"Three takeaways Sunday certainly bolstered the bulwark that has been that side of the ball (Defense) for Seattle. And though stinginess has come against relatively weak offenses — it’s still the NFL. The Seahawks have delivered. " - Matt Calkins Seattle Times
It's to the level of comedy the Seattle sports writers talk about the Seahawks. The defense playing against bad opponents? Meh "is still the NFL". Geno Smith playing against the number 1 defense in the NFL and the best defensive player in the NFL? Doesn't even get mentioned. Smith's two turnovers and the great plays made by the Browns defenders? Nope doesn't make the article. The pick 6 because the rookie ran the wrong route? You guessed it ... Geno's fault and highlighted in the article.
Narrative: Geno has turnover problems and therefore can't win a Super Bowl. Took me less than 2 minutes to look up the interceptions (per game) this year:
Mahomes 1
Josh Allen 1
Hurts 1
Tua 0.88
Stafford 0.88
(14) Geno 0.86
So, no one can win a Super Bowl?
So, what's the deal? Why is Geno held to a higher standard than everyone else? Do Seattle Sports commentators just not watch or understand any other football players and teams in the NFL?
Welcome to the NFL ... Where almost every game is a grind. Just win baby.
When playing against another good team and good defense ... It almost always comes down to the end. Which is exactly what Pete Carroll preaches. These types of games and wins are exactly what teams need to build towards the playoffs when things get more difficult and more pressure.
Uncharacteristically, Geno missed some throws. The one to DK on the second to last drive comes to mind. I am not as concerned about the picks. I want Geno to play aggressively and confidently. The Browns made a couple great plays and that is what you would expect out of a quality defense. For Geno to bounce back and shred them on the final drive is the most important thing.
The Browns are good team with a good coach. Don't think I have ever seen so many screen plays. The Browns are handicapped at QB so they have to grind out drives and try to manufacture points. They did that behind a good offensive line (running) and screen plays. They also have a great defense.
This game went about as expected overall. Would it be different if the Hawks scored TDs in the third quarter instead of the first 2 drives? That is probably more random noise than anything.
Ultimately, the Hawks beat a good team, overcoming some suspect calls, Geno remained confident and diced up a good defense to win the game. Also, if you want to talk about poor decision making ... how about pointing out good decision making? The last play to JSN was an RPO where Geno read the corner blitz and got it to the right guy, JSN, on time and in rhythm. Great read, great throw, great play, with the game on the line.
The gap between the Niners and Hawks has .... closed?
Go Hawks. We can win a SB with Geno at the helm, no question about it. Oh and great play for the most part from the O-line. This team is winning and still has room to get better. Great to see.
- The scripted part of the game was fantastic. The non-scripted part of the game (for the offense) was pretty ugly. What to make of this? Adjustments by defenses are ahead of adjustments by the Seahawks offense. On Geno's second interception, that was a great defensive call. Blitz pressure up the middle, and then drop a defensive tackle into the hot read. Geno needs to see that though. The Browns adjusted well on defense, and we need to improve our in-game adjustments. It's shown up in a number of games.
- The defense had just enough cracks to keep the Browns alive offensively. Pete said they knew they were going to run screens so they prepared for them. But it didn't look like that during the game. It always worries me when teams get to do what they want to do even though we know what they are going to do. Some of it was tackling and angles, and some of it was the defense not seeing it quickly enough.
- Why not run the ball more, given the two guys we have in the backfield? We don't have the right balance consistently right now. Too pass heavy, and we're making ourselves one-dimensional when the defense hasn't. Making Geno win games on his own is not the recipe we should be running with. The snap counts and time of possession were pretty ugly by the end of the game because of this.
- But enough negativity. If you would have said we'd be 5-2 seven games into the season I would have been delighted at the start of the season. I've always thought we would improve throughout the year as the young players improved, and I still think that. The fact that we're playing far from our best and still winning is really good. When you can win while learning, that's not bad at all.
- QB's are already gun shy with Spoon. Word's out.
- Charbonnet is in fact awesome. More of this please.
- As has been noted below by others, DK is getting too many fruitless targets. We have 4 solid options at WR, so no need to 'feed' DK. It just helps the defense. DK will get more when they have to come off of him because of success elsewhere.
- We're in 1st place in the NFC West, and nobody looks unbeatable across the league. The Eagles barely squeaked past the Commanders, and KC lost to Denver (good grief), so we'll have a chance in every game we play, not matter who that's against.
