Below are my thoughts and reactions to our disappointing loss to the 49ers in week 1. If you're interested, here's some reaction and analysis of the game from Field Gulls, 17power, and HawkBlogger. I might have hit up on a few things they didn't, but I probably sound like a broken record if you've read those since there appears to be a lot of consensus in the Seahawks blogosphere.
• The first-half offense..yikes. It’s going to be a long season if the Seahawks offense decides to show up an hour and a half late to every game. Even worse than expected, the offensive line allowed way too much pass-pressure and the run blocking was no better. There’s no way T-Jack is off the hook either with the terrible pocket presence he showed and holding onto the ball way too long at times. Those 5 sacks were a shared responsibility between him and our line. On one play Golden Tate had his coverage burned but TJ overthrew the ball on what would have been a sure TD. The 49ers offense wasn’t much better, but their o-line at least played well enough to give Alex Smith some time and set up those FGs.
o Okung appeared to uncharacteristically struggle at times with a few penalties and allowing a big sack on 3rd-2. I wonder if this is at all related to the ankle sprain he endured earlier in preseason. I’ll have my eye on him in particular next week.
o James Carpenter and Breno Giacomini looked like they were the most abused. Carpenter in particular had trouble with speed-rushers. Don’t start up with the hysteria about him being a bust yet. We’re still experiencing the lockout fallout effects and he’s a huge work in progress. That being said, he’s probably on Tom Cable’s shit list and if Robert Gallery is back next week then I wouldn’t be surprised to see Carpenter sitting this one out.
o I didn’t notice much from John Moffitt and Max Unger..I think that’s a good thing (?).
• The Seahawks defense -run defense in particular- was great. They limited the 49ers to 209 yards of total offense, 1/5 in the redzone, and 1/15 on third down conversions. Yes...the 49ers offense is nothing to write home about, but holding a past Seahawks killer, Frank Gore, to 2.7 ypc is no small feat either. I believe few teams did that last season against him. We knew our defense was going to be the most consistent part of the team this season, but they showed some real potential this first week.
o Of all the big name FA acquisitions we’ve had this off-season, re-signing Mebane to a reasonable contract might have been the biggest. Mebane is one of the guys who probably won’t rack up lots of sacks and garner much fan attention, but he is passively contributing by drawing double-teams and collapsing the interior.
o The secondary wasn’t bad either and looks much better than last year. Although the Niners game plan obviously called for screen passes and such, it looked like we forced Smith into some checkdowns when they wanted to throw further downfield.
o Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor are the real deal. These two are the youngest safety tandem in the league. They both had a couple tackles for lost yardage at critical times. ET was everywhere and Kam is going to be one of those guys that severely disincentivizes receivers from running routes into his coverage zone. On one play, he was gearing up to put a huge hit on Vernon Davis but pulled back as he realized the ball was overthrown and avoided any chance on getting called for a late hit. Smart.
o Brandon Browner also played well and looked like he had Braylon Edwards frustrated for most of the game. There’s going to be a lot of temptation from Seahawk fans to curse him for all the pass interferences he’ll likely attract, but that’s the nature of the beast when you have a 6’4’’ 210lb cornerback. Keep in mind those PIs are still much more preferable to giving up big plays Kelly Jennings style. The PI call on him in the end zone was unfortunate since it looked like Braylon Edwards was the first to push off him. A much worse shit call on him was the roughing the kicker penalty. David Akers should have been a soccer player with that flopping.
• Tedd Ginn Jr thinks he’s the new Leon Washington..but not quite since his 2 TD returns weren’t against the Chargers. Nonetheless, Ginn is damn fast and a legitimate special teams threat. I wonder how much it hurt not having Michael Robinson and Byron Maxwell (both injured with sprains) on special teams during those returns. In fact, I just read a bit ago the Seahawks signed FB Eddie Williams. Watching the game, it looked like they simply played way too aggressively on the kickoff return and left the outside lanes wide open. Just about anyone I know is faster than whoever our kicker is because it looked like he was in a position to push Ginn out of bounds. *Sigh* Josh Brown would have nailed him…
• Conservative QB play. I’ve read a lot of Seahawks fan reactions looking to lynch T-Jack for playing so timid and not giving looks to wide open receivers. I think once we’re deeper into the season and Rice is back, we’ll (hopefully)start seeing him make some decent long throws downfield, but for now the emphasis on QB play will be more about ‘not losing the game’ as opposed to ‘winning the game.’ And that’s absolutely intentional by PC. I think everyone is still stuck in last season’s mentality of seeing Hasselbeck throw aggressively downfield in futile attempts to put us back in the game. That time is over, and it’s for the better.
In summary, this is one of those losses that is not nearly as bad it seems and there’s definitely some silver lining. Our solid run defense will be a good foundation to build on and the offense in the 2nd half recaptured momentum in a meaningful way that the Niners never had. More importantly, they hung in there despite the awful first half display and put us within a 2 point differential in the 4th quarter before special teams blew it. A win is a win, but if I’m a Niner fan (and I used to be) I feel like I’m heading into the next week with more question marks than us. They can’t rely on Ted Ginn Jr. to bail them out and we know something about that with Leon Washington from last season. Lastly, this isn’t a season where we evaluate success in terms of just wins and losses. At this point in the re-building phase, we’re probably more interested in evaluating key individual performances (Russell Okung, Kam Chancellor, etc) and developing the pillars of our team (run defense, gelling of offensive line, etc). Keep that in mind.
Comments? Any other significant points to add?
On another note, ill plan on following Kevin’s lead and get out a post on the top 5 NFL teams for 2011 soon before next week. Since I’ve seen about 6% of the season, I’ve got an edge.
Oh, and I thought it was funny how on Leon's 70yard+ return they called block from the back penalty on number 21... Even the refs haven't come to terms with Kelly Jennings no longer being a Seahawk!
ReplyDeleteI think you hit on all the major point. It looked to me like there were two completely different Seahawk offenses in this game. The offense in the first half was about as bad and disheartening as I have ever seen. Jackson and the o-line looked like everything we had feared. They were terrible. While the offense in the second half was much more promising and gave me hope. Specifically I was encouraged by the success we found passing without Sidney Rice at WR. It showed me the talent and depth we have.
ReplyDeleteI was also scared by the special teams play. The concerns on the coverage side are obvious, but on the return side Leon Washington didn't look great on most plays. He did have the one big runback that got called back for penalty. The rest were not good.