3 Facts
1. The
Seattle offense bounces back from the debacle in St. Louis.
After their
most abysmal performance of the season, the Seahawks offense responded very
well against Tampa Bay. They moved the
ball consistently the entire game, but were held back by two costly turnovers
deep in Buccaneers’ territory.
Nevertheless, the Hawks generated 415 yards of total offense, which
represents their third highest total of the season, and scored 27 points. The highlights of the offensive performance
were Marshawn Lynch’s season-high 125 yards rushing and another gritty
performance from Russell Wilson (19-26, 217 yards, 2 TDs, and 2 INTs). I feel like this was Seattle’s best rushing
performance of the season because the yards came primarily from Lynch and
Robert Turbin. It was also impressive
because the Hawks were able to be so productive despite losing Max Unger,
Michael Bowie and James Carpenter at different times in the game. In addition to the effectiveness of the
running game, I have to applaud Russell Wilson for fighting through another
pretty horrific half of football to lead the team to victory. Wilson threw for 189 yards in the second half
and overtime and continued to keep ticking even after taking a few good shots
from Tampa Bay. Although Wilson got beat
up a little, he was never sacked and he performed extremely well when the Bucs
brought pressure. According to Pro
Football Focus, Wilson threw both of his touchdown passes when he was under
pressure and posted a 152.1 QB rating on 10 attempts when he was blitzed. After being completely unable to generate any
semblance of offense against the St. Louis pressure last week, it was a breath
of fresh air to see Wilson, his offensive line and his receivers react much
better to the Tampa pressure. While the
two turnovers were disturbing, it was a good sign to see the offense rebound,
which is something we cannot say about the defense.
2. Winning
is king, but how you win is important too.
Let me get
this out of the way first: any win in the NFL is a good win. This cliché is the only thing that has
Seattle fans sleeping soundly at night.
Personally, I believe the 12th Man is living in a fantasy
land. In the real world, while results
are extremely important, how one obtains his or her results is important in its
own right. Let me illustrate with an example. Let’s say we
have a rich person, who makes a substantial donation to your favorite
charity. On the surface, everyone would
applaud this person for their generosity.
However, what if the person amassed their fortune, from which the
donation was made, by employing small children in sweatshops to produce their
products? Would we still applaud this
person? Absolutely not. Applying this concept to the Seahawks, we
can’t focus blindly on the wins and ignore the troubling signs that linger
beneath the surface. Seattle has spent
the better part of the 2013 season struggling in one or more of the five phases
of football. While Seattle fans should
be ecstatic that their team is 8-1 despite all of its issues, no one would
dispute that enough is enough. There is
no excuse for gaining just 135 yards of total offense against a St. Louis team
that had given up an average of 373 yards to its first seven opponents. There is no excuse for allowing 405 yards
rushing to two teams that were averaging 70.6 and 93.6 yards rushing before
playing Seattle. There is no excuse for
falling behind by 21 points to a winless team at home. While I would be the first to admit that
Seattle seems to have an extra helping of grit and heart, I think it is well
past time for them to start exhibiting another sign of a champion: the killer
instinct to jump all over an inferior opponent and not let them breathe for 60
minutes.
3. Golden
Tate is the definition of a playmaker.
When Tate
was taken in the second round of the 2010 NFL draft, the two things that got
Seattle fans excited were the ball skills and ability to run after the catch
that he exhibited at Notre Dame. After
some initial growing pains, including the infamous Donut-gate during his rookie
season, Tate started to consistently demonstrate these skills at the
professional level at the end of last season.
He hasn’t quite taken the next step this year, but he has come up big
for Seattle over the last three weeks.
In Week 7, he averaged a season-high 19.3 yards per catch and had a punt
return for a touchdown called back due to a penalty. The following week, he caught two touchdown
passes against the Rams, including the biggest play of the game when he
adjusted his route and out-jumped the St. Louis defender for a catch that
resulted in an 80-yard touchdown. This
week, he had a highlight reel 71-yard punt return that led to a field goal and
reenergized his team and the hometown fans.
When Percy Harvin returns to the line-up, Seattle will have two guys
that have the running ability of a tailback and explosiveness to score from any
spot on the field. Until that time, Tate
has to keep making an impact on the offense because he is the most dynamic
offensive player on the active roster.
3 Questions
1. When will
the opening day offensive line be back together?
The Seahawks
have been playing without their starting right and left tackles for several
weeks. The injuries have forced other
linemen to play out of position (McQuiston) and to play before they were ready
(Bowie). The result has been an
onslaught of pressure that has battered and bruised quarterback Russell Wilson
for the better part of nine weeks. It
has been well-documented that Wilson leads the NFL in the percentage of
dropbacks that he has been under duress.
With both Wilson and Coach Pete Carroll acknowledging that the
quarterback was pretty beat up after the Tampa Bay game, it seemed like a good
opportunity to look into my crystal ball to determine when the opening day
offensive line would be back together.
According to Coach Carroll, Brenno Giacomini will start to practice but
he will not be available this weekend in Atlanta. The same goes for Russell Okung, who can't
return to the field until November 17th according to NFL rules. Based on your perception of how full the
glass is, Carroll has either been pessimistic or just conservative about
Giacomini's status. He has never
provided anything resembling a specific timeframe for his return. It just feels a little more real that Okung
actually plays against the Vikings in two weeks. However, doesn't feel like a foregone
conclusion that Seattle will wait until after the bye week to activate their
two tackles. Unless they blow the game
in Atlanta, there doesn't feel like any urgency to rush them back for a very
winnable game against Minnesota.