I'm going to start by banging on again about Waldron. Our RBs were having good days against a D who's relative weakness was the Run. So why oh why did we jump out to a 14-0 lead and proceed to run the ball a measly 11 times afterwards (vs 6 on those two TD series). I'm going to be nice to Geno here for a change, but of course he's going to throw bad passes when you're asking him to throw 37 times against a Pass D as good as the Browns. It's just awful awful Offensive game planning. If Geno is "the guy" he should still play a lot better (outside of the 1st Qtr), but Waldron did not help him last night. We need a new young QB and a new good OC.
Onto the good things. Can we just make these jerseys our normal ones? OMG DID THEY LOOK SO GOOD IN PLAY!!! And all the themed stadium dressing, painted markings etc. So so so good! I love it. I want more of it! More of the theming and colors please! I'm also enjoying the D which looked good again. Run D at the LoS is a bit suspect, we gave up too many soft first hits, possibly at the expense of putting as much pressure on PJ as we did. Something to better balance that (i.e. draft a proper class IDT/NT with out 1st, maybe say Leonard Taylor) would be good longer term.
Also have to join the praise for Dickson, who should be locking in for the Pro Bowl, he's so good. And Eskridge did have a good return. Bobo is such a feel good. There was a lot to like this week, but we need to keep pressuring Waldron to do better, and Geno to do better.
This, from the AP write up on ESPN, quote from Geno:
“Our team is such a scrappy team. We find ways to win no matter what,” Smith said. “I feel like if I can play up to my capabilities, play up to my standard, who knows where we can be. Because we're one of the best teams in football if we play right.”
Geno is not wrong, the problem is why he can't play "up to my capabilities" for half the game at a time. The Seahawks do have the weapons to be "one of the best teams in football" but require +/+ play from the QB to get there. Too often (every game, really) Geno is +/-.
To be clear, +/+ doesn't require Geno to be Mahomes; just manage the game, run the offense as designed, hit the open receiver, throw the ball AWAY and don't turn it over. The weapons he has to work with are good enough the team will be exceptional if he can just do that.
Heart-stopping nail biter games were common with Russell Wilson, but they were still packed with action and optimism. That changed during his final season here, and the optimism in games like today (of which we've had some) doesn't seem to exist. These games aren't heart-stopping nail biters, instead it's a shock that they managed to pull off a win and there's nothing particularly thrilling about it. Reaction is more "well, a win is a win, we'll take what we can get." It's probably because I knew Wilson to be a second half pressure player, and Geno comes across as a 1st quarter then fizzle kind of QB. JUST HOW I FEEL, not speaking for anyone else.
Trade DK he is the most overpriced player on the Seahawks and the biggest problem with the offense that is suppose to go through him. The Seahawks were lucky he was not called for a hold on the scoring play. Two of the interceptions are on him for running the wrong route. I like being contrarian.
Adams has a contract that will be hard to get out of as will Diggs. That leaves Smith a player that was lucky to not have had a 3rd pick. He may well be the odd man out as IMO as he is replacement level since the Germany game last year. The caveat is if he takes a pay cut next year
First off, the defense has made lots of mistakes. But this defense has swagger and punch. Too many penalties, yeah, and I guess some plays got away from them. I didn't expect to win and somehow we did. All I know is that I like this team. Geno is Geno, and Pete has an interesting history with starting QB's. I bet he's thinking about would it be cool to see Drew for a play or 2.
1. Dickson is a BEAST, perhaps the best punter in the NFL. Multiple HUGE punts, he really helps the defense out a lot when the offense stalls (which is often)
2. For the first time in forever, we actually possibly have a legitimate screen game. Bobo and the TEs are legitimately great blockers, and DK is big and physical enough to block well as long as he's avoiding holding penalties. Add in JSN and Walker being quick and shifty out in space, and that's a recipe for success.
3. Both our O-line and D-line (for the most part) were fantastic today, Myles Garrett still got a sack but that was more of a great effort play by him than a failing by the O-line. It felt like Geno had more than enough time to sit in the pocket and scan the field (more on that later). On the other side it felt like PJ Walker was being hit every other dropback, yet he did a great job scrambling and making good throws with big hits coming. Our run game felt great all game long, though I'm not sure why we didn't continue to stick with it even as our offense struggled. Wonder if it was the Jason Peters effect....?
4. I'm not gonna call for Geno to be benched, but he really needs to clean up his decision-making. 2 picks (one of which was a great play by the browns lineman), another shoulda-been-pick six, another couple really dangerous throws. Also multiple off-target throws.
