Russell Wilson and the offense simply weren’t good enough in the second half
Are we seeing Russell Wilson’s limitations exposed?
Wilson is a phenomenal quarterback and nobody can argue otherwise. He’s destined for the Hall of Fame, he is immensely talented and he’s the main reason Seattle continues to chalk up winning season after winning season.
While ever Wilson is in Seattle, the Seahawks will always be in position to claim a winning record.
Yet this Titans game, paired with the end of last season, raises a concern.
The coordinator has changed but the same issues exist. Just as last year the offense would stutter and stall and have no way of getting out of a funk, the same thing happened against Tennessee.
When things spiral and start to go wrong, there’s seemingly no return.
Look at Ryan Tannehill yesterday. He was clearly aided by Derrick Henry’s running, for sure. But he was able to find the little checkdowns, take what was given and ultimately keep his offense on schedule.
Wilson is at his best throwing the deep ball and extending plays to make magic happen. Staying on time, getting the ball out quickly, working the middle — is he capable of doing the stuff you take for granted when a quarterback of his undoubted talent so often blinds you with dazzling downfield shots and making the improbable happen?
An offense with as many weapons as the Seahawks have shouldn’t be shuddering to a halt like it did yesterday. To only have one scoring drive in the second half — courtesy of a horrible blown coverage by the Titans — isn’t acceptable.
I fear we’re in a place now where Wilson’s personal ambition, to prove unequivocally that he’s one of the best of all time, requires him to play in a way that arguably doesn’t suit him. He wants to do some of the things the Drew Brees’ of this world found effortless but Wilson occasionally finds more of a challenge.
Essentially, he’s an improv and deep-ball specialist and really good at it. He does a lot of other things well too. But throwing the intermediate passes and playing a consistent timing/on script brand of football is more of a challenge.
To Wilson though, he needs to marry the two to get to where he wants to be. And maybe he can’t do it. Maybe, at some point, he’ll need to embrace what he is and isn’t.
You can change the coordinators but the same issues existed against Tennessee.
I can’t remember the Brees’ or Tom Brady’s ever having a stretch like Wilson had at the end of last season. And the fact it showed up in the second half again on Sunday is troublesome.
None of this is to diminish the extreme positives Wilson brings to the table. He’s an exceptional player and whatever happens in the rest of his career, he’ll be one of the all-time greats. He might be the prettiest deep-ball thrower of all time and he helped change the game in terms of how the NFL views quarterback size and mobility.
But yesterday’s game and the end to last season hints at road blocks for Wilson achieving the kind of world domination he hopes for. Too often, the stuttering and stalling has reared its head.
If the Seahawks and Wilson don’t find a way to stop that happening — and if they ultimately don’t move forward this season and go further than they have in previous years — then a mutual parting becomes increasingly likely.
How much longer will Pete Carroll go on?
Although many are prepared to dismiss what happened with Wilson and his apparent openness to a trade last off-season, it takes a serious suspension of reality to think that if the Seahawks don’t take a step forward in 2021, old wounds won’t re-open.
And if that’s the case, part of me wonders how Carroll will feel.
Does he really want to be the coach who oversees Wilson’s departure from Seattle? Does he really want to engage in a rebuild of the roster aged 70?
Cast your mind back to 2017 when things got ugly and the Seahawks were blown out by the Rams. Facing a reset in the off-season, Jay Glazer went on Fox Sports before the final game of the year and said the following:
“It’s gonna be Pete’s decision whether or not he moves on, they could be in a rebuilding year here, but Pete may or may not actually retire.”
Albert Breer had already written the following in the lead up to week 17:
“Crazy? Maybe. But with the future of several big defensive stars in question, and a possible overhaul of the roster coming, could Pete Carroll, 66, retire to southern California? It’s not the wildest idea out there.”
Carroll tweeted in reaction to this talk to say he wouldn’t be retiring. However, Glazer is not an unreliable reporter. He never actually said Carroll ‘would’ retire either. He simply suggested it was on the table.
Generally you don’t throw stuff out there like that as a reporter unless you’ve heard something. It wouldn’t be a major surprise if Carroll at least considered it at the time.
That talk was also emerging with Carroll only a year removed from signing a contract extension which had two years left to run.
I’m not predicting anything here, simply offering this as a talking point. If there are many more performances like Sunday — and if the Seahawks don’t take a step forward in 2021 — I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of possibility that Carroll at least considers what he wants to do.
After all, he doesn’t owe anyone anything. Whatever happens from here, he’ll be a Seahawks legend who is much loved in Seattle. He’s a Hall of Fame candidate.
But if he was considering his options ahead of the reset in 2018 — I’m pretty sure he might do so again if the franchise is entering a period where they might be making even bigger changes.
The problem with the defense
One of the refreshing things about the Shane Waldron appointment was it came from outside of Carroll’s circle of trust. It provided some hope that maybe he’d be willing to cede some control.
Defensively however, the coordinator is very much one of the boys for Carroll.
Perhaps influenced by an improved second half to the 2020 season, there was never even any talk of Ken Norton Jr losing his job. Yet the powder-puff schedule played as big a part as anything in their ‘success’ — a situation put into perspective when the Seahawks played the Rams and were hammered by a thumbless Jared Goff.
Yesterday against the Titans was a throwback to the problems of last season. The Seahawks gave up major yardage, provided no resistance and couldn’t hold onto a big lead.
It felt like the New England, Dallas and Arizona games all over again. The offense puts points on the board but then stalls, then the defense capitulates under immense pressure.
Carroll referred to the amount of yards they gave up last season in a press conference recently. He suggested it was a freakish situation. An anomaly.
Yet look at Tennessee’s yardage compared to the other games at the start of 2020:
Atlanta — 506
New England — 464
Dallas — 522
Minnesota — 449
Arizona — 519
Buffalo — 420
LA Rams — 389
Tennessee — 532
I’ve long thought Carroll should take on the role of figurehead rather than controller. I think he should’ve self-scouted and read the tea leaves. He is a master motivator who delivers a terrific culture and environment.
Scheming, game-management and details are not his forté.
Appointing specialist coordinators to run the offense and defense and taking on a role as the man overseeing from afar felt like a good idea. It’s what Nick Saban has done in Alabama. Yet rather than delegate, Carroll doubled down on control last year as things started to go south.
The Waldron appointment was encouraging but with the same issues emerging on offense, you have to wonder if Carroll has truly taken the training wheels off his bike.
After all, when quizzed last week for an example of a play Waldron had introduced in the Colts game, Carroll instead praised his coordinator for his willingness to retain aspects of the old offense. It was a bizarre answer.
Defensively, the Carroll and Norton Jr combo remains unconvincing and uninspiring. And while people have been celebrating (and overstating, for me) the D-line depth and the pieces available — the unit is still far too easy to play against. Even in front of a raucous home crowd.
Admittedly it doesn’t help when you reflect on how they’ve constructed this defense. As we’ve talked about so much — massive investment at safety and linebacker is a head-scratcher. And if you’re going to spend two first rounders and a third, plus $17.5m a year, on a safety — you hope for game-changing quality.
Yet it’s so difficult for a safety to provide that. When you have a top-class pass rusher, they are in 1v1 situations all the time. How often do you see a great defensive lineman take over a game? Maybe even win you a game? The best in the business have a knack for it.
For a safety it’s so much harder to impact games. In the case of Jamal Adams, the team and the player himself feel obliged to try and manufacture impact.
On the long touchdown run for Derrick Henry yesterday, Adams aggressively attacked inside. Tennessee’s running back just had to bounce it outside and even if Tre Flowers’ positioning was better than it was, I’m not backing him in a 1v1 vs Henry.
When your safety is attacking the backfield, there’s always a danger something like this can happen. And you can’t help but wonder how Kam Chancellor would’ve been used there without the pressure to justify the price-tag and game-changer tag?
Chancellor never blitzed. Sadly, only in our minds can we imagine what a Chancellor vs Henry battle for contain would look like. I’m convinced he would’ve made a different decision to Adams — or wouldn’t have been given the freedom to do what Adams did.
The explanation of the Henry touchdown from both Head Coach and player was frustrating:
Isn’t it just a perfect representation of the Seahawks right now? Carroll reaching for a play from the expensive safety and revving him up too much. Only for Adams to make a bad decision, one he’s totally oblivious towards it seems, giving Tennessee an opportunity to change the game.
There will be games this season, no doubt, where Adams tries something and it comes off and we’ll have a week of media and fans alike talking about his brilliance. 100% that will happen.
