Pete was right, we need to turn the page and move on to the next game. If the team doesn't move on, we could lose to a Washington team we ought to beat. Not that it will be easy to beat Washington, but it probably will. Last game, we got someone on the line back, maybe it was Lewis, but I remember a game against the Rams who were getting two OLmen back after injuries, and we abused them. They seemed so bad it was hard to believe they were veterans with respect. First games back aren't always pretty, and Cross seems like he is less capable, too. Why? I don't know. Against Cleveland our OL performed admirable. People were giving them props.
One game, what a difference it makes, eh? Don't get too high when we win or too low when we lose. Move on.
If not for the respect of taking the knee it could have been even worse because the D was unable to stop the run and it seemed like the Ravens would have easily been able to top the 300 and score another TD without passing it.
I have trying diligently to be a Geno fan because I really like him but I have a bigger concern. You could make the argument that Pete lost the locker room with his last championship team because he coddled Russ & consequently shortened their championship window. I'm wondering if he's at risk with this locker room as well. The heart of the team is very young & very talented but it does seem like the "Geno is our guy" mantra is showing cracks within the team. It's mostly body language on the field with his receivers at this point. The miscommunication excuse is being used a lot but the only common denominator in that argument IS Geno. Sometimes a guy has all the talent in the world but they can't control the "yips" in their game & the teammates can tell. I seem to remember that being the case with Donovan McNabb.
If the same 2 teams played tomorrow would the Ravens win by 34 points? I’ll never know but I don’t think so. I don’t think our players are that much worse than Ravens but their coaches game plan was far superior than whatever we were trying to do. They played their number 2 quarterback most of the 4th quarter.
Rewatched the game (offense only) last night ... The poker reference is spot on. Well done, Joe.
It's not just a tell from Geno ... it's that he couldn't read a hand of poker in that game. Waldron, and the staff did not help. I have played a lot of poker in my day, and I know what it feels like to be a deer caught in headlights. The table is spinning. The only way out (besides leaving the table) is to get back to basics. Get to your guideposts is what I would call that. In poker, it's always about playing in position and playing good starting hands. It is boring but the strategy always works and helps root you in getting your footing back to read the table and game properly.
What are the Seahawks guideposts for the offense? What can they go back to when things go wrong, and the field is spinning? Geno is confused. The offensive coordinator is confused.
IMO, throw out all the razzle dazzle and get back to basics. Take your best and simplest plays and chip away. Get Geno in situations to make some good reads ... Then you can start building.
Hopefully, they see this game as way to get better. When things go wrong what can you lean on? What is your identity? What your basic and best plays?
Well, crap. How to paint lipstick on this pig... Football brings us a group of guys with proven abilities to dominate. This week, our guys didn't show up. The NFL has designed a league that forces change each year, since it was proven rich teams would hire the best players and nobody would show up to watch. Gone are the days of Joe Montana's upstarts, who brought brute force every week until they aged out. All the geniuses and superstars are spread out across the Teams. Pete has given us this Team. Still, they have the ability to shock and surprise us all. Done at the right time of the season may be the key to success in the Game as designed. I cannot avoid noticing Pete Carroll has us set better than most other outfits, in this regard. This week, I must look elsewhere to find the motivation to go kick ass in my own work world. Boo Fkn Hoo. I'm over it.
Geno has not been the biggest disappointment for me this season. I still think he’s slightly above average, but not great. However, that assessment is based on good o line play, which hasn’t been consistent this year. I fully expected our young tackles to improve on a good rookie season and for either of our new centers to be big improvements over last year. Unfortunately the tackles were both injured the first game and the rest of the line has had numerous injuries. That is the key to me! Healthier o line probably improves the rushing game, which allows more flexibility in play calls, time in the pocket, fewer sacks and QB hits, etc. This also likely prolongs offensive drives, which rests the defense, thereby improving their play.
I’m not criticizing our o line players, I actually think they’re doing pretty well considering the level of injury they’ve dealt with. But they aren’t the line I expected based on last year’s performance. I always say injuries are the great unknown and leveler in the NFL. The Hawks key injuries haven’t been to the marquee players this year, but to the foundational players and that has greatly impacted the marquee players performance.