5. Witherspoon and Jamal Adams were suspiciously quiet all day long. It feels to me like the Browns avoided Witherspoon, but that Jamal simply wasn't out there that much. Is he still feeling the injury a little? If that's the case hopefully he'll be fully back for next week. We'll need him against the Ravens.
6. A win's a win, onto the Ravens. The defense was good enough today, let's see how they do against the Ravens offense.
Wish I could say this win means we're a good team. The defense is a work in progress but it's been improving. I don't see us beating any good teams, however, as long as Geno Smith is under center. I agree that there's no way Carroll will start Lock but I wish he would. May as well find out what we've got. We'll need to draft a QB in 2024 and either resign Geno to a lower contract or cut him. He'd be fine as a backup but he's not a viable starter.
Frankly, we should have lost, but the football is oblong and takes crazy bounces. We should have won in Cincinatti. We should have won in Cincinatti because of all the opportunities we had to win that game, but did not take advantage of them. In this game, we gave the Browns every opportunity to beat us, and it was they who self-destructed. We were a Jamal heads-up assisted INT away from a loss today.
The key for me in assessing how good/bad Geno was running the offense today was in the 4 minutes before/after the half. As pointed out by Ken in the chat, that was "make or break" time, and not only did the Seahawks score 0 points on three possessions but they let the Browns tie them up. After taking a 14-0 lead, the Seahawks were outscored 20-3. The blame for that falls the execution of the offense, and that is on Geno.
But hey, we won! And my Week 8 dinner in honor of the Browns game was a major hit--one of the best meals I have made in a long time. So there's that!
"Three takeaways Sunday certainly bolstered the bulwark that has been that side of the ball (Defense) for Seattle. And though stinginess has come against relatively weak offenses — it’s still the NFL. The Seahawks have delivered. " - Matt Calkins Seattle Times
https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/yes-the-seahawks-are-lucky-yes-the-seahawks-are-good/?utm_source=marketingcloud&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TSA_103023175923+These+Seahawks+might+just+be+both+lucky+and+good_10_30_2023&utm_term=Active%20subscriber
It's to the level of comedy the Seattle sports writers talk about the Seahawks. The defense playing against bad opponents? Meh "is still the NFL". Geno Smith playing against the number 1 defense in the NFL and the best defensive player in the NFL? Doesn't even get mentioned. Smith's two turnovers and the great plays made by the Browns defenders? Nope doesn't make the article. The pick 6 because the rookie ran the wrong route? You guessed it ... Geno's fault and highlighted in the article.
Narrative: Geno has turnover problems and therefore can't win a Super Bowl. Took me less than 2 minutes to look up the interceptions (per game) this year:
Mahomes 1
Josh Allen 1
Hurts 1
Tua 0.88
Stafford 0.88
(14) Geno 0.86
So, no one can win a Super Bowl?
So, what's the deal? Why is Geno held to a higher standard than everyone else? Do Seattle Sports commentators just not watch or understand any other football players and teams in the NFL?
Hard to believe but here we are.
Welcome to the NFL ... Where almost every game is a grind. Just win baby.
When playing against another good team and good defense ... It almost always comes down to the end. Which is exactly what Pete Carroll preaches. These types of games and wins are exactly what teams need to build towards the playoffs when things get more difficult and more pressure.
Uncharacteristically, Geno missed some throws. The one to DK on the second to last drive comes to mind. I am not as concerned about the picks. I want Geno to play aggressively and confidently. The Browns made a couple great plays and that is what you would expect out of a quality defense. For Geno to bounce back and shred them on the final drive is the most important thing.
The Browns are good team with a good coach. Don't think I have ever seen so many screen plays. The Browns are handicapped at QB so they have to grind out drives and try to manufacture points. They did that behind a good offensive line (running) and screen plays. They also have a great defense.
This game went about as expected overall. Would it be different if the Hawks scored TDs in the third quarter instead of the first 2 drives? That is probably more random noise than anything.
Ultimately, the Hawks beat a good team, overcoming some suspect calls, Geno remained confident and diced up a good defense to win the game. Also, if you want to talk about poor decision making ... how about pointing out good decision making? The last play to JSN was an RPO where Geno read the corner blitz and got it to the right guy, JSN, on time and in rhythm. Great read, great throw, great play, with the game on the line.
The gap between the Niners and Hawks has .... closed?
Go Hawks. We can win a SB with Geno at the helm, no question about it. Oh and great play for the most part from the O-line. This team is winning and still has room to get better. Great to see.