Complicating matters further is the unknown status of Max Unger for the
upcoming game against the Falcons. Unger
left the game this past weekend with "concussion-like symptoms,"
which means that his ability to play in week 10 is seriously in jeopardy in my
opinion. If we were talking 3-4 years
ago, then I could see Unger faking his way back onto the field even if his
symptoms hadn't subsided, but in the day and age of player lawsuits and
unflattering documentaries it seems unavoidable that he misses at least one
game. Taking into account the known
information, I'm extremely skeptical that the starting offensive line, as
envisioned by the Seattle coaching staff, will not be together again until Week
13 against the New Orleans Saints.
2. Is
Russell Wilson starting to feel the collective effect of all the abuse?
Wilson has
been sacked an average of three times per game and has been under more pressure
than any other quarterback in the NFL.
In other words, no other QB has been hit as many times as Wilson has
this year. He has also run the ball 67
times, which has exposed him to another level of hits that most signal callers
don't endure. The pounding that he has
absorbed has gotten so bad that Carroll and Wilson were forced to address it
after the game. According to Carroll,
Wilson was "banged up" after the game. Wilson admitted after the game that he
"got hit pretty good a couple of times." Although everyone is saying the right things,
one cannot help but think that the collective effect of all of these shots is
going to bite the Seahawks at some point.
We have seen quarterback injuries throughout the league, including Aaron
Rodgers on Monday night, and it feels like Seattle is playing with fire. Seattle fans love Tarvaris Jackson, but no
one wants to see him playing with the outcome in doubt. It is common knowledge that NFL quarterbacks
have to be able to keep their eyes downfield, while knowing that they may take
a big shot for the sake of a completion.
However, the defense wins when the quarterback starts to drop his eye
level to account for the blitz. Although
Wilson is an extremely tough individual, how much longer until the abuse starts
to affect the way he plays?
3. Do you
consider the Seattle defense elite?
My short
answer is no. They have a long way to go
to elevate themselves to the elite category.
The best defenses in the NFL are ones that play consistently. No rational football fan can say that the
Seattle defense is consistent. Perhaps,
they are consistent at being inconsistent.
They certainly were very sound, if not dominant, the first three weeks
of the season. They held their first
three opponents to an average of 242 total yards and forced 10 turnovers. They followed the strong start with an
atrocious first half against Houston and a lackluster second half against
Indianapolis. They were fortunate to
split these two games, but the cracks in the facade were already starting to
show. However, the team pulled it
together for back-to-back strong outings against Tennessee and Arizona. Unfortunately, a two-game trend of extremely
poor discipline by its run defense has once again resurrected the questions
about the Seattle defense. An elite
defense would have never allowed two mediocre teams like the Rams and the Bucs
to run over them for 200 yards rushing each.
Seattle certainly has all of the components to be one of the best, but
let's shelve all of that talk until they put together a stretch of games where
they play up to their potential instead of down to their opponent. While we are at it, let's dial down the
on-the-field antics and all of the Legion of Boom nonsense until they actually
hold someone to less than 200 yards rushing.
3 Worries
1. Run
defense
I don't want
to push the panic button, but the Seattle run defense has me more concerned than
the protection issues on offense. The
reason for my concern is that the Seattle defense is completely healthy. They can't use the excuse of missing players
to explain away 405 yards rushing over the last two games. They have allowed 5.4 yards per carry to two
teams that had pretty much announced to the entire football world that they
were going to commit to running the football.
The Rams wanted to protect their back-up quarterback and they achieved
their goal by repeatedly gashing the Seahawks with Zac Stacy. The Bucs wanted to reduce the number of
attempts for their rookie quarterback and Seattle seemed defenseless to stop
them. It is bad when you can't stop the
run, but it is embarrassing when you know it's coming and you still can't do
anything about it. Seattle has to figure
out a fix for their gap integrity in the run game because whatever they did to
prepare for Tampa Bay obviously didn't work.
If they allow another big running day to the Falcons, then the situation
is going to be in full crisis mode regardless of whether they win or not.
2. Red Zone
play-calling
The big
controversy over the last two weeks has been the lack of carries for Marshawn
Lynch in the red zone. In their one trip
into the red zone against St. Louis, Russell Wilson kept the ball twice for -1
yards and then threw a touchdown pass to Golden Tate. The howls of "Just give the ball to the
Beast" could be heard throughout the Great Northwest. The frustration escalated this week when
Seattle threw the ball on a first down from the three-yard line instead of
running the ball with Lynch. It
obviously didn't help that the play resulted in an interception. While we can debate until the cows come home
about whether the decision to pass inside the five-yard line is a good one or
not, it was made pretty clear by Coach Carroll that Wilson's decisions to keep
the ball against the Rams were probably mistakes. Ultimately, Seattle has been pretty balanced
in the red zone. Out of 69 red zone
plays, Seattle has run 28 times with hand-offs to Lynch, passed 32 times, and
scrambled or used designed runs nine times with Wilson. I'm sure that a large percentage of the fan
base would prefer to have the red zone play-calling heavily weighted towards
running the ball with the Beast, but keep in mind that Lynch has run for zero
or negative yards on 32% of his attempts inside the 20-yard line. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why
Darrell Bevell is putting the ball in Wilson's hands more often in the scoring
zone.
3. Added degree of difficulty of Seattle’s season
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