What Do You Blame The Loss On The Most?

[AROS]

What say Ye?

 

[Seahawk_Dan]

Though all of the above played a significant role, I think the coaching staff gets the slight edge more of the blame. Lack of adjustment, poor scheming, not playing to your players strengths, conservative play style, and how not getting Lockett/DK involved until super late in the game.

 

[AROS]

Though all of the above played a significant role, I think the coaching staff gets the slight edge more of the blame. Lack of adjustment, poor scheming, not playing to your players strengths, conservative play style, and how not getting Lockett/DK involved until super late in the game.

Hard to argue with any of that.

 

[OrangeGravy]

I would say combination of play calling and injuries. With a mostly healthy roster, our players have been good enough to overcome the flat stretches of bad play calling on offense in the middle of games and also overcome the defensive deficiencies. That all came to a head today and the Hawks have proven over time that they just can't/won't adjust the plan on offense to best mask the personnel issues on any given week. We went an entire season a while back with no running game and one of the worst OLs in recent memory, but still insisted on running nothing but long developing deep pass plays.

 

[davidonmi]

Easily coaching. Throughout the game it was painfully obvious that one staff was aggressive, creative, stuck to what was working and adapted to injuries and what wasn't working.

The other staff was conservative to a point of absurdity, disorganized, and made 0 adjustments the entire game. When the coaches are not doing their jobs the players usually follow suit.

After that, injuries. They have decimated our run game which is our identity, when you lose your identity there goes your season.

 

[knownone]

Coaching was suspect at times and I truly believe this was the worst regular season loss of the Pete Carroll era considering what was at stake and the level of opponent. But It's hard for me to point to anything other than injuries and the overall state of the roster.

We were down Clowney, Brown, Diggs, and Shaq going into the game. Wagner, Kendricks, Willson, and Ansah were either coming back from injury or coming off an injury from the previous week. We lost Woods, Gordon, and Penny over the course of the last 3 weeks. And then Carson, CJ, and Iupati went down during the game.

I don't care how good of coach you are, that's a tough set of circumstances to coach your way out of in a relatively short period of time.

 

[peppersjap]

Coaching was suspect at times and I truly believe this was the worst regular season loss of the Pete Carroll era considering what was at stake and the level of opponent. But It's hard for me to point to anything other than injuries and the overall state of the roster.

We were down Clowney, Brown, Diggs, and Shaq going into the game. Wagner, Kendricks, Willson, and Ansah were either coming back from injury or coming off an injury from the previous week. We lost Woods, Gordon, and Penny over the course of the last 3 weeks. And then Carson, CJ, and Iupati went down during the game.

I don't care how good of coach you are, that's a tough set of circumstances to coach your way out of in a relatively short period of time.

And that doesn't include Dissly, Dickson, Britt, and Neiko Thorpe being gone for the season. We are getting hit hard. I think injuries were a huge factor but the coaching was laughable. Who calls a timeout when the other team is driving for a score with less than a minute to go with no timeouts and taking a delay of game penalty on a field goal attempt? Then running the ball on a 3rd and 3 with our 4th string RB.

 

[AgentDib]

It's easy to wave your arms about play calling overcoming injuries but look around the NFL a little, even just within our own division.

When the 49ers and their much envied coaching staff lost to us it was supposedly because their #1 TE was hurt. Of course we were playing our 4th string TE in that game.

When the 49ers offense melted down in a loss to Atlanta it was supposedly because Richburg their center was hurt and so they couldn't manage protection calls. Of course we've been without our center since late October.

The Rams are missing the playoffs despite their offensive genius because their #1 RB was gimpy all year and they tried to manage his workload. We lost our #2 but have had our #1.. up until today. Where we promptly also lost our #3 RB.

Maybe there's a fantasy land out there where the right play calls mask having a dozen key players out, but I don't see any evidence of it. The healthiest team in the NFL right now is currently the Baltimore Ravens and they are also the heavy Superbowl favorites.

 

[AgentDib]

not getting Lockett/DK involved until super late in the game.

There was pretty good usage of the TE and RB in the passing game but a glaring lack of execution at downfield passes to the wideouts, particularly Lockett.



I'm not a fan of assigning particular blame but the Wilson-Lockett connection was ice cold today. And yes that could be due to a variety of factors beyond the two of them, such as lack of protection from three backup OL, poor threat of a run after the RB injuries, poor game situation due to penalties/score differential, good secondary play by the Cardinals or a number of other things. However, if you knew ahead of a game that Lockett was going to get 8 targets I think you would expect a lot more than 12 yards out of it.

 

[olyfan63]

Easily coaching. Throughout the game it was painfully obvious that one staff was aggressive, creative, stuck to what was working and adapted to injuries and what wasn't working.

The other staff was conservative to a point of absurdity, disorganized, and made 0 adjustments the entire game. When the coaches are not doing their jobs the players usually follow suit.

After that, injuries. They have decimated our run game which is our identity, when you lose your identity there goes your season.

Nailed it nicely.

I've been thinking in hindsight that the players available and the scramble to deal with the OL shuffling made it harder than ever to make in-game adjustments.