This year I’m not convinced it’s poor drafting or coaching, I just think injuries hit the whole line almost simultaneously. You can cover for one guy, but I think 4 of the 5 planned starters were out after two games.
During the Giants game the announcers blamed the 11 sacks given up by them on injuries, when the Hawks actually had more o line replacements than the Giants and didn’t give up anywhere near 11 sacks.
In the betting world they are called "cluster injuries" ... If anyone position group gets hit hard by injuries it can have an outsized impact on the team. IE. Safety, Linebacker, Wide Receiver etc. etc.
I have been amazed/stunned at how well the offensive line has done this year with all the injuries (other than the Ravens game). I thought it was one of the big stories of the year so far.
My hope is that the 7 other games are more indicative of our line and that the Ravens will be an outlier. We will see.
I agree totally. The Hawks record is about what I expected now, but I had hoped to see more improvement than is showing so far. I hope some of the o linemen are recovering and play closer to my preseason hopes/expectations.
Yessirree. Loads of field talent this year, no doubt about it. The current NFL structural design will always dilute coaching talents until teams give latitude to Head Coaches before firing them. Encourage OC/DCs to develop longer before they are hired away. Our former DC Dan Quinn comes to mind when Atalanta shafted him after just a few years.
Strict adherence to these kinder-gentler tackling rules is causing havoc among players/coaches right now, changing how football is played in fundamental ways. We are seeing outcomes changed due to stupid calls, so let's toss our Zebra Officials into this radical learning curve. What's next? Flag football rules on QBs? Mere touches? Automatic first-downs are getting out of hand.
I could argue for a reliance on 2 QB schemes, depending on what the Game is dictating. On days where our O Line is down, bring in the guy who thrives in chaos, which was young Russell's domain. It can no longer be about ego and contracts.
As for Riq having nothing to worry about, while you made a weak statement by adding "nothing" (there's always something to worry about, rarely does a player plays a 100% perfect game), I'd like to add context to Woolen's performance (quoting from my comment on Field Gulls):
«Woolen sophomore slump was more than expected. He was highly instinctual last year, and going from guts to process is not without its pains. Add to it a bad off-season injury, and things make a lot of sense.
By the way, tracking metrics still have him as one of the stickiest corners in the league. He'll rebound.»
Best news of the day was that Abe was finally on the way back.
I don't care who the QB is, if we can't run the ball, and we allow a 50% pressure rate, we will not be successful on offense. That means better o-line play as a starting point. Geno is getting more and more sped up from the pressure, so it should not be surprising that he's making more and more mistakes. Just like playing more and more snaps on defense will eventually lead to back tackling. Football is all connected. One thing leads to another. It's why the games are so unpredictable.
Shane Waldron needs to help the offense more. For God's sake man, mix it up man. Quick game, 2-minute, screen game......scheme some zone run concepts if the power game's not working. Then go play action. Something, anything. With Tyler, the TE's, and JSN the quick game should be there. I know the o-line is an issue right now, and honestly, I don't know whether the bigger issue is health or personnel, but we should be able to run the ball with the 2 RB's we have. Shane's got to work with Andy to figure that shit out.
Maybe I'll send them a t-shirt with that on it. 'Figure that shit out!'
As to the comments around Tell the Truth Monday, I have absolutely no doubt that Clint will be doing some truth telling, even if Pete isn't. So I know the defense is hearing it.
TE's! Some context is required. If you told me at the end of the season our TE1 had 892yds on 68recs i'd be a happy fan - that's 13.1ypc and shows a TE playing well, and surely contributing nicely to the offence. Even at Dissly's cap figure that'd be a reasonable return and you'd expect 5+TD's to go with it. The issue is that it's not our TE1 and we're paying out over over $15mil against the cap for that performance, which is a lot for sub-1000yds receiving. Individually i'll still say out TE's are playing well, but the wider context issue is that our scheme doesn't make use of them well, and that because we have three solid workable TE's any catches and snaps become too spread to be of relative cap value. Keep Fant & Parky - Fant showing improvement as a blocker and receiver, Parky same & would surely be relatively good value to re-sign - and get an OC who'll make better use of our TE skills.
