Halftime adjustments aren't real

Will Rams keep Sean McVay for too long?

Saying that the Arizona Cardinals should fire head coach Jonathan Gannon as they were getting embarrassed by the Seahawks this week may seem like an overreaction, but all I could think to myself at the time was this:

Do the Cardinals really think that Gannon is ever going to win a division with Mike Macdonald, Sean McVay, and Kyle Shanahan? Ever?

It would only be fair to give Gannon a shot with better quarterbacks than Kyler Murray and Jacoby Brissett, but it’s also year 3 and look how far behind he already is to Macdonald, a coach hired after him. Macdonald is on the precipice of his second winning season in two years; McVay took over a hopeless Rams team and went to the Super Bowl in his second season; Shanahan had the 49ers in the Super Bowl in his third season.

Macdonald broke the Pete Carroll Seahawks in 2023, so Seattle hired him. Did Seattle break Gannon and will Arizona target a Seahawks replacement if they fire him? There could be a lot of competition for those services.

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zezinhom400: Rams seem to me to be the overall best rival Seattle has this year, and we get to measure ourselves against them twice before it REALLY matters. Reminds me of 2013 when we faced the Niners 3 times in a season -- splitting the season games and of course that phenomenal win to go to the SB. Wonder if there’s ever been a case where in a division rivalry a team has lost both in-season games, but then won the playoff rematch?

It happens. In 2020, the Saints swept the Bucs but lost to Tampa Bay in the divisional round. In 2007, the Cowboys swept the Giants but lost to New York in the divisional round. Both teams ended up winning the Super Bowl, but this is not the path that Seattle wants to take.

zezinhom400: I’ve always held to the theory that the reason Schneider went with the best young defensive mind in football, was because he was fed up with Pete being totally outclassed by McVay and Shanahan. Literally those 4 games/season led him to go genius-vs-genius. That’s a statement rather than a question, but perhaps the question is: would you agree the biggest measuring stick of the Macdonald era will be his performance against McVay and Shanahan?

I think every coach is held to the standard that he has to beat division rivals. That’s more than one-third of the schedule. Let me pivot and answer your question with a question: When do the 49ers say “enough is enough” with Kyle Shanahan?

From what I understand, Shanahan could basically have a lifetime contract with the Niners if he wants one. The highs are high (although he has messed up every Super Bowl he’s ever been in) but at this rate he’s going to have his fifth season with a negative point differential out of nine years in San Francisco.

I know that the 49ers have had the most injuries since he became the head coach…isn’t he also sort of at fault for that?

If the other 30 teams could pick between Macdonald or Shanahan to be their head coach, would most of them pick Macdonald?

I hazard a guess that he’s the much hotter commodity.

I think McVay loves the idea of coaching for 10 years (he’s on year 9) and retiring in good condition to spend the next 50 years doing something easier. The Seahawks realized that Pete’s 14 years was maybe 4 years too many. I wonder how much longer San Francisco and L.A. are willing to go with McVay and Shanahan if Seattle ends up winning the division and going to the Super Bowl with Macdonald.

Maxx: To grab ahold of Zez’s coattails, what are your thoughts on the coaches abilities to make in-game and halftime adjustments to counter adjustments made by opposing coaches? Do you have any concerns going forward based on the team’s history this season?

I’ll leave this here:

I’m not saying that “halftime adjustments” are totally made up and one of these narratives that we maybe pickup on through the grapevine (or TV) and get tricked into believing are real (think of what it’s like to be a real cop vs. what it’s like to play one on Law & Order: SVU) but there you’ve got a top-5 all-time quarterback saying that halftime is basically when you go to the bathroom and have a snack.

Here’s a Hall of Fame caliber coordinator (do they put those in the Hall?) Vic Fangio saying there’s not enough time to make adjustments “at halftime”:

I think one of the reasons this misnomer exists and is so prevelant is that we will often hear players and coaches refer to making “halftime adjustments” so then obviously it must be real. However, their idea of what that means and the image we have in our heads (a coach in a movie yelling at the team to pick themselves up by the bootstraps to mount a furious second half comeback) could be two very different things. To them, an “adjustment” might be as simple as, “Oh well every time they ran the ball at 54 he missed the tackle, so we took 54 out of the game.” Is that an adjustment?

So why don’t coaches make halftime adjustments besides just the fact that it’s only 12 minutes and you might use half of that in the bathroom depending if it’s 1 or 2? Because if you’re trying to game plan at halftime, you’re already too late.

Here’s what Lance Guidry said about halftime adjustments when he was the defensive coordinator at the University of Miami:

“Through my years, you look at film and you watch it and you have a plan of how you’re gonna stop it. And when you come out to play against them they’re not gonna do that, they’re gonna do something else. So you have to fix the problems before halftime. If you fix the problems before halftime, they’ll probably go back to the things you saw on film. If you haven’t stopped the problems then your job as a cooridnator is to fix the problems at half because they’re coming back to it.