The only "adjustment" I noted was the one WR fly sweep or whatever to David Moore for a nice gain. It was so nice to see US doing that for a change instead of being torched with it ourselves. But then we never tried it again. Hell, Rams ran that like 10 times against us, it seemed. No WR screens to DK. No slants (to DK since Gordon is gone)

Not once did we do any REAL hurry-up, no-huddle type of offense. Sorta, with 4 minutes left, but not really. We should have done this a couple drives during the game, in that streak of 6 straight drives ending with a punt. Gas the Cards pass rushers chasing Russell.

Maybe we just flat out lost too much talent and continuity in this game to effectively make adjustments. What bothers me is that it seems like we didn't even try.

 

[HawksSoc]

Wish we would try go for it on a couple more 4th downs. That is the correct approach in today's NFL and Pete needs to try it. 1. By not doing it we are leaving potential points out there and 2. If opponents do it and we don't we are at an inherent disadvantage.

 

[Ozzy]

All of the above but man Pete was terrible yesterday. I know many think he's borderline infallible but he made some absolutely stunning decisions yesterday and its not the first time this year. There were decisions I would be pissed if a junior high coach made them. Indefensible.

 

[Grahamhawker]

It's easy to wave your arms about play calling overcoming injuries but look around the NFL a little, even just within our own division.

When the 49ers and their much envied coaching staff lost to us it was supposedly because their #1 TE was hurt. Of course we were playing our 4th string TE in that game.

When the 49ers offense melted down in a loss to Atlanta it was supposedly because Richburg their center was hurt and so they couldn't manage protection calls. Of course we've been without our center since late October.

The Rams are missing the playoffs despite their offensive genius because their #1 RB was gimpy all year and they tried to manage his workload. We lost our #2 but have had our #1.. up until today. Where we promptly also lost our #3 RB.

Maybe there's a fantasy land out there where the right play calls mask having a dozen key players out, but I don't see any evidence of it. The healthiest team in the NFL right now is currently the Baltimore Ravens and they are also the heavy Superbowl favorites.

Valid points. Injuries make a huge difference in success.
Look at 9ers' injuries last year compared to this year, for example.

It's just frustrating to watch from a fan perspective when there appears to very limited attempts to adjust what clearly isn't working, which is not isolated to the Cards game. Then there's the inexplicable in-game decisions. Do the overwhelming injuries give the coaching staff a pass?

 

[Cyrus12]

Coaching for sure.

 

[Slick]

Cardinals wanted it more. This is their Super Bowl. They'll win here again next year too and I wouldn't be surprised if they are still a 6 win or less team in 2020.

 

[Seymour]

None of the above. Oline piss poor pass protection was the top reason we lost. Once the #1 and #3RB's went down and the running game lost balance, they had no shot at protecting Wilson.
Any team with a good Dline hands us our ass because of this and it's been that way the entire Pete Carroll era because of the run blocking emphasis.

 

[getnasty]

It's easy to wave your arms about play calling overcoming injuries but look around the NFL a little, even just within our own division.

When the 49ers and their much envied coaching staff lost to us it was supposedly because their #1 TE was hurt. Of course we were playing our 4th string TE in that game.

When the 49ers offense melted down in a loss to Atlanta it was supposedly because Richburg their center was hurt and so they couldn't manage protection calls. Of course we've been without our center since late October.

The Rams are missing the playoffs despite their offensive genius because their #1 RB was gimpy all year and they tried to manage his workload. We lost our #2 but have had our #1.. up until today. Where we promptly also lost our #3 RB.

Maybe there's a fantasy land out there where the right play calls mask having a dozen key players out, but I don't see any evidence of it. The healthiest team in the NFL right now is currently the Baltimore Ravens and they are also the heavy Superbowl favorites.

This is really good

 

[kidhawk]

I think it's a coin toss between injuries and coaching. When you have injuries, you just have to change up the game plan. Russell Wilson is your qb...use the man to the fullest. We can survive one game against a lesser opponent making a bunch of quick throws instead of running the ball. I think once we lost our RBs, the coaching staff just failed to adjust the game plan. Next man up just can't always apply in the middle of a game.

 

[xray]

To be brutally honest ; this 11-5 team plays like an 8-8 team that got lucky . What's to blame ? They just aren't as good as their record . Simple as that .

 

[FrickinChickens]

What say Ye?

100% Coaching & their apparent inability for adjustments

Injuries are part of the game, schemes do not always work as planned, the other team may surprise you.

Our coaching staff doesn't appear to be capable of making adjustments on the fly during the game. They have been successful with their halftime adjustments most of the time which is why we are more of a second half team. Yesterday it was apparent that Ken Jr. had no answer for what the Tardinals were doing so he just kept the same zone based defense going with personnel that are not as adept at running it. Same with the Offense, why we left the running game, prior to the injuries, is beyond me. We stormed down the field on the first drive and then nothing. I get that our Oline was getting their butts kicked and Mr. Wilson didn't have any time so why we didn't adjust to shorter patterns with quick hitter is beyond me. Very aggravating as a fan.

Oh well, it is what it is, we are in the playoffs and will likely be on the road which may be a blessing as this team plays better travelling (7-1) then at home (probable 4-4).

Go HAWKS!