Which links nicely to "Too much of a good thing". You cannot have too much of a good thing, especially on controlled rookie deals! What you can have is an OC-QB duo that cannot make use of the options at hand. This is where the cap element comes in, because on offence we're not really overpaying for the unit as a whole vs the rest of the league, but we're not getting the return on investment. Doesn't mean we must trade away DK or NoE or Dissly, I just ask for an OC that can generate better on field calls and results.
Riq & Nuwosu - The perfect showcase of why tackling is possibly the most fundamental aspect of football. In Riqs defence, we knew he wasn't a great tackler and was a speed guy, so this is not a surprise. The surprise is that seemingly again, for what the fifth year in a row?, tackling seems to be a key defence wide weakness. Nuwosu was an exception, as is Wagz & i'd say Brooks too. Those three know how to tackle and it shows in their play. Spoon is a good hitter, I think his tackle isn't great. Too often we fail to wrap up a player or let them slip. If that was because the philosophy was to hit hard and jar the ball loose i'd kind of accept it, but that isn't what I see on the field, so there really can be no excuse for poor tackling. My #1 metric on who we should draft or sign defensively will be "Are they already a good tackler?". If it's a no I don't want to draft them, because that will quickly become a liability.
This got long. Tl:Dr I still don't like Waldron. Whoever coaches tackling needs to be sacked. If we can make Diskinant one person we'd have a really good TE at a reasonable cap hit.
Tell the truth and tell a lie Monday? Here's a couple truths with a couple more lies.
Truth:
Ugly as it was, yesterday's out-of-conference loss doesn't hurt Hawk wild card chances.. Conference opponents haven't distanced themselves. Go .500 vs. Rams & 49rs, beat DC, TN, AZ, win 1 of Dallas or Pissburgh = 6 wins + 5 = 11 wins. Ok,11 looks like a lie after yesterday. 9 wins got Hawks a '22 wildcard so they may have some slack, especially by winning in-conference Dallas.
Lie:
"2023 Hawk run D is improved and they traded for Leonard Williams to go 'all in for '23'."
Up to Cleveland, Hawks faced mostly pass-heavy teams. Cleveland inside runs & inside screen passes exposed Hawk interior D line weakness. Upcoming opponents watch the film. PC/JS know it'll be just like 2022: "why pass if we can run all over these guys?" Williams is an emergency patch.
Attempts and YPC, especially vs. better teams,, will tell if this rent-a-guy is worth the 2nd they traded.
Truth:
Hawks re-signed Joey Hunt to PS last week - this truth hurts. That means interior O line is as bad as interior D line. One reason Geno's "poker game" is bad is the D knows Geno has no interior run card to play. Teams know Hawks won't attempt runs between guard & center because they can't open the holes, at least vs. high end teams like Balto.
Lie:
"Shane Waldren was OC mastermind of the Rams innovative offense."
'23 offense scheme & game plans seem the worst it's been since Waldren began.
I've never seen the lack of coordination between receivers & QB, where receivers break off routes or are not where they're supposed to be, when they're supposed to be there. "On schedule", as Russ said. Hawk offensive personnel is spotty with weaknesses and potential strengths.
Waldren & O coaches haven't come up with game planned approach to leverage strengths and play around the weaknesses & mold individuals into a unit - that's their job and they're not doing it.
This is a unique test for this team. They were just humiliated on Sunday. Almost every phase of the team was shown up. What happens from here will be interesting. Geno, Pete, the Defense, the O-line, and pretty much everybody looked bad. So unexpected. And the season goes on. I think the Hawks are way better than that performance.
On September 11, a compleat Idiot wrote into another Joe thread:
Some 500 years from now, Xiang Yu will be alleged to have said (2700 years before) something like "Live with a man 40 years, share his house, his meals, speak on every subject. Then tie him up and hold him over the volcano’s edge. And on that day you will finally meet the man."
What happened to the revolutionary tackling style taught by the Seahawks years ago?
Pete was right, we need to turn the page and move on to the next game. If the team doesn't move on, we could lose to a Washington team we ought to beat. Not that it will be easy to beat Washington, but it probably will. Last game, we got someone on the line back, maybe it was Lewis, but I remember a game against the Rams who were getting two OLmen back after injuries, and we abused them. They seemed so bad it was hard to believe they were veterans with respect. First games back aren't always pretty, and Cross seems like he is less capable, too. Why? I don't know. Against Cleveland our OL performed admirable. People were giving them props.
