I usually dont write posts about a specific sports game unless it is high school or NCAA Division 2 or something like that. It is because I figure most fans will have seen the games themselves. They will have their own reactions and thoughts about what transpired. Sports radio, forums, and the newspaper comments section provide plenty of opportunities for analysis and venting. I figure readers don't want to read about my individual reaction to a game and its twists and turns. With this post I am going to ignore that and write about a specific NFL game.
In case you are new to the blog or somehow missed it in previous posts, I am a Seahawks fan. I watch every game. I talk about, read about, and write about the Seahawks. The NFC Divisional round playoffs game between the Panthers and
Seahawks struck a chord with me. The loss to the Carolina Panthers was a frustrating affair and it reinforced two piece conventional football thought; spotting the other team 31 points before half time is a very bad idea and the success of a team starts with its offensive line.
The game against the Panthers started out bad, with Jonathan Stewart rumbling down the field for 59 yards, setting up an easy score. Although it is hard to believe the Seahawks first offensive series went even worse. The first play was a Marshawn Lynch run for a loss of three yards and got worse from there. On the very next play Russell Wilson threw a pick six. In a blink of an eye the Seahawks were down 14-0. By the time half time rolled around the Panthers were up 31-0, which is one heck of a lead in a playoff game. It is essentially insurmountable.
The Seahawks Head Coach Pete Carroll loves to go on about how you can't win a game in the first, second, or third quarter. In fact just the week before, after a miracle win against the Vikings, he gave a passionate speech about the very topic. He is probably right, but on Sunday the Seahawks proved you can lose a game in the first half. Letting a team get ahead by 31 points is not a receipt for winning football. As Hugh Millen pointed out, Championship teams don't fall down by 31.
Even down four scores (four TD with four 2 PT conversions), a lot of people were confident the Seahawks could come back. This mindset is brought on by the teams chronic slow starts, which eventually turn into victories.Over the course of the last several regular season the Seahawks offense has had a thing about waiting until the second half to do well. They would struggle in the first half only to come alive in the second and finish teams off. They Seahawks proved their ability to read an opposing team and make adjustments team by repeatedly battling back from deficits to win.
The things is in the past the defense hasn't had problems starting slow, just the offense. Usually the holes they have to climb out of are more like 14-0 or 18-7, not 31-0. Against the Panthers, the Seahawks proved a theory that didn't need proving, that a team cant win a game when both the offense and the defense play like trash for an entire half.
Speaking of the offense. The Seahawks offensive line was atrocious yet again on Sunday. Terrible offensive line play has been a repeated theme in 2015. So, it shouldn't have been a surprise and for many, myself included, it wasn't. The offensive line played like garbage against the Panthers. In fact the offensive line easily deserves some of the blame for the Seahawks giving up 31 unanswered point. They killed drives and forced Russell Wilson to scramble for his life. The first interception was largely their fault.
Going into the 2015 season there were a lot of question marks around the big boys up front. The coaching staff assured us that the group would be fine. They made it seem they had found a new market deficiency. All those other NFL teams were suckers for paying college players trained as offensive linemen. The Seahawks were convinced they could take any athletic big man and teach him the skills to succeed. The offensive line coach, Tom Cable, was a genius. So, the Seahawks started the season with two defensive linemen (J.R. Sweezey and Drew Nowak) and a tight end (Gary Gilliam) up front.
In week 1 the Seahawks only NFL caliber lineman was Russell Okung and it showed. They got demolished by the Rams. The group of offensive linemen continued to struggle until week 8 when they finally protected QB Russell Wilson against the Dallas Cowboys. Tom Cable and Pete Carroll praised the group and chided the fans and commentators for doubting them. They tried to convince us that things had changed. The line had finally developed and we were in for a treat. The thing is, no matter what Cable and Carroll told us, the line still wasn't any good.
During their supposedly good run the offensive line faced the 49ers, Steelers, Vikings, Ravens, and Browns. The Steelers have a legit pass rush. They ranked third in the league with 48 sacks. The other teams were not good. The Vikings were good against other teams, but against the Seahawks they were missing their best defensive players from injury. The O-line didn't actually improve. They just faced easier competition.
Some of the fault for the bad offensive line play obviously falls on the players. They were the ones screwing up. However, I think a vast majority of the blame falls squarely on the Seahawks coaches, and front office for putting these guys in a situation they were very unfit for. They set them up for failure.
I don't know exactly what was going through John Schneider, Pete Carroll and Tom Cable's heads during the 2015 offseason, but from the outside they clearly didn't place an emphasis on the offensive line. It appeared that they thought they were smarter than everyone else in the league. They thought Cable could coach these guys up and turn them into something they aren't. They were wrong.
The offensive line matters. Left tackle and centers get paid a whole lot of money because they matter. You can't win a championship in the NFL with cast offs and misfits on the offensive line. Pete Carroll, John Schneider and Tom Cable thought they could break the rules and the league proved that they can't. Hopefully they learned from their mistakes.
The Seahawks lost to the Panthers for a myriad of reasons. There are two that stand out to me the most. First they started slow and gave up way to many unasnwered points. Teams just can't climb out of a hole that deep. Second they came into the game over matched at the point of attack. The offensive line was so bad that the offensive was forced to abandon their game plan early. I have hope for next year because both of these problems can be fixed.
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