mid-season trade where we acquired him (a la Lynch).

But we aren't going anywhere until we can consistently pressure QBs in critical parts of the game. I'm counting on a more aggressive Quinn, Clemons coming back and the likes of Avril and Bennett helping us to improve.

 

[Largent80]

Plus we will get him back before the December stretch run. This could end up becoming ideal.

 

[HawKnPeppa]

I hope everyone that 'expects' Harvin to be back for the post season doesn't implode if that doesn't happen, because it is by no means a given. With how cautious our medical staff and coaches are, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't come back until next season if he has even the slightest hitch in his gaddyup.

 

[TeamoftheCentury]

I hope everyone that 'expects' Harvin to be back for the post season doesn't implode if that doesn't happen, because it is by no means a given. With how cautious our medical staff and coaches are, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't come back until next season if he has even the slightest hitch in his gaddyup.

Boy, I don't know. There would be a lot of factors. Sounds like the general recovery time is a given. From what FloridaHawk79 said about getting his giddy up back (he is speaking knowledgeably with his background and with what his wife knows about all this in her expertise)... some of Harvin's recovery is going to depend on him. All that "monitoring the situation" stuff had better include staying on Harvin to do his part.

The ONLY reason Harvin shouldn't be back on the field by around that MNF game vs. the Saints would be due to a more unlikely scenario. Sure, it's by no means a given that he will return. But, that shouldn't be said as if there isn't known information. If the Hawks are somehow out of the playoff picture at that point... I wouldn't risk Harvin coming back. But, if the Hawks are truly in serious contention, I can't imagine they wouldn't do everything in their power to encourage a speedy and optimal recovery to get him on the field into games.

Again, I'm not really disagreeing with you. Just that there's more to it than wishful thinking without outright counting on it. There is enough known for a reasonable expectation.

 

[SE174]

I was out tonight at a local bar visiting friends from out of town. Everybody in our circle knows I'm Mr. Diehard Seahawks Guy so it's always inevitable that I get the "Soooo, about those Hawks..." conversation. You guys know what I'm talking about.

Tonight, the big topic of course was Percy Harvin and how it's basically too bad that we lost Percy because apparently he's our only real shot at the Super Bowl.

:34853_doh:

I had to explain myself to 6 different people how that's not true. That the Seahawks are still very much in the mix for a Championship with or without Percy Harvin. Nobody seemed to buy what I was selling.

That's really a shame because it's the gawddang truth.

I hear you. I've been going back and forth with a guy who thinks that Seattle's WR corp is "abysmal" without Harvin, bottom 10 in the league. Guy is either trolling, or an imbecile.

http://www.championshipsubdivision.com/ ... 53#p792353

 

[SmokinHawk]

Not having Harvin is going to be mostly a non factor. Our WRs were already pretty good without him and I feel we've probably improved marginally, if not considerably, on that side of the ball, even without Harvin. I don't see us regressing offensively, not with the continued emphasis on the running game, along with continued development of Russell Wilson.

 

[Tical21]

It isn't like this everywhere. One of my favorite things to do is to go out to bars in Boston or Philly and just talk sports. The casual fan in places like that knows more than most of the folks here that claim to be die-hards. I know I take a lot of heat for this, but I still contend that Seahawks fans as a whole are the lease knowledgeable fans in the NFL, possibly in all of sports. Some of it is that we simply haven't been around 50+ years like most other franchises. The rest is that the Holmgren era and new stadium brought in a crowd who came for the party, not the game.

I am not going to say we don't have a pretty good shot at winning the Super Bowl, but I will agree that our odds were quite a bit better with Mr. Harvin.

 

[loafoftatupu]

I like the predictions of failure from those who choose to ignore the performance of the offense without Harvin.

We as fans have never truly enjoyed a situation like this, not even in 2005. Then, the defense was tough, but not even close to the youth, physicality and overall talent of what the Hawks have now. That team had an offense that saved the defense by giving them so much rest, this offense is doing the same thing, except the Carroll defense is next level AND rested.

Im telling ya, we have never had it this good as fans. RW isn't going to stop improving as a QB for a good while, he is being put in a long term situation where the experience he has with his own players is the same in each year, something he hasn't enjoyed as a player yet. With that, RW has been successful in every situation he has faced.

I think Harvin is done for the season personally, but if I am wrong and he returns? WOW. The playoffs won't know what hit them. I like being knocked down a notch on the expectations, let them focus on the Niners with their secondary changes and WR questions. The pundits can talk Harvin all they want, but right now, the starting offense hasnt lost a single piece. McCoy is a 2 and I think Miller is going to have a solid year.

Every defense the Hawks faced in the second half of last season gave up that ass like a cheap whore in Detroit at some point.

The Hawks just have too many solid weapons at every position to be held down for an entire game, adding Harvin late season almost doesn't seem fair to rest of the league.