One game, what a difference it makes, eh? Don't get too high when we win or too low when we lose. Move on.
I wonder about cross’ toe injury. Those things can be nagging injuries whereas he can play but not near 100%.
And he is a football guy so he will probably never mention it even if it is significantly bothering him. I don’t know the details but it’s concerning
"It wasn’t bad. It was historically bad."
If not for the respect of taking the knee it could have been even worse because the D was unable to stop the run and it seemed like the Ravens would have easily been able to top the 300 and score another TD without passing it.
I have trying diligently to be a Geno fan because I really like him but I have a bigger concern. You could make the argument that Pete lost the locker room with his last championship team because he coddled Russ & consequently shortened their championship window. I'm wondering if he's at risk with this locker room as well. The heart of the team is very young & very talented but it does seem like the "Geno is our guy" mantra is showing cracks within the team. It's mostly body language on the field with his receivers at this point. The miscommunication excuse is being used a lot but the only common denominator in that argument IS Geno. Sometimes a guy has all the talent in the world but they can't control the "yips" in their game & the teammates can tell. I seem to remember that being the case with Donovan McNabb.
If the same 2 teams played tomorrow would the Ravens win by 34 points? I’ll never know but I don’t think so. I don’t think our players are that much worse than Ravens but their coaches game plan was far superior than whatever we were trying to do. They played their number 2 quarterback most of the 4th quarter.
I see you splashing your chips over there, Joe..... Good write up. A few family members asked what happened, so I sent them this link.
Also, Rounders ... In case it wasn't obvious already ... is my sub stack/twitter name for Mike McD (Matt Damon) from Rounders.
"You see all the angles but don't have the stones to play them." - Mike McD
Go Hawks
Rewatched the game (offense only) last night ... The poker reference is spot on. Well done, Joe.
It's not just a tell from Geno ... it's that he couldn't read a hand of poker in that game. Waldron, and the staff did not help. I have played a lot of poker in my day, and I know what it feels like to be a deer caught in headlights. The table is spinning. The only way out (besides leaving the table) is to get back to basics. Get to your guideposts is what I would call that. In poker, it's always about playing in position and playing good starting hands. It is boring but the strategy always works and helps root you in getting your footing back to read the table and game properly.
What are the Seahawks guideposts for the offense? What can they go back to when things go wrong, and the field is spinning? Geno is confused. The offensive coordinator is confused.
IMO, throw out all the razzle dazzle and get back to basics. Take your best and simplest plays and chip away. Get Geno in situations to make some good reads ... Then you can start building.
Hopefully, they see this game as way to get better. When things go wrong what can you lean on? What is your identity? What your basic and best plays?
Go Hawks
I mentioned to my daughter, during the Sunday beat down, that Geno looked like a deer in the headlights and she totally agreed.
To be fair ... I think I was also a deer in headlights on Sunday morning! Didn't see that coming.
You and your daughter are smarter than me. Took me a second time through to fully grasp it. But it was clear.
Well, crap. How to paint lipstick on this pig... Football brings us a group of guys with proven abilities to dominate. This week, our guys didn't show up. The NFL has designed a league that forces change each year, since it was proven rich teams would hire the best players and nobody would show up to watch. Gone are the days of Joe Montana's upstarts, who brought brute force every week until they aged out. All the geniuses and superstars are spread out across the Teams. Pete has given us this Team. Still, they have the ability to shock and surprise us all. Done at the right time of the season may be the key to success in the Game as designed. I cannot avoid noticing Pete Carroll has us set better than most other outfits, in this regard. This week, I must look elsewhere to find the motivation to go kick ass in my own work world. Boo Fkn Hoo. I'm over it.
Geno has not been the biggest disappointment for me this season. I still think he’s slightly above average, but not great. However, that assessment is based on good o line play, which hasn’t been consistent this year. I fully expected our young tackles to improve on a good rookie season and for either of our new centers to be big improvements over last year. Unfortunately the tackles were both injured the first game and the rest of the line has had numerous injuries. That is the key to me! Healthier o line probably improves the rushing game, which allows more flexibility in play calls, time in the pocket, fewer sacks and QB hits, etc. This also likely prolongs offensive drives, which rests the defense, thereby improving their play.