Yet it’s the need to manufacture situations where if the gamble doesn’t come off, you get badly caught, that highlight the issue with Adams.
The Seahawks have invested so much in him and feel like they need to get a return on that investment. Utilising him this way in Carroll’s system (tweaked or not) is so majorly boom-or-bust.
It’s too late to do anything about it now but the Seahawks really should’ve thanked Ken Norton Jr for his efforts in January and moved on. Then they should’ve appointed someone with a background in the schemes where Adams succeeded in New York under Todd Bowles and Gregg Williams.
If you want to max out the investment here, isn’t that the best thing to do?
And Carroll should’ve been willing to take a backseat and let two new coordinators run things, while he concentrated on what he’s best at. Culture and motivating.
Quick hitting questions & notes post-Tennessee
— Why do the Seahawks’ staff so often lose the game of adjustments?
— Why do the Seahawks keep investing in tight ends only to struggle to involve them consistently in the passing game?
— How did the Seahawks not create more problems with their pass rush given the Titans O-line was in a state of total decimation?
— How did they go into an off-season knowing they had an issue at cornerback, only to emerge with Tre Flowers beginning the season as a starter? Flowers played 100% of the snaps on Sunday.
— Why are the Seahawks so average at home? They’re 21-13 at Lumen Field since 2017. That isn’t good enough.
— Why did Carroll suddenly decide to ‘teach a lesson’ to Jordyn Brooks for his late-hit penalty? Is that a thing he does now? Doesn’t he have to be consistent with that moving forward? For example, does DJ Reed need to be benched after his taunting penalty? I’m not sure why you take out a first round pick to play Cody Barton just to prove a point mid-game.
— For what it’s worth, Barton had the worst PFF grade on the team from his 11 snaps yesterday. Brooks had the second worst grade on defense — closely followed by Marquise Blair, Darrell Taylor and Tre Flowers.
— Why did Carlos Dunlap play only 30% of the defensive snaps against Tennessee? Is he really that much worse in run defense than Rasheem Green (64%) and Benson Mayowa (65%)? Given they gave up 212 rushing yards, that would suggest he isn’t. And why did Alton Robinson play fewer snaps than LJ Collier?
— Jamal Adams’ PFF grade last season was 64.2. So far this year he’s graded at 70.7 (Colts) and 63.6 (Titans). Is this just what he is in Seattle? He also blitzed nine times against Tennessee — right around the mark he was blitzing a year ago.
— Kyle Fuller had an offense-worst 36.4 grade according to PFF. How did the Seahawks end up in a situation where he’s starting at center?
— Doesn’t it already feel inevitable that this season will end in a similar fashion to the last five and we’re now just slow-dancing to the end, having the same conversations as we go along, waiting to experience the same off-season debate and drama we had last year?
— Are ownership actively looking to sell, as was reported a year ago? An update on this situation would be welcome. And if not, what exactly is the long-term plan for the franchise short of ceding power and control to Carroll and hoping for the best?
If you missed yesterday’s instant reaction live stream, check it out here:
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I thought it was way worse than the scoreline indicated. Tennessee just squandered so many chances and made so many mistakes. Also we benefited from extremely poor reffing, particularly with spots.
It was particularly worrying just how physically dominated we were in the trenches. It’s so clearly Pete Carroll’s vision to be the bully but they’ve completely failed to implement that vision, instead squandering that draft capital on the safety position (don’t forget the second round pick for Blair). Rob, you’ve hammered this point so much over the last 2 years so I don’t need to say any more…
Also, I don’t know if it was just the CBS coverage – but I thought the atmosphere sounded a bit tame. It didn’t have much energy to it. And also why the fuck were people doing the SEA!HAWKS! chant when we were on offense when they should be shutting up? Can anyone who was at the game confirm that I’m not crazy?
Gosh, you’re so right about that one spot on third down. The side judge’s foot, where she marked the ball, wasn’t even pass the first down marker on the turf and she signaled 1st down, though her spot was clearly a half yard beyond where it should have been. Bizarre.
This is true. The blown coverages in particular massively helped the Seahawks.
100% true
I was at the game and the atmosphere was great. The problem is that all the noise is overhyped. Decent NFL teams are completely unperturbed by crowd noise and have ways of getting their signals made. TN didn’t have a sniff of a false start until overtime. If anything, teams enjoy coming to Lumen field because it’s fun to stick it to a team in front of their home fans, especially if they are loud. The Seahawks aren’t good enough to make Lumen a fortress and no amount of shouting from the stands is going to change that. There was a little, occasional noise when the Seahawks had the ball – the fact that is enough for our offense to false start when the opposition get all their plays away without a hitch in the face of the roar speaks for itself.
You have so rightly pointed out in the past, Rob, that ownership is not present. With no accountability, Pete has free reign, and that has proven to be a disaster. If a sale does not happen in the next year, the Hawks are going to implode as Russ leaves, and bloated contracts deplete the cap. Then comes more desperation trades that do not pan out and destroy any draft capital for the inevitable future rebuild.
This team is going to die of a thousand cuts from a man without the good sense to know that the game has passed him by. I fear that his retirement, without a corresponding change in ownership would only lead to a knee jerk hiring decision that would further erode and hope of a bright future.
I certainly am sceptical that the current structure running the franchise would pull off a top appointment. That’s not reason enough to avoid a change but even so. They’ve never had to make a decision like this so how could we possibly know what would happen? Hopefully they would seek out a Todd Leiweke type.
Put simply, this franchise is in deep shit.
Most of the local media doesn’t recognize it or want to see it. But the Seahawks are adrift without power. And there’s a rocky shore ahead. They need to get the power back or they’re gonna get broken apart.
The head coach is more a problem than a solution. The QB, while great, isn’t as good as he thinks he is and seems to resort to blaming others rather than come to terms with who he is as a player. A star WR is a head case. A defensive player is highly overpaid for his position and is inconsistent at best. The ownership group is vacant.
It used to be that Pete and John would go through the previous day’s game with Paul Allen and defend everything from roster and personnel to play calling, play by play. I don’t get the sense that has happened since his death. Adrift.
A great roster can overcome these challenges but this isn’t a great roster.
The best redzone team last year went 2/6 there, this game could have easily been 44-30.
Sure, but how do we balance that off with the fact it wasn’t 44-30 and they gave up well over 500 yards, 33 first downs and didn’t lay a finger on Tennessee despite playing with a handsome lead. On both sides of the ball that wasn’t good enough.
Pretty sure that’s the point CH was making. Titans went 2 for 6 in the red zone, meaning the game wasn’t far from a complete blowout loss for the Seahawks. This is a classic “game wasn’t as close as the score” situation.
Ah
Yeah i’m saying with normal luck, there’s no chance this games goes to OT at all, Seahawks are just destroyed in regulation.
Got it, understood
The same old story/here we go again (on offense) to me was summed up extremely well in one play.
I believe it was second to last drive of regulation, 3rd and 3, just need a couple first downs to ice the game. Russ throws a really difficult fade to a well covered DK a good 15 yards down field, and he cant haul in a contested catch with one hand. We can talk all we want about DK and contested balls, but that is not the point. Why on earth is that the play call, why is that the read???
All you need is 3 yards, figure out how to get your TEs (off play action) schemed open and get the first down. Why on earth is the “go to” an exceptionally difficult play.
That was so frustratingly stupid and sums everything we hoped we would not see from this offense anymore.
Low-percentage fades in critical short yardage situations appear to be a Wilson specialty. It’s because he sees a one-on-one opportunity and “goes for it.” And they succeed just often enough to encourage him to keep trying them.
So frustrating.
The play call seemed to point that direction as well, from what I saw, didnt see anything “easy” could be wrong
completely agree. drives me crazy. seen it multiple times over these past several years. At the most crucial points in a game – and you have 3rd and 3 or 4, call your highest percentage 3 or 4 yard play, that’s it. Those long fades are great when they work…use them earlier in the game.
For all the talk above about how we were ‘lucky the game was this close’, if we make 2 first downs in a row in the 4tth quarter, we likely win.
But they were only in that position because they were lucky it was close. That’s the point.
Rob, you bring up the point that RW’s limitations may be being exposed. It seemed odd to me that Waldron would have abandon the play calling that worked so well last week. I was thinking RW may not be running the plays that are sent in and may be a big part of the problem. It looked a lot like RW was reverting to old bad habits. You mention Wilson’s personal ambition as maybe being part of the problem, I think it may also be that and Wilson’s wanting to play in his comfort zone which isn’t throwing the intermediate passes and playing a consistent timing/on script brand of football. I thought RW looked off from the very start of yesterdays game and it only went downhill from there.