Once you fix the problem, they’ll go back to what you saw on film. To me that’s where you make your money as a coordinator: You don’t make it on the weekends. You have to be able to game plan, but you also have to adjust in-game and know exactly what to go to by what they’re doing. Lotta times that comes by experience of just seeing it. My high school experience probably helped me more than any of my college experience because you start off defending option football, wing-T, empty…You see everything in high school. Everybody copycats. You’ll see one offense one week and you’ll never see that offense again, that’s where you cut your teeth as a coach, I’ve found.”

I think the best pull quote out of there is “You don’t make your money on the weekends” if you’re a coach. Klint Kubiak and Mike Macdonald aren’t working 20-hour days for nothing.

Now as to the more relevant part of your question, which I think pertains to whether or not the Seahawks are a stinky second half team, I don’t believe that they are:

• 6 of Seattle’s 9 interceptions have come in the second half

• Seattle is holding teams to a lower completion rate (61.5%) in the second half

• The Seahawks are a stingier pass defense in the fourth quarter than they are in the first quarter despite allowing 8 fourth quarter pass TDs

If the Seahawks are playing a little too loose for comfort when they’re up by multiple touchdowns in the fourth quarter, then that is certainly something to address in the days leading up to the game. But even just this week we saw Nehemiah Pritchett make “one of the best pass breakups ever seen” on a fourth quarter, fourth down pass to Marvin Harrison when Seattle was up three touchdowns. Macdonald cited it as a huge play in a huge moment because it’s a two-score game if not for that.

I don’t see the Seahawks necessarily struggling to make in-game adjustments, but maybe we as fans are adjusting to rooting for a team that is actually great and asking for too much. With as many mistakes as they’ve made in the last four games, Seattle has still dominated each of those teams.

I’m not worried about in-game management or coaching in general. The Seahawks could have the best coaching staff in the league for 2025.

La’au: In the past we have often spoken about the need for elite players on this team. We have discussed that these players are necessary for Super Bowl wins. I personally think #3 is rapidly approaching serious issue for offenses. In his role in this defense is he elite? A bonus question would be can we count our coach as an elite in our evaluations of teams?

Extra bonus question: Spoon, JSN, Leo, NickE….Murph. Can we consider all of these top three players in the league for their positions? We could easily add Sam to that list.

To half of those players, I don’t even know what position they are playing. Nick Emmanwori lines up as a slot cornerback and a linebacker but by next year he could be a full-time safety. Devon Witherspoon spends about 2/3rd of his time outside and the rest inside. Maybe the only other guys in the league like them are Kyle Hamilton and Marlon Humphrey in Baltimore.

I can’t tell you that I think Emmanwori is an elite player six games (five really) into his career, but I also can’t stop anyone else from doing it.

Witherspoon has one interception and two forced fumbles in 35 career games. When the Seahawks had Richard Sherman we all lost our minds over the fact that quarterbacks never targeted him and he still led the league in picks. I’m sorry but if you play cornerback in the NFL and you don’t get picks, you’re not elite; it’s a skill and it matters.

The highly-respected Brian Baldinger just said this same thing about Sauce Gardner and called him “overrated”.

It would be different if we were just talking about this season because he’s missed over half of the games, but we already knew before the year he wasn’t a ball hawk and now he’s kind of a target: QBs are 17-of-20 (85%) throwing at Witherspoon with a passer rating of 132.3. Only three CBs have a worse completion percentage allowed.

This isn’t “Wow, Devon Witherspoon is bad” but you’re asking me if he’s elite and right now I’m not sure if he’s in the top-25. Any time I write that a player we all like is not playing great right now it makes me feel like I’m betraying a sacred oath, but somebody has to do it.

In terms of getting started with a “Pro Bowl conversation”, I think:

• QB Sam Darnold (all-pro consideration)

• WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba (all-pro consideration)

• RT Abe Lucas

• LT Charles Cross

• DT Byron Murphy II (all-pro consideration)

• DE Leonard Williams

• LB Ernest Jones IV (if he doesn’t miss a lot of time)

• OLB DeMarcus Lawrence

Maybe you could add Uchenna Nwosu. I think Kenneth Walker is super talented and could have a big second half. And then next year is probably when a wider conversation happens about Grey Zabel and Emmanwori and A.J. Barner.

It’s very hard to try and put anybody into a bubble of the “top-3” without me having supreme awareness of the reputation of every single starter in the league, but I think JSN is the only guy who is comfortably set and then Darnold, Williams, Murphy, Williams, Lucas, and Cross could do it. Emmanwori hasn’t played a lot, and unfortunately we are far apart on Witherspoon. I’m more optimistic about Barner becoming an elite player than I am Witherspoon, even though I still think he’s a great component of the defense and happy he’s signed through 2027 (with option year).

Also shout out to Drake Thomas, the only linebacker in the NFL with 8 tackles for a loss, 3 sacks, and 6 passes defensed. If he’s not better than Jordyn Brooks, he’s a lot cheaper…which makes him better.

Grant: Jersey Update: I made a decision and ordered myself a Byron Murphy II royal blue throwback jersey. Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions and ideas in last week’s comment section.

I think this was a wise choice.

Seaside Joe 2445