I’m not criticizing our o line players, I actually think they’re doing pretty well considering the level of injury they’ve dealt with. But they aren’t the line I expected based on last year’s performance. I always say injuries are the great unknown and leveler in the NFL. The Hawks key injuries haven’t been to the marquee players this year, but to the foundational players and that has greatly impacted the marquee players performance.
Seems O-Line drafting and staffing has been a consistent weakness in the Pete and John Show over their careers here.
This year I’m not convinced it’s poor drafting or coaching, I just think injuries hit the whole line almost simultaneously. You can cover for one guy, but I think 4 of the 5 planned starters were out after two games.
During the Giants game the announcers blamed the 11 sacks given up by them on injuries, when the Hawks actually had more o line replacements than the Giants and didn’t give up anywhere near 11 sacks.
In the betting world they are called "cluster injuries" ... If anyone position group gets hit hard by injuries it can have an outsized impact on the team. IE. Safety, Linebacker, Wide Receiver etc. etc.
I have been amazed/stunned at how well the offensive line has done this year with all the injuries (other than the Ravens game). I thought it was one of the big stories of the year so far.
My hope is that the 7 other games are more indicative of our line and that the Ravens will be an outlier. We will see.
I agree totally. The Hawks record is about what I expected now, but I had hoped to see more improvement than is showing so far. I hope some of the o linemen are recovering and play closer to my preseason hopes/expectations.
Yessirree. Loads of field talent this year, no doubt about it. The current NFL structural design will always dilute coaching talents until teams give latitude to Head Coaches before firing them. Encourage OC/DCs to develop longer before they are hired away. Our former DC Dan Quinn comes to mind when Atalanta shafted him after just a few years.
Strict adherence to these kinder-gentler tackling rules is causing havoc among players/coaches right now, changing how football is played in fundamental ways. We are seeing outcomes changed due to stupid calls, so let's toss our Zebra Officials into this radical learning curve. What's next? Flag football rules on QBs? Mere touches? Automatic first-downs are getting out of hand.
I could argue for a reliance on 2 QB schemes, depending on what the Game is dictating. On days where our O Line is down, bring in the guy who thrives in chaos, which was young Russell's domain. It can no longer be about ego and contracts.
100%
As for Riq having nothing to worry about, while you made a weak statement by adding "nothing" (there's always something to worry about, rarely does a player plays a 100% perfect game), I'd like to add context to Woolen's performance (quoting from my comment on Field Gulls):
«Woolen sophomore slump was more than expected. He was highly instinctual last year, and going from guts to process is not without its pains. Add to it a bad off-season injury, and things make a lot of sense.
By the way, tracking metrics still have him as one of the stickiest corners in the league. He'll rebound.»
Best news of the day was that Abe was finally on the way back.
I don't care who the QB is, if we can't run the ball, and we allow a 50% pressure rate, we will not be successful on offense. That means better o-line play as a starting point. Geno is getting more and more sped up from the pressure, so it should not be surprising that he's making more and more mistakes. Just like playing more and more snaps on defense will eventually lead to back tackling. Football is all connected. One thing leads to another. It's why the games are so unpredictable.
Shane Waldron needs to help the offense more. For God's sake man, mix it up man. Quick game, 2-minute, screen game......scheme some zone run concepts if the power game's not working. Then go play action. Something, anything. With Tyler, the TE's, and JSN the quick game should be there. I know the o-line is an issue right now, and honestly, I don't know whether the bigger issue is health or personnel, but we should be able to run the ball with the 2 RB's we have. Shane's got to work with Andy to figure that shit out.
Maybe I'll send them a t-shirt with that on it. 'Figure that shit out!'
As to the comments around Tell the Truth Monday, I have absolutely no doubt that Clint will be doing some truth telling, even if Pete isn't. So I know the defense is hearing it.
To move on from Geno a bit...
TE's! Some context is required. If you told me at the end of the season our TE1 had 892yds on 68recs i'd be a happy fan - that's 13.1ypc and shows a TE playing well, and surely contributing nicely to the offence. Even at Dissly's cap figure that'd be a reasonable return and you'd expect 5+TD's to go with it. The issue is that it's not our TE1 and we're paying out over over $15mil against the cap for that performance, which is a lot for sub-1000yds receiving. Individually i'll still say out TE's are playing well, but the wider context issue is that our scheme doesn't make use of them well, and that because we have three solid workable TE's any catches and snaps become too spread to be of relative cap value. Keep Fant & Parky - Fant showing improvement as a blocker and receiver, Parky same & would surely be relatively good value to re-sign - and get an OC who'll make better use of our TE skills.