— How did the Seahawks not create more problems with their pass rush given the Titans O-line was in a state of total decimation?
LOL, I kept asking myself the very same question the entire game. Tannehill consistently had plenty of time to find his receivers. Who were consistently open. The talent level just isn’t their on the D line and at CB. The defense just couldn’t get stops and were their own worst enemy.
As for PC, I agree with all of your thoughts on him. The man needs to retire, period. And take Ken Norton with him, please!
Anyway, great article! You brought up many interesting points that were well supported.
We’ll probably never know why there was such a difference from weeks one to two. I suspect there’s collective blame to go around. But that was a totally unacceptable offensive performance and a repeat of the end of last season.
I like DK Metcalf. I can live with him. He’s on a rookie contract. He’s not paid like a superstar. His limitations suck (penalty machine), but the way he can alter a defensive game plan is good for the Seahawks (would be better if Wilson could channel an inner Drew Brees and check down, as was alluded to).
I would like Jamal Adams if he was an average paid safety signed in free agency. But this version of Jamal Adams sucks. He can’t cover very well. I’ve yet to see a great tackler. And the two “splash” plays he made yesterday were for the other team!
Overall, he’s a decent NFL player but when taken into context that he’s the highest paid safety and a pair of 1st round picks was traded to acquire him and it’s clear he sucks. Yes. He’ll make a few great plays this year (Amadi will make a great play at some point, too) but his acquisition was so-so stupid.
When you’re the highest paid player in the NFL at your position – you need to change the game. Adams doesn’t nothing close to changing the game. He’ll make an occasional big play to change the game, but you don’t know which team he’s going to help. Yesterday the Titans benefitted from his game changing “splash” plays.
The Seahawks are stuck between needing to manufacture ways for Adams to impact games, for the investment they paid. While also running the risk of knowing when they manufacture those situations they are gambling. And as we saw yesterday, the consequences are huge if the gamble doesn’t come off.
Such is the issue where you’ve put all your stock in a safety and expect him to justify the massive outlay of picks and salary.
Its Jimmy Graham trade all over again.. except it costed the future.
We’re gonna have to hear all year from Pete about how great Adams is playing and that he’s doing just what they are asking of him.
Pete was asked today if Adams was being used as he intended.
He sounded suspicious of the question, which I thought was a good one. It implied he could be used better without saying it. It was skilfully asked and gave Carroll an invitation to talk about Adams without triggering an automatic response. He said yes but there was more to come. Didn’t say anything overly positive just to get out of answering which I thought that was as close to an acknowledgement of frustration with his performance yesterday as you’re going to get.
https://twitter.com/d_reif/status/1440091468761292801
Lot more people now coming around on this trade to some of the things we’ve been saying
I’m glad Pete thins there is more to come from Adams… since there hasn’t been anything at all after 2 games.
It’s clear he’s not a game changing player.
I don’t blame Adams… the expectations based up his reputation and the compensation for him were unrealistic.
This is all on Pete and John and their desperation to overcome their inability to rebuild the defense.
A desperate, I’ll-judged trade from day one
Why does every game or event have to be all about the impending collapse of the team in the offseason? We lost a game. That sucked. It’s week 2. Long ways to go.
I do not feel we are “destined” for anything, good or bad. I think the story of this team will be told by them and the players and coaches in this team control their destiny.
That’s the ticket I bought, I’m happy to be on the ride.
Oh f**k off with this crap- it’s a blog, people come here to discuss the Seahawks. If you want to be boring, sit on the fence and not have an opinion that’s fine, but don’t try to shut other people down ffs
Because of what happened with Wilson last off-season. If people are willing to be honest with themselves, if there’s more of the same this year, then we all know what the consequences likely are. And this game was the definition of ‘more of the same’.
But nobody is talking about destiny. The conversation is about the problems of last year re-occurring and some people sharing a feeling that we’re just witnessing the same season all over again. That’s not about destiny, that’s voicing concern about the direction of the team (which, to some of us, has been fairly predictable for a while).
And you can ‘fan’ whichever way you want to. But you shouldn’t expect everyone else to feel the same way you do.
It’s just very one-note. I think we’re all familiar by now with the storylines from offseason.
Isn’t it all too cliche to overreact after a loss (or a win)? That was a bad loss, but I didn’t see a team without direction or a path to success with what is in-house. We lost to a playoff team. It smarts. There’s really no reason to be talking about Pete retiring and Wilson moving on here.
Plenty of time for that later, believe me you’ve adequately prepared everyone for these possibilities.
You sound an awful lot like someone who hasn’t got a lot to say in response so is opting for the classic ‘let me undermine you with a smear (it’s very one-note) to avoid having to actually address the points raised’.
Nobody’s overreacting. Again, this is just a smear to avoid discussing the points. Imply that the person or group is doing something irrational (overreacting) and that takes the place of a coherent argument.
That’s not how we do things here.
You’ve conveniently ignored the points raised and all of the context and latched on to two headlines (Wilson moving, Pete retiring). Again, this is such a dishonest way of debating. It might cut it on other websites but not here.
How very passive aggressive of you.
Please take this a gentle warning on how we debate in this community. The above isn’t going to pass in future. Debate the points raised, challenge, probe. Not this. I know it’s much easier to simply smear people who disagree with you rather than open a discussion but we prefer debate.
Suck my dick Rob, you thin-skinned pussy.
Here you go everyone.
And people wonder why I moderate and keep a close eye on the comments section.
This is what we’re up against.
Fans who treat the Seahawks as a sacred cow and when even fellow fans challenge the sacred cow, the reaction is to take it personally. The response? Smear and undermine. And if that doesn’t work, just post abuse.
I will continue to push back against this. And we will continue to talk about topics that matter — despite idiots like this desperately trying to police the discussion.
Also guarantee the person posting here wouldn’t ever say anything like the above message to my face. Keyboard coward.
well, jesus, that escalated in a hurry. internet is gonna internet, I guess.
The thing is, I sort of agree to an extent, that it’s one game, one really distressingly bad game, but next week is a new chance to show us that the ship is rightable, etc.
But, that said, today’s post is really good content. It has a POV, and it’s a conversation-starter in ways that an ‘all is well, let’s look to next week’ column wouldn’t be at all.
Anyway, a note to say that I appreciate the hard work that goes into these posts, and that appreciation doesn’t vary depending on whether or not I agree w them.
Agree with this. This game was perfectly appropriate for making connections to the so-called “offseason storylines” as I too felt its resemblance to the worst of the last few seasons. I understand why certain homer types don’t buy the critical vibe of this blog; some people just want to revel in wins. But if you don’t want to discuss the clear negatives that were exposed after a loss like this, I’m not clear why you would even be on a blog at all this week. To hear people say, “aww we’ll get em next time?” Sure. Anyways, thanks Rob (and cha and all others) for the work you put into this site. It has given me a much deeper interest in the in-game and roster strategy over the last 3 or so years I’ve been reading, and made being a ‘hawks fan more fun during some otherwise uninspiring seasons.
Wow. He’s calling you thin-skinned?
THANK YOU for spending your free time keeping this site clean and sheltering us from the trolls. It really is appreciated.
Just laugh about them Rob. Life is short, we shouldn’t be hang up on sad people, who gets triggered by everything. I understand that it sucks and hurts that some people come here to say things like this when you put a ton of your time and effort to create articles and posts for free. But a lot of people here respect that and appreciate it. Focus on yourself and these people, the rest are just noise
TheOther sounds like a FG’s accolyte.
“That was a bad loss, but I didn’t see a team without direction or a path to success with what is in-house.”
Funny, that’s pretty much exactly what I saw yesterday. If you saw “direction and a path to success” from that game, you are clearly a visionary.
Now, the first game, and maybe the last drive of the first half against the Titans, hinted at something better. So we’ll see. But this game was really bad. If it were the only data point, we’d be seriously screwed. More points to come, soon enough.
It’s a blue collar city. They pay 17.5m to a safety bum that cannot cover and is running around hesitating against the run.
Meanwhile, their scarce draft talent sours on the benches.
Not the ticket I paid for. Sorry.