 

[AROS]

The most critical aspect of the Harvin situation for me is this:

-- Not having Harvin last season was NOT what kept us from getting to the NFC Championship game.

-- We didn't get to the NFC Championship game because (a) our pass rush was flimsy, especially with out Clem; (b) our defense had a serious bugaboo in giving up late leads (Detroit, Miami, Chicago....even though Wilson's heroics pulled it off....and Atlanta.

I still see pass rush as THE most critical piece of our upcoming season.

Harvin, for me, is a serious luxury purchase and I'm giddy with the anticipation of seeing him in our offense. But we still have a lot of play makers on that offense. If he does get back just in time for the last quarter of the season and the playoffs, that's kind of like a mid-season trade where we acquired him (a la Lynch).

But we aren't going anywhere until we can consistently pressure QBs in critical parts of the game. I'm counting on a more aggressive Quinn, Clemons coming back and the likes of Avril and Bennett helping us to improve.

I couldn't agree more. Pass rush is my number one, two and three concern with this team. TE is four.

 

[Hawks46]

Back under the radar. I kinda like it.

Bingo

 

[Rocket]

Back under the radar. I kinda like it.

If nothing else it's comfortable being back under the radar. Like your old easy chair from when you was a kid, re-upholstered 3 times and goin' strong.
(I miss that damn chair)

 

[Hawken-Dazs]

If Percy can come back late in the season, then it's a blessing in disguise. As we go into the playoffs, teams won't have enough tape on how we utilize Percy, so they might end up less prepared against our offense.

 

[Hawks46]

The only thing Harvin really did was add some wrinkles, and basically give our offense a margin of error a bit. Now, we have to play more mistake free football, which we did in the 2nd half of the season. So, take what our offense morphed into, then add in continuity, add yet again more reps at the start of the season for Wilson, and we're going to look better even if we didn't add anything. We didn't lose any starters on offense, and it makes sense if we return everyone, we'll be at least as good as we were the last half of the season.

What we added was decent OL depth, good WR depth, and what seems to be even better RB depth. We're stacked on the offensive (and defensive) sides of the ball, so we're better positioned to handle inevitable injuries.

We do have a tougher away schedule this year. Funny, but some of us were thinking we had a very tough schedule last year, with playing the Pats, Packers, etc. and we won those games. I don't expect Harvin to come back, honestly. I'm fine with it from an on the field perspective.

Off the field, I'm a bit pissed we spent this much money on a player that will end up costing us at least 1 good starter due to cap issues and he's not on the field.

 

[Sarlacc83]

I had an hour and a half drive home today, and I was thinking about what I'm going to predict for this year's season record when we have that thread. And never once did it occur to me to take Percy Harvin's injury into account during the first half of the season. In fact, I got giddy just thinking about what our offense can do this year already.

I also don't think we're flying under the radar for anyone but maybe causal fans. NFL teams are surely aware of the 32 ppg last year, and they're the only ones that matter. It doesn't matter if we're underappreciated or overappreciated by fans or the media. It might add a chip to the shoulders of Tate, Baldwin, and Rice, but even then, why would they be out to prove anything less than they did last year? So I don't buy that aspect of it. A mature team goes out and plays on its own terms no matter what the outside world says.

 

[SalishHawkFan]

I agree. I never like too many lollipops and rainbows with the national media when it comes to our Hawks.

You say never as if it's ever happened before. I've been watching the Hawks since day one. When was it they ever got a lollipop or had a rainbow with the national media? Hell, they never even got a pony.

 

[CaptainSkybeard]

You can't look at it like its the Seahawks - Harvin. It's only the Seahawks - (Harvin - the player who takes his spot)

So we lost the difference between Harvin and Baldwin, basically.

 

[hawk45]

The Percy impact only becomes big if Rice has injury problems, which isn't exactly uncommon for him. Realizing that they play different positions, the question is about how many playmakers are at WR for Wilson throughout the year.

With Harvin, I felt we were set for talent for the pass-catchers, with or without Rice. Without Harvin, not so much. All of the talk about our offense and PPGs being great without Harving assumes a healthy Rice. It's not a given.

 

[SalishHawkFan]

But Harvin is irrelevant to a discussion of Rice. They serve completely different roles. It doesn't make one difference to our depth chart if Rice goes down and Harvin doesn't as the kind of receiver who replaces Rice isn't the same one who replaces Harvin.

Basically, Baldwin/Tate replace Harvin and

1: I'd take Tate over Harvin anyday.
2: Baldwin in his rookie year had a better DVOA than Harvin ever had and is my pick to be the comeback player on the team.

We probably won't even miss Harvin. And if Rice gets injured, he gets injured. Who we gonna replace him with is who we'd have replaced him with anyways and it wouldn't have been Tate or Baldwin.

I trust Pete, but Harvin was more about depth than upgrading talent.