Which links nicely to "Too much of a good thing". You cannot have too much of a good thing, especially on controlled rookie deals! What you can have is an OC-QB duo that cannot make use of the options at hand. This is where the cap element comes in, because on offence we're not really overpaying for the unit as a whole vs the rest of the league, but we're not getting the return on investment. Doesn't mean we must trade away DK or NoE or Dissly, I just ask for an OC that can generate better on field calls and results.
Riq & Nuwosu - The perfect showcase of why tackling is possibly the most fundamental aspect of football. In Riqs defence, we knew he wasn't a great tackler and was a speed guy, so this is not a surprise. The surprise is that seemingly again, for what the fifth year in a row?, tackling seems to be a key defence wide weakness. Nuwosu was an exception, as is Wagz & i'd say Brooks too. Those three know how to tackle and it shows in their play. Spoon is a good hitter, I think his tackle isn't great. Too often we fail to wrap up a player or let them slip. If that was because the philosophy was to hit hard and jar the ball loose i'd kind of accept it, but that isn't what I see on the field, so there really can be no excuse for poor tackling. My #1 metric on who we should draft or sign defensively will be "Are they already a good tackler?". If it's a no I don't want to draft them, because that will quickly become a liability.
This got long. Tl:Dr I still don't like Waldron. Whoever coaches tackling needs to be sacked. If we can make Diskinant one person we'd have a really good TE at a reasonable cap hit.
Tell the truth and tell a lie Monday? Here's a couple truths with a couple more lies.
Truth:
Ugly as it was, yesterday's out-of-conference loss doesn't hurt Hawk wild card chances.. Conference opponents haven't distanced themselves. Go .500 vs. Rams & 49rs, beat DC, TN, AZ, win 1 of Dallas or Pissburgh = 6 wins + 5 = 11 wins. Ok,11 looks like a lie after yesterday. 9 wins got Hawks a '22 wildcard so they may have some slack, especially by winning in-conference Dallas.
Lie:
"2023 Hawk run D is improved and they traded for Leonard Williams to go 'all in for '23'."
Up to Cleveland, Hawks faced mostly pass-heavy teams. Cleveland inside runs & inside screen passes exposed Hawk interior D line weakness. Upcoming opponents watch the film. PC/JS know it'll be just like 2022: "why pass if we can run all over these guys?" Williams is an emergency patch.
Attempts and YPC, especially vs. better teams,, will tell if this rent-a-guy is worth the 2nd they traded.
Truth:
Hawks re-signed Joey Hunt to PS last week - this truth hurts. That means interior O line is as bad as interior D line. One reason Geno's "poker game" is bad is the D knows Geno has no interior run card to play. Teams know Hawks won't attempt runs between guard & center because they can't open the holes, at least vs. high end teams like Balto.
Lie:
"Shane Waldren was OC mastermind of the Rams innovative offense."
'23 offense scheme & game plans seem the worst it's been since Waldren began.
I've never seen the lack of coordination between receivers & QB, where receivers break off routes or are not where they're supposed to be, when they're supposed to be there. "On schedule", as Russ said. Hawk offensive personnel is spotty with weaknesses and potential strengths.
Waldren & O coaches haven't come up with game planned approach to leverage strengths and play around the weaknesses & mold individuals into a unit - that's their job and they're not doing it.
This is a unique test for this team. They were just humiliated on Sunday. Almost every phase of the team was shown up. What happens from here will be interesting. Geno, Pete, the Defense, the O-line, and pretty much everybody looked bad. So unexpected. And the season goes on. I think the Hawks are way better than that performance.
On September 11, a compleat Idiot wrote into another Joe thread:
Some 500 years from now, Xiang Yu will be alleged to have said (2700 years before) something like "Live with a man 40 years, share his house, his meals, speak on every subject. Then tie him up and hold him over the volcano’s edge. And on that day you will finally meet the man."
You can take Geno out of the Jets but you can't take the Jets out of Geno. Bottom line.