It hasn’t been a blue collar city for about the duration of this century lol, this is an Amazon and Starbucks vity, it doesn’t get more white collar than Seattle these days
Was Carson hurt? Why with a 15 point halftime lead did he only have 13 carries. Collins had 1. Our RBs had 14 carries in a game we led the entire 2nd half. For all the fuss about last week and a new innovative OC this game looked way too familiar. We bottled up Henry in the first half and despite trailing by 2 tds the Titans stuck with him and it paid off and then some. Where was our commitment to the run? So many questions that I suspect we’ll be asking all season.
They gave up on the interior run very early and started trying to ‘run the ball’ by using WR screens as an extended hand-off.
That didn’t work either.
Yes, those got irritating very quickly. They require effective blocking from the other receivers, and that was just not happening.
have not seen the numbers, but they barely ran any plays second half/OT. I believe there was 3 or 4 three and outs?
I’ll re-watch, but I’m curious as to when the last first down the offense made was? Did they even have one in the 4th quarter.
It’s just bizarre to me, at some point in games like this – always seems to happen when we have a lead – everything on offense just goes to crap. The run game stops, and we go from higher percentage passes to longer, low-percentage ones that are usually covered up.
Maybe i’m oversimplifying, but the only thing I can come up w is that our O-line is still just not good enough. if it was you’d think we could still generate the 4 yards per run play that gets us into our better offensive rhythms.
Last 4 drives had one first down, the garbage completion to Lock to end regulation
The only really good offensive play in the second half was the busted play to Swain
well there you go – that’s really the game right there. Our D gets blame, and they deserve some, but it’s on the Offense to close out games.
I know it runs counter to running the clock down, but I might have tried some uptempo, two plays called in a row, kind of stuff to try and snap us out of the drudgery that was our offense in the 4th quarter. You can really just feel it when we are going to be bad on offense, and they need to figure out some way, to snap us out of it – or it will just keep happneing.
Our OL is bad at least. Check out the BAL-KC game. Now the Ravens have a good OL. They even shuffled some guys and they bulldozed KC’s DL. They contained Chris Jones, mostly Clark too, Reed also and the rest of the guys too.
KC’s OL was just shoved together. 3 players didn’t even played one snap in the NFL yet, these 5 guys never played together. And they held up pretty well.
Our OL is mediocre on their best day
I wondered why they abandoned the running game too? Carson was getting shut down but Collins had a great run and was never used again. Why? Was he hurt? I’m not saying they need to run the ball all the time, but they certainly didn’t do well passing the ball all the time. I don’t see a bright future for any other running back on the team, the rest are easy to replace in any draft.
The poor defense was left out there for way to long. Sure they made mistakes, but it was the playing time that wore them (or any teams defense) down. Overall, I thought the Titans should have gone for 2 with Derrick Henry at the end of regular play, there was about a 90% chance he would have made it. Instead the Titans just rolled over the gassed defense and did it in overtime.
Gonna buy a champagne now and pop it open when Carroll is either retired or finally fired.
This franchise might be the worst run. And they can thank some of their stars (current like Wilson, Wagner, Lockett – and previous like Kam, Lynch, ET, Sherm) that they’re not mentioned on the same page as NYJ for example.
I get chills from Adams’ press conference. What the hell? A score happened on that play? How about some humbleness dude? Probably most of you’ll say I’m crazy, but I’d trade him for like an R6. He’s toxic and a liability.
But at least he’ll have a great pal in DK. I wouldn’t say anything bad about Metcalf…that dude is huge, he could kill me with his glaze only. And I don’t care about his pacifier or colored hair, whatever rocks his boat. But he’s hotheaded, having bad temper, not cool-calm-collected at all, and thinks that he’s better than he is currently. He’s just a big and fast mediocre WR. He cannot man-handle defenders in the correct way, and he lacks polished route running. With his size, speed, he should be able to beat double teams regularly. But he is not able, because he has the same limitation like Russ. Vision, Football IQ and smarts. He works hard…at running fast, and getting more jacked. But I doubt he study the opponents’ defenders, or potential routes concepts, or running routes early morning or learning nuances of route running.
If it comes to that, I hope we rather trade him (hopefully for R1 and R2 maybe) than paying him 22-26m per year
And you could say…this is the NFL, why are you mad, every team makes mistakes, and there could be a bad game or two. But I give them my time…I watch games, analyse, read articles, statistics, I pay for Gamepass (which is ridiculously expensive imo…like 25% of an avg monthly salary in my country). And what do they give in return? A spit on the face with lazy-@ss performance like this. And the sad part that not from everyone. There are hard working players, good players, like Wagner and Lockett or Brown for example, who’s life isn’t about blingy parties and cringey statements and bigger and bigger advertisement offers, or deciding which color would represent better how cool and level headed I am, or which cool ridiculous mug should I bring to the press conference. We should keep those guys, trade/cut everyone else, fire the whole FO and start totally fresh.
The team would likely suck for 2-4-6-10 years, but at least I would be able to look into the mirror and wouldn’t have to ask myself if I’m truly cheering for a team which star player rocks a 2,5K disgusting Louis Vuitton mug or fake as hell (I see you Russ)
“But he’s hotheaded, having bad temper, not cool-calm-collected at all, ”
And now the book is out on him, Vrabl definitely told his guys to rile him up and get under his skin.
AJ Brown is a friend and former teammate of DK’s, no doubt he provided some useful insight to the Titans about how to get in DK’s head.
I don’t think any team needs any insight from a former teammate of DK. He shows just how immature and volatile he can be on national TV every game day. He lacks discipline, even after 2 full years in the league.
Unfortunately, nothing is going to happen until Pete is gone. His “always compete” bullshit is right up their with their stance on domestic violence. Empty words.
This season is about one thing really: Russell Wilson.
Until this puzzle is solved, this team can’t move forward. Wilson moaned all off-season and got a new OC, heard all the talk in the pre-season and now we’re back at square one, apparently. Maybe it’s just a bump in the road, who knows at this point?
Sam on PFF has often brought up this idea whenever they talk about Seattle. How do we maximize Russell Wilson, what is the best version of Russell Wilson that we can sustain? He’s an enigma, the Drew Brees comparisons are flat out lazy. He doesn’t take what the defense gives him most of the time, he invites a ton of pressure into the offense, he doesn’t really throw over the middle of the field, etc. And yet, we all recognize that’s he a great QB, a HOF QB. He’s a mystery a decade into this career.
As it pertains to adjustments, this team used to be known as a second half team. It was more often the case, you wished they’d just come out firing from the start. They were the ones that go into halftime down a score and made a bunch of adjustments and came out firing in the second half as they retook the game. Nowadays, they’re one of those teams that gets out to big leads then just sort of hangs on for dear life like the Chiefs last night, which they blew too. It’s how it goes in the NFL, the team that’s down often will make the most noticeable adjustments and the games end up close by the end, especially against better teams.
Here’s the problem with that. With Brady and the Patriots, they get out to a big lead, then Brady just starts eating up clock by going on these long drives. He’s a master at moving the ball consistently. He just takes whatever the defense gives him. Maybe he only kicks some field goals, but it’s enough where you’re basically putting the game out of reach just by eating up clock. With Wilson, one the biggest problems is he cannot sustain drives well. It’s quick strikes and a lot of pedestrian series that don’t eat up much time and the defense is gassed being on the field the entire second half. This is why I do not overreact to Pete Carroll not always going for it on 4th down. Short yardage situations with Russell Wilson, might as well sign Cam Newton and put him in for those plays.
All that said, I’m fine right now. Ultimately it’s hard to win the NFL, it’s hard to win Super Bowls in the NFL. Brees never won another, Manning only got carried by the Broncos defense to another one. Great QBs like Rodgers and Brees have had their share of losing seasons, I’m not unhappy with the state of the Seahawks or anything. Not even close to wanting to blow it up or anything. I want to see where Waldron and Wilson end up this year. Maybe get rid of Norton next, yeah.
Rob. Before long you may have an additional talking point. DK Metcalf. Penalties and dropped balls. Sideline tantrums are becoming more common. Given his size he doesn’t seem to deal with contested passes particularly well and unless he is running at full speed when he gets the ball his yards after catch aren’t game changing. Like Adam’s on defense it sometimes feels as though they are forcing plays to him at times. With his rookie contract coming to an end I can see a sticky and dramatic negotiation
I think the Metcalf stuff has been a big overreaction from fans and I was disappointed to hear it be a big talking point on the radio this morning.
DK had a crap game yesterday but he’s the least of my worries.
Despite the offense’s struggles, Metcalf was still good last year, stats wise at least
You can’t say the same about Wilson or the defense.
I don’t think DK is one of the bigger problems, but with this FO, I think he’ll be a big problem.
1, They will keep him. He’ll demand a huge contract. He doesn’t worth 20+ mil/year avg
2, They can’t contain their players. He needs harder grip to reduce tantrums, penalties and diva-stuff
3, They force their stars to be stars. They jump on every hype-train. They force plays to Adams and they force plays to DK sometimes.
DK could be a real star if they’d let him advance naturally, with more and more snaps going to him. If they could show him the way to play. I don’t trust this FO to be able to do that.
And all those pressures and expectations will broke DK
If true, that raises another problem with the ‘quantity over quality’ method of building the DL this year.
Guys who aren’t great run defenders but can rush the passer and vice versa get burned when the opposing team does something against their supposed strength.
PFF Offense
https://i.redd.it/elkdrytgmoo71.png
PFF Defense
https://i.redd.it/rua0aww9moo71.png
Yeah, Fuller stood out as being overmatched yesterday. A lot of pressure came right through the middle.
If we’re looking for bright spots, I thought DJ Reed had a strong game yesterday. The fact that Flowers and Diggs have basically the same PFF coverage grade does make me wonder about the methodology.
How did Adams got 77,5 passrush grade? Do they give points for penalties too?
It’s nice to see that our main points on the defense (LBs, safeties) doing so well… Adams, Diggs, Blair, Brooks, Barton, “Taylor”
Ouch, DK’s run blocking
i would be interested in hearing how many people would support the following:
pete fired
adams traded for first or more
dk traded for first or more
russ traded for boatload of picks
in other words a total rebuild, expectations would be lowered so easier
on our mental state, and would be fun as they improved
i know it would be taking a chance that they would be lousy for a long time
but watching this present team is torturous
It’s not much fun starting over w out a starting QB. When you look back at 1st round pick QB’s over the 10 yrs, you’d be surprised at the low percentage of them that turn out above-average. I did the exercise a while ago, and it’s less than 50%.
Yesterday did certainly suck, but Hawks still easily handled the Colts in week 1, who gave the Rams all they could handle yesterday. The way our offense goes into a shell when protecting a lead is super troubling and a mystery – but, all that said, it is still one game, and a good win next week could make us shift our feelings again. Of course, a loss would do the same in the other direction.
A 1st or more for Adams. Can’t see us being that lucky, but would do it without a 2nd thought.
If Pete is fired i could easily see all the others staying.
The only reason you blow up the team is if Wilson demands a trade.
Agree on watching the same things repeated each year is frustrating.
I believe most of that is on PC and his assembled cast of coordinators,
Especially defense.
Waldron’s a rookie coordinator with who knows how much control.
Firing the alphas with no clear path forward, such are franchise-devastating moves. I think, this is the problem haunting Mariners baseball for ages. DiPoto has a clear plan, and such are the things that work.
While acknowledging that PC and his wishfulness is part of the problem, I’m not for firing the most successful coach we ever had. I really hope, he comes to enjoy glorious retirement. If he calls it a day, we will be in rebuild mode instantly.
Same goes for RW. He is clearly the sole reason, why this team is in every game and was close to win. At the same time, we have to acknowledge, that he may be spotted out. As soon as the Titans played two deep, nothing was moving. The blown coverage was an adjustment problem. I expect his value to decrease over the season. But he still is a real franchise QB. He still out-TDs most of the productive young arms.
For Adams, nobody trades a first rounder for a 64.2 PFF rating bum. We have to adjust, how we use him. Turn him into a real OLB, Barton sucks, anyway.
Coaches have a shelf life IMO. Carroll has reached his in Seattle.
I would rather take a chance on a different approach to see if this team can get to the promise land than endure more seasons like the ones we’ve witnessed recently and are seemingly witnessing again.
Agree. I still prefer a style, that keeps the legacy intact.
Accomplishing this might be in vain. Tragic.
I’d sign up for this.
But maybe don’t trade Russ, just the FO, Adams and DK
Build a good OL and get a good TE and CB
Year after that start to re-build defense. Start by the DL
But if Russ would want to go, I wouldn’t mind a complete rebuild…BUT not with this FO
Two thoughts about Russell Wilson.
One is that with the exception of the drive to close out the first half, which was aided by the one time they ran Alex Collins, Russell had a bad day. Even his long passes were not that good. I don’t think he hit a single receiver in stride on the long ball. They all had to slow down and wait, but the coverage had been blown so badly that they had time to wait.
In the second half he couldn’t move the ball, couldn’t eat up the clock, and the defense suffered because of that. And it is mostly on him because they weren’t running the ball much in the second half.
The second is that I just don’t see any improvement in his game from 8 years ago. There have already been comments about how he wasn’t taking what was given to him, and wasn’t throwing up the middle. His stats mask these issues, I mean with a QBR of 125 you would think he had a great game. But the offense was shut down in the second half. Most of their offense was from deep passes on blown coverage.
He isn’t doing the scrambling or roll outs he used to do, probably because he is slower and they are protecting him more. He also has never mastered the screen play or the quick slant. Yes it happens occasionally, but never with any consistency over a season.
To me, Russell is like the kid in school that does well on tests, but can’t seem to get their act together in the real world. He scores well, his stats look hall of fame good, but he really has some major flaws that he hasn’t overcome. Everyone always says the team would be worse without him, and that is true. But there is also a cost to have a quarterback who is almost great but not making any progress toward becoming great.
after week 1 we were all feeling that maybe things were different but alas week 2
was a repeat of 2020 which tells me even tho we will still win a lot games we will revert back to the norm eventually
my point is that losing with this team is ultimately depressing
above comment was meant as a reply to pdway
Rob,
Maybe it’s hubris or just over-confidence, but if your QB thinks he can make any throw at any time, he’s not likely to choose the safer option when a more exciting but more dangerous option is available. Wasn’t there a play, late in regulation, when Russ threw to a double-covered Metcalf and ignored an open Everett on an intermediate route?
If this were baseball, is Russ the starting pitcher who keeps shaking off his catcher because he doesn’t like the calls?
I said yesterday, when we had to make a play I looked like russ would throw to the most covered receiver.
I think, RW has “his dudes”. And if you’re not.one.of those, he doesn’t trust you.
The whole situation feels a bit like we’re adult children of parents who don’t really like each other, but can’t imagine their life outside of the marriage to bother with it.
Neither Carroll or Wilson likely want to take the chance or moving on without the other, yet they are not a great match anymore (early RW years, they were a great match). Suspect Wilson will keep his feelers for a better horizon now that Brady has shown the way.
Joined a minute late
“Henry unbelievably deceptive speed”
[q] Change defensive style to play him? “Important to get penetration. Played tons of base defense, hit him a ton of times in the backfield. Really, the two big TD runs kinda got out-executed. Breakdowns in discipline. More about playing right in the right spots.”
[q] You appreciate Henry? “Respected him, knew up against, prepared for him, great for half. Until big run – showed us something on cutback – but he had more than we had.”
[q] Rotation on DL? Snap counts fewer for Dunlap, Taylor? “Third down those guys featured. Last drive had one third down in that drive. Just happens. They nice job of substituting, we slowed down our subs. Taylor didn’t have same game as week before.”
[q] Wagner 20 tackles? “Spectacular day of FB. Bobby matched up with Henry. Keep him from getting out, did a fantastic job. Too many checkdowns and dumpoffs. Bobby bunch of tackles on dumpoffs.”
[q] Wagner sack improvised or call? “Designed call, executed beautifully.”
[q] 10 penalties, after play penalties, Brooks sit for series? “Yeah. Clearly stuff we can fix. So obvious. So many after the play. Guys trying so hard, not making clear decision, not hold up. Get hands up when hitting QB, taunting penalty – afraid we’ve opened up a can of worms – by definition make actions towards opponent. Totally can be avoided. Easy things to fix. We get so jazzed up and jacked to finish game off, need to control that. Make sure decision making is in check.”
[q] How do you coach that? “Bench is a great ally for the coach to make a point. Jordyn clearly out of bounds. I needed to make sure we can’t keep going. Played good after that. Just caught up to us. I take responsibility for this. Keep guys’ heads on straight. Really could control.”
[q] Sydney Jones more? “He’s battling, plus Austin. Hard to break in games. Work through practice reps. Developing depth, competitiveness. Ready to play, probably was ready a week ago, wanted to make sure. Pulling for both guys. Tre Brown in another week or two.”
[q] Sherman status? Convos? “Nothing right now.”
[q] Offense unlike Week One, creativity and easy completions went away? “Scored on huge plays. Scored from 5. Didn’t have ball very long. Never established ability to drive the football. Short drive, two big plays, gorgeous two minute drive. Situations by themselves didn’t contribute to having control of LOS.”
[q] Is that the culprit, LOS control? “Yes. Needed control to finish the game. 5 mins left in 4th Q. Finish game here. First down get it. Ball goes back to them. Couple first downs makes a different finish. Both sides had opps to finish. Didn’t complement our play very well.”
[q] Legit going for it on 4th and 1? “Of course not.”
[q] Saw Harbaugh do it. “Had both options. First down finishes game for us.”
[q] Russ play? “Took adv of game well. Last sequence had play action pass, wish controlled the ball more. Had check down to Tyler. Sequence one I wish Russ could have helped us there. At least moved the ball and changed position more.”
[q] Russ mental/emotional state with Trevor passing? “Was difficult on Russ. extremely close to Russ. Intimate of his priorities help Russ. I noticed it affected him. Russ did fantastic job of applying his teachings this week.”
[q] How much talk to Russ about that this week? “I did. Finding time to spend on it. Separating so he can function.”
[q] Waldron behind the scenes, experience NFL adversity, next steps? “Finding consistency and rhythm. Rhythm escaped us because we scored so explosively. Never found it when we needed. Important of how to mix run and pass. Gonna keep learning. I don’t know how many times, we’ve lost like that. Whole team effort there.”
[q] Adjusting in game? Inability last year / yesterday? “No uninformed of what was going on. Anticipating calls and coverage concepts. Talking our way. Had nothing to do with it.”
[q] Running game? “Gotta keep going to it. Didn’t get to it. Threw quite a bit at end of game. Stay aggressive, missed opp by throwing end of game.”
[q] OL healthy? “Shell sprained ankle. We’ll see. We’re alright. Not an issue.”
[q] Lewis? “fine.”
[q] Dee Eskridge? “Reports he feels back to normal. Worked back in. Real good chance to play.”
[q] Mone? “Wait and see. Triceps injury. See how he responds. Would have been very valuable part of game, missed him.”
[q] Nkemdiche? “Good, more plays than we wanted, handled it OK”
[q] Gush about Kyler Murray? “Difficult when time comes.”
It was a better interview. Certainly it being 1v1 is so much better than 3v1, with the three guys all sat in different rooms and talking over each other.
The answers, however, were completely underwhelming.
I found the LOS question enlightening. He clearly believes, he has the team to do so. He hasn’t. And the style how this DL got their asses handed over by a replacement level OL is frustrating.
Some valid points raised here and elsewhere about sustaining success in the NFL. Very few quarterbacks get multiple Super Bowl wins, especially years apart. It’s rare.
Knowing this makes it hard to define success for the Seahawks at present. With Russ, they’ll always be in the playoff hunt, so at minimum, making the playoffs is table stakes for expectations. However, Russ and Carroll have been “figured out” by the league. They can be schemed against and teams can be assembled as kryptonite (looking at you Rams).
I’m leaning in to this conclusion: 1) winning a SB requires a franchise QB, 2) a top 10 defense (at least playing like one in the playoffs), and 3) luck. Hawks check box 1 and seem to mostly check box 3. Box 2 has been grossly neglected and the Adams contracts ensures it’s unlikely to be fixed any time soon. Hence we languish in purgatory.
I could name a few teams that have won without the elite quarterback. Denver’s win with an ailing Peyton Manning was the latest. But also Wentz ?? came thru once. And there was also that guy that got the Rams a win back when they were playing in St. Louis.
At least one of the Giants wins over the Patriots was due to defense.
It’s a lot easier if you have both an elite defense and a good to great quarterback with great receivers, and a decent running game. Seahawks have the good quarterback, but neither of the last two.
I meant they don’t have an elite defense or a great running back. They do have some great receivers.
St Louis Rams won with Kurt Warner. I think he only played for them for two years??
Winning SB might require an elite QB in most cases, but check out the Ravens. Switch out Jackson to a guy who has only OK/decent mobility (can run, but not like 10 yards avg, more like 4-5), and can make solid reads and good short and middle throws, but nothing spectacular. A “game manager”.
With their OC and running game and defense, I think they’d still be successful. Probably not SB winning successful, but at least successful like the current Hawks
I dont want to distract from any of the points made, there was a lot that felt familiarly frustrating about this game.
But I will say, I actually felt a bit nervous about this game before hand despite feeling very confident all week. I think the Titans are much better than they showed last week and I think I heard Vrabel was 7-0 coming off a double digit loss. The came out in the second half and played with real fire, which contrasted with a lot of complacency on our end.
They’ll need to bounce back themselves now, but I think there’s a chance this loss looks better later in the year (not including the collapse of course).
Hawks were basking in the glory from Colts win and blew this. Its always like that under Pete when they eke out an unexpected win. it tells the state of mind of the team and coaching on how they approached the season and colts game.
Speaking of last year’s problems…
Brian Nemhauser
@hawkblogger
·
1h
Alton Robinson had his second straight strong grade from PFF. He had an 82.9 pass rush grade, but only got to rush the passer for 6 snaps. Seahawks coaches need to address that.
There is simply no way on God’s green earth that Benson Mayowa deserves 57 snaps to Alton Robinson’s 18.
No way.
Mayowa should be that veteran 25 snaps per game stash for the playoffs type guy at this stage of his career.
Can’t argue this. Also Dunlaps limited snaps. Then Collier with snaps over Green is also very confusing.
I wouldn’t mind seeing him in coverage at this point
Yup. And Carroll said as much right after the Colts game, too. I noticed Robinson getting in the game earlier than against the Colts, but didn’t see him in for a whole lot of plays.
Who the hell is deciding how many plays Robinson gets?
Pete keeps saying they need to get him in the game more, as if he has no control over it.
I wish they sell the franchise to Bezos… look at Panthers
Nothing else would change the funk Hawks is going thru. its a slow and grueling death for fans until that happens
Its probably not that easy.
My guess is there is some holding period that Jody Allen has to hold the business for (because it was inherited), or else they tax the living hell out of her.
Austin Reiter is on the Saints practice squad.
Sherman expects to play this season.
Atkins still a FA.
Seems like these guys would all be an upgrade over what they have starting.
True story, I just googles Einstein’s definition of insanity and there was a picture of Trey Flowers there. Weird.
I sound like a broken record, but get rid of the stupid penalties and get three or four more first downs in the second half and we win the game. We didn’t even need to score more in the second half than we did. We just needed to claw back some possession time and run down the clock more on offense to win. That’s all.
Getting rid of the stupid penalties is just about emphasis, discipline, and coaching. Getting more first downs and better controlling the time of possession was really about scheme and execution. Quick out passes, screen passes, quick hits over the middle, draw plays, shuffle passes, etc… Excepting a dynamic play or two, our offense made the Titans defense look like the 85-86 Bears defense in the second half.
I’m not quite sure why our offensive line was as ineffective at times as it was.
I’m not quite sure what they are trying to do on defense at times.
I’m not quite sure why they haven’t given up on Tre Flowers yet. Can Blair playing out of position be any worse than he is?
This frigging game was in the bag with just a modicum more of common sense and offensive ingenuity and execution.
Boy we let one get away. Kind of felt like the Giants game last year.
https://twitter.com/bcondotta/status/1440013946727981058
Back to the old nine blitzes a game then…
And what we’re seeing is he has no awareness to his blitzes.
Look at this TD conceded to Indy.
https://youtu.be/fVfFWrDw4xU
Clearly Adams isn’t going to get home. A leap with his arms up is his only effective option. But no.
He did this several times against Buffalo, giving Josh Allen wide open throwing lanes as he was blocked out of the play.
Do you want the DB sack record, or do you want to win? Because I don’t know.
It’s a mess.
It was so frustrating to watch Adams he is not good on coverage or run game. He will try to blitz zillion time and may get 10 times that means nothing. Yesterday he was hitting wall again and again and Henry was running other way. Is it so hard to notice on flim?
What’s worse is he just looks so insignificant on his blitzes. This year especially, no wonder 0 sacks, pressures, or much else.
We just don’t have the right coaches to use his type of player; unfortunately PC will never admit this and continue to do the same.
It’s embarrassing
We just need to *also* blitz Wagner more! That will allow Adams to get a few more sacks. 17.5 million dollars justified!
Adams was getting handled by their 3rd down back. If he’s going to shoot the interior at just the right time that’s one thing. But he has absolutely zero pop on his edge blitzes. Embarrassing. Would be nice for the Seattle media to call him and the coaches out on it.
One play. It’s fourth down and less than a yard for a first down near midfield. The Seahawks line up as if they are going to go for it. Were they going to go for it, or just try to draw the Titans off sides with a hard count (does this ever work?).
Most times during a game it’s not wise to go for it there. Being up by 7 points near midfield with the ability to all but put the game away there, however, I was for it. If we can’t get two feet then at worst they still have to drive near half the field for a game tying TD, and there will probably be enough time on the clock for us to execute a drive to win the game in regulation.
What happens? False start by Lewis. I never found out.
So typically inept on a 4th and short. Didn’t you leave out the time out we wasted as well or was that another sequence?
I think they just punted after the penalty.
I know it was just one play among many, and I don’t know if they were going to go for it, but if they did, and they probably make it (odds are anyway), then they a good chance to put the game away then and there, one play away from field goal range and the clock grinding down.
Carroll said that they were never actually going to go for it
lol… Pete, you actually need to go for it once in a while for other teams to take the call serious. At least Lewis took it serious..
Can anyone remember the last time Russ was able to draw a defender offsides? He is horrible at it. I would prefer they tried a QB sneak instantly once the Oline was set. They go to the line, they get in their stance and hike the ball without any hesitation. Unfortunately, Fuller sucks so it is a non-starter anyway.
By far the most frustrating thing about yesterday’s game to me was the fact that Derrick Henry was hit within one yard or behind the line of scrimmage on 26 of his 35 carries and yet still managed to have 182 rushing yards (160 of which came after contact)*. That’s inexcusable defensive execution.
*Credit to Jarad Evans of PFF
they have tackling problems for several years.
Does anyone else feel like they just can’t bring themselves to care that much? Maybe it’s everything with the past two years, but I was watching them collapse (in all the same predictable ways we all knew would happen–no DBs, no pash rush, baffling offensive series) and thinking about all the better things I could be doing with my time. We all know they’ll somehow make the playoffs and lose in one of the first two rounds, spend the off-season not making an real changes, then come back and repeat the entire thing until Russ leaves. I feel more and more like I’m just done watching. (And FWIW, I’m old enough to remember them in the AFC championship, so it’s not as if I haven’t put in my time …)
I certainly didn’t feel, after this loss, how I would felt about a similar loss a few years ago.
See my post directly below yours and the comments to your post. I feel the same. I’ve been watching since their first ever game in ’76. I turned 19 about 3 weeks after that first ever game so I’ve been there since the beginning.
And the beat goes on…………I have ZERO intention of making the Seahawks appointment viewing the rest of this season. I gave them a chance as I do every year. As BobbyK posted yesterday, I had hope until after halftime yesterday but that hope was beaten out of me by witnessing the the same shit we’ve seen for far too long now, all of which Rob very succinctly spelled out in this article. I have no interest in, nor do they deserve my emotional investment. If it’s a nice day, I’ll ride my motorcycle instead of watching the Hawks, if a Gonzaga game is on at the same time, I’ll watch it (at least they make it to the final four, more than can be said for the Seahawks), if there’s a clam dig, I’ll go to the coast, and so on and so forth. In other words, I just really don’t much care anymore. I’ll still have interest, but the passion is already gone for the year.
I’m not there yet. I haven’t yet given up on the new offense yet. They definitely backslid in the 2nd half yesterday, but I did see some promising things before. I’d like to see them use Eskridge as kind of a multi-purpose weapon off and on throughout the season, kind of a Percy Harvin type but without the headache.
Like Rob, I don’t think Ken Norton Jr comes anywhere remotely close to maximizing the talent he does have on the D. That’s a big concern for me going forward. Here they’ve got this multi-million dollar weapon in Adams, for instance, yet I can only remember a couple of plays where he really made a difference.
Anyway…still hanging in there, but they’ve got to get it together fast. I just don’t know if they have the combined brain trust to do so.
PS> They sure coluld have used KJ yesterday.
We could have used 4 DTs as well. Ngakoue for Mone and not adding a 4th DT again. No wonder they wore down. No 4 DT rotation
This loss is all my fault. I take 100% responsibility. If I had started Derrick Henry in my Fantasy Football league yesterday, he surely would have suffered a high ankle sprain on the very first play instead of being the highest scoring player of the week.
What the hell were you doing NOT starting Derrick Henry in fantasy????
I had Jonathan Taylor last year and was way too impressed with our effort against him. Also, Henry only got 10.70 points the week before against Arizona with 58 rushing yards and 19 receiving yards.
That and I was distracted by starting a new batch of homebrew and getting ready to bottle one today.
Actually I take full responsibility for the loss. I should have flown home for the game. First season opener I’ve missed in the last 12 years. I blame myself!
for god’s sake, pls don’t sit Dalvin Cook next week….
I don’t have Dalvin Cook. I have Josh Jacobs, Derrick Henry, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, and Damien Harris.
I started CEH and DH, then put J’Mar Chase in the flex. PPR league. Chase was Burrows favorite target at LSU. Lots of targets.
Derrick Henry putting up 47 points for me was about the only silver lining for me yesterday.
I’ll always play fantasy football or place bets with my head and not my heart. The way I see it if my head says the other team is the clear favorite and I can make some money on them I’ll bet on them and if I lose oh well my heart is still happy because my team won, if my team loses then my heart is pissed but hey I just made some money!
My head told me Henry had a bad week against Arizona, we had a good week against a very good running back averaging three yards a rush before contact last year, and J’Mar Chase would get a lot of targets from Joe Burrow in a PPR league.
When do the Kracken start so I can have hope in a local sports franchise again?
Seattle Storm headed into the playoffs now trying for back to back championships. Seattle Sounders doing pretty well this year and went to the finals last year. Seattle Reign a winning team again. Seattle Mariners finally a young and winning team again on the rise. Seattle pro sports teams doing pretty well now all things considered.
Appreciate your optimism as it concerns the Mariners. Call me a serial pessimist, but this will be the 21st straight season with no playoff appearance and I am in permanent “I’ll believe it when I see it” mode with this franchise.
I truly understand the sentiment. But they are competing for a playoff spot now (a year before it’s time), and they have gone from bottom 2-3 farm systems in MLB to number one by a few appraisers of such things, and top 5 by almost all accounts.
That’s what baseball is about. Talent. You just need to hit on about 4-5 players in your system, sign a few top FA’s, and trade some of that farm talent for other quality players. We just haven’t been near in such a position for a painfully depressing period of time till now.
https://twitter.com/Softykjr/status/1440052013488750595
Unacceptable
It looked like the players and the coaching staff had mentally moved on to Minnesota after going up 30-16. Unacceptable.
Certainly seems like they took their eye off the ball at HT
🤮🤮🤮
Yup.
I was thinking 10-7 & missing the playoffs before the season. So I unfortunately was less optimistic than last year. I was just hoping I’d be wrong & Will continue to hope so.
I am shocked. So “uncharacteristic”…
Saying the words and believing them are two different things. These issues have plagued Carroll teams for years. At this point it’s lip service.
100% Same spew, different season. You’ve become boring Pete.
I know it’s not a nice thing, and I wouldn’t do it (partly because I’m against violence, and partly because who knows, maybe PC could beat my ass), but I could slap Carroll sooo hard.
How many times did he say “We have to get better than that”. Are these penalties just some fluke? Hell no, it was always there. Coaching staff were never able to get the hold of their players, just those players were much better. With a more disciplined team maybe the LoB era would’ve lasted longer and won more than 1 SB.
You know the feeling when someone always hurts you and apologize after? How much weight those apologies have after some time? Zero.
Just like PC’s words, especially “We have to get better”. They almost never get better…maybe for 1-2 games, but tbh the culture is not that great in Seattle. What is their culture? Getting jacked up, and cheerleading? Letting guys paint their hair and be who they are? Boo-hoo, big stuff.
Only culture that is relevant to football is the winning culture. And Pete doesn’t have it. Sure…they win some games, because 3-4-5 guys on the roster.
But remove Lockett only and you might have trouble. Remove Bobby and you’ll have issues. Remove Carson and you won’t have a running game. Remove Brown and the OL crumbles. Or remove RW and you pretty much win like 3-4 games in a season.
I had enough with Pete. He’s a great guy, a role model, but an awful coach. He’s a one trick pony, who put together a great team with JS ONCE, and live on that alone. I give him around zero props for the successes, without those special players (RW, Lynch, Sherm, ET, Kam, Bobby, KJ, Bennett, Baldwin, Bryant, McDaniel, Tate, Clemons, Avril, Irvin, maybe even Kearse and Maxwell) they would never reach SB and probably even the playoffs
The OL crumbles with Brown or without. It doesn’t matter.
It make my guts ache to watch a hodgepodge rebuild Saints OL, featuring Cesar Ruiz at C and Calvin Throckmorton at LG, providing space and time to the utmost.
Pete Carroll was a man with no answers in his press conference today. He looked as miserable as you’ll ever see him and he couldn’t offer any meaningful assessment of the game yesterday.
It was nice to see him get asked how good Bobby Wagner is for the 1,033,487th time though, with the questioner even prefacing her question with, “I know you got asked about this yesterday.”
You can see his shocked expression down the sideline during 4th…looked clueless and surprised. He has a bad supporting cast around him.
I’m sure Pete and ‘Tater’ got right down to business sifting through this one after the game
Apologize if this has already been discussed and I missed it. Sounds like PC called out Wilson on the throws he made on our final drive. Wilson hasn’t really responded well to being publicly criticized. Hope it’s nothing. Perhaps they are finally taking the kid gloves off with Wilson once and for all.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BradyHenderson/status/1440032987173642248
RW and the offense clearly played dreadful in the second half. Funny thing is if you look at his stat line at from the game, you’d think they would have won the game…22-31 343 yards 2 TDs O Ints 129 passer rating.
I got a funny feeling the problem isn’t coaching on offense and more on Wilson. All the let russ cook talk and that’s exactly what they did last night. They put the ball in his hands and he couldn’t do anything. I keep thinking about the throw to Lockett on one of the final drives that he caught out of bounds. It was put where only Lockett could get and that was out of bounds. He was so covered there was nowhere else to throw but he did anyway. And that wasn’t the only time. Maybe that’s why people on the inside say they aren’t against trading him because he refuses to go by the game plan but they aren’t going to blast him publicly so they just give tough and cheek responses.
I’m still not sure about the Waldron/RW/offensive scheme thing yet. I think we need to give it a little more time. They didn’t even have the pre-season to work with. It’s not uncommon for people trying something new to have moments where they revert to old habits. If our offense continues to look too much like the 2nd half of the last game 3-4-5 games from now, then I’ll be right there with you.
RW does listen to all sorts of different people, his dietician, psychological counselor, his agent, his religious teachers, probably his wife. I’m not sure he didn’t follow the game plan. He played very well in the first half.
I don’t know if Waldron is going to be the offensive mastermind we hope he is. We still have very little to go by. I’m not sure when RW is following and executing the plan the way Waldron intends or not. The offense looked good the last game. Very good. It looked good in the first half the last game, or at least you couldn’t complain too much about the results. It’s mostly been one real dreadful half of football so far this year.
i doubt he will if pc wants to keep doing the same plays.
I think that’s right – as bad as the 2nd half of the Titans game was, it shouldn’t completely erase the good things we saw in week 1.
If we look bad again the next couple games, then it’s time to start really re-setting expectations. But for me at least, no need to go to that dark place before we have to.
{sarcasm font}
What’s with all the negativity on this site? Haven’t you seen the latest power rankings? The Seahawks are a clear number 5 ranking over the entire football nation – even over those silly football teams in Europe that can’t even make the rankings.
.
https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl-power-rankings-2021-32-200858520.html
I mean come on people. They have an easy win ahead of them when they face 21 ranked Minnesota who will surely lose. That team is so sad that they hired a cook to play running back.
So chin up, we have a long happy season to watch our favorite team (Tampa Bay, cough cough).
After all the credit the DL got last week, it just infuriated me that they couldn’t make hay with the Titans OL in tatters.
And on the flip side, I think the front of fullers jersey is unrecognizable from cleat marks.
“So put your little hand in mine, there ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb”
“Okay, campers, rise and shine and don’t forget your booties ’cause it’s cold out there today!” “It’s cold out there every day!”
Smash the F#$king radio already.
Some 12’s, like me, can only agonize and suffer disappointment so much with this team. For now, here is a thought about the first round rookie QB’s around the league. At draft time I was trying to decide which QB would be a disappointment. I decided it would probably be whoever was drafted by the NY Jets, for 3 reasons: 1. Because they are the NY Jets 2. Being a bad team, they would throw the rookie into the fire before he was ready 3. Being a bad team, they probably wouldn’t have the OL personnel to protect the QB.
That was a long list of truly damning questions Rob. All of which are exceedingly pertinent.
Thank you
There are so many things going wrong, I don’t even know where to start. Yes, nobody liked our last drive, and Russ should have done better – I would like to see him having a man reaction about it once and say “coach Carroll is right, I screwed up there”. But I wonder who called those plays. You have 3 attempts to get 10 yards, you don’t have to go all in every throw. We stopped running in the second half, which was a silly decision. I believe Pete would have kept the ball on the ground more, so it’s on Shane. The play calling killed our O in the second half, we went 3 and out too easily, we kept the D on the pitch more than needed and we got the results we all know.
Adams is blitzing too much and with no result. Wagner got hit sack on a blitz due to the surprise element, while everyone knows Adams is blitzing and they had blockers ready for him. The really disappointing bit about last game was that we couldn’t beat a weak OL with our pass rush so we went all in blitzing. All Tannehill needed to do was chip the ball to the RB or the slot receiver, behind our Dline, and get easy yards. We had no response to that. Add to that the awful display of what should be called the Tre Flowers Boulevard. We need a new DC, we need a new CB, we need depth at LB and we need the pass rush to step up.
Then there’s the problem of penalties and mistakes. Some things happen: a false start by Lewis or even the extra point miss (Myers does that once or twice a season, not an issue there) are to live with. Others are unacceptable. Like it or not (I find it a joke), there’s the new rule of taunting penalties. You know about it, you get 10 yards away from any opponent and you celebrate all you want. Then, DK lost control and he should do more talking with his game and less with shoving. Pete should have benched him like he benched Brooks (Barton did a very poor job replacing him, but normally I’d trust a coach to read the state of a player and maybe it was the right thing to let Brooks calm down). And finally roughing the passer is also a stupid penalty, and getting it twice, Nkemdiche (we should cut him based on performance) and Adams, shows that the team needs more discipline.
There were positives against the Titans, especially the last drive of the first half. But our loss didn’t look like an accident, last season’s problems are still unsolved, and we have tough games ahead and if things don’t change quick we’re gonna finish last in NFC West.
That’s a good point. JA’s blitzes were almost always picked up, meaning that not only is he not in coverage, he’s not doing anything in the offensive backfield. If the opposing team is now able to consistently neutralize his one skill-set, the season is going to be unbearably long. Ironically, this could decrease his injury risk, keeping him on the field even longer.
The very fact we haven’t signed an available DT by Tuesday morning is troubling to me. We have 3 and one doesn’t appear to be ready to play yet (Mone). After watching the offense make the D play almost the entire 60 minutes and seeing the results I simply don’t get it.
PC said, it was because they scored so fast they couldn’t get into an offensive rythym, I say BULLSHIT. The entire second half was a shitshow of major proportions……A LOT of that is on Waldron. )Plus people need to remember RW lost a dear and personal friend that week, and still performed reasonably well……1 pass to Everett for 3 stinking yards REALLY?
I do not think the OC situation gets enough attention. The fact is we lost a top tier OC in Shotty and we replaced him with a lesser talent in the role. We lost Shotty over really bad internal affairs no less. He did nto have a falling out with RW, he had a falling out with PC who then relented and gave RW exactly what Shotty was asking for! This should be a major story line.
Waldron is a rookie making rookie mistakes. Metcalf barely getting looks and on short routes?! Rare to no TE sets with a big lead? Play calling really confusing.
I know much of this is the same mistakes as always but we have clearly taken a step down in the OC department.
Schotty is not a top tier OC
Otherwise he would have been snapped up to be an OC somewhere, he wouldn’t be an assistant to Darrell Bevell in Jacksonville.
One can argue that Bevell is not a top tier OC, as well.
Schotty was pretty awful. Even Bevell might be a better OC.
And in the first game, Waldron called a good game. In the second he didn’t. Not sure if it’s on him, RW or PC. But Schotty is NOT a top tier OC, and let’s wait until we start the FireWaldron chant