And at the end of the day, the Seahawks are 5-2 and in first place.
My thoughts FWIW.
- The scripted part of the game was fantastic. The non-scripted part of the game (for the offense) was pretty ugly. What to make of this? Adjustments by defenses are ahead of adjustments by the Seahawks offense. On Geno's second interception, that was a great defensive call. Blitz pressure up the middle, and then drop a defensive tackle into the hot read. Geno needs to see that though. The Browns adjusted well on defense, and we need to improve our in-game adjustments. It's shown up in a number of games.
- The defense had just enough cracks to keep the Browns alive offensively. Pete said they knew they were going to run screens so they prepared for them. But it didn't look like that during the game. It always worries me when teams get to do what they want to do even though we know what they are going to do. Some of it was tackling and angles, and some of it was the defense not seeing it quickly enough.
- Why not run the ball more, given the two guys we have in the backfield? We don't have the right balance consistently right now. Too pass heavy, and we're making ourselves one-dimensional when the defense hasn't. Making Geno win games on his own is not the recipe we should be running with. The snap counts and time of possession were pretty ugly by the end of the game because of this.
- But enough negativity. If you would have said we'd be 5-2 seven games into the season I would have been delighted at the start of the season. I've always thought we would improve throughout the year as the young players improved, and I still think that. The fact that we're playing far from our best and still winning is really good. When you can win while learning, that's not bad at all.
- QB's are already gun shy with Spoon. Word's out.
- Charbonnet is in fact awesome. More of this please.
- As has been noted below by others, DK is getting too many fruitless targets. We have 4 solid options at WR, so no need to 'feed' DK. It just helps the defense. DK will get more when they have to come off of him because of success elsewhere.
- We're in 1st place in the NFC West, and nobody looks unbeatable across the league. The Eagles barely squeaked past the Commanders, and KC lost to Denver (good grief), so we'll have a chance in every game we play, not matter who that's against.
I'm going to start by banging on again about Waldron. Our RBs were having good days against a D who's relative weakness was the Run. So why oh why did we jump out to a 14-0 lead and proceed to run the ball a measly 11 times afterwards (vs 6 on those two TD series). I'm going to be nice to Geno here for a change, but of course he's going to throw bad passes when you're asking him to throw 37 times against a Pass D as good as the Browns. It's just awful awful Offensive game planning. If Geno is "the guy" he should still play a lot better (outside of the 1st Qtr), but Waldron did not help him last night. We need a new young QB and a new good OC.
Onto the good things. Can we just make these jerseys our normal ones? OMG DID THEY LOOK SO GOOD IN PLAY!!! And all the themed stadium dressing, painted markings etc. So so so good! I love it. I want more of it! More of the theming and colors please! I'm also enjoying the D which looked good again. Run D at the LoS is a bit suspect, we gave up too many soft first hits, possibly at the expense of putting as much pressure on PJ as we did. Something to better balance that (i.e. draft a proper class IDT/NT with out 1st, maybe say Leonard Taylor) would be good longer term.
Also have to join the praise for Dickson, who should be locking in for the Pro Bowl, he's so good. And Eskridge did have a good return. Bobo is such a feel good. There was a lot to like this week, but we need to keep pressuring Waldron to do better, and Geno to do better.
Hawks are a good young team getting better. Unfortunately, Geno is not a SB QB. Geno is a career back-up for a resson.
We will see both Lock and Ahlers at QB this season. The direction of next year's Draft demands it.
This, from the AP write up on ESPN, quote from Geno:
“Our team is such a scrappy team. We find ways to win no matter what,” Smith said. “I feel like if I can play up to my capabilities, play up to my standard, who knows where we can be. Because we're one of the best teams in football if we play right.”
Geno is not wrong, the problem is why he can't play "up to my capabilities" for half the game at a time. The Seahawks do have the weapons to be "one of the best teams in football" but require +/+ play from the QB to get there. Too often (every game, really) Geno is +/-.
To be clear, +/+ doesn't require Geno to be Mahomes; just manage the game, run the offense as designed, hit the open receiver, throw the ball AWAY and don't turn it over. The weapons he has to work with are good enough the team will be exceptional if he can just do that.
Heart-stopping nail biter games were common with Russell Wilson, but they were still packed with action and optimism. That changed during his final season here, and the optimism in games like today (of which we've had some) doesn't seem to exist. These games aren't heart-stopping nail biters, instead it's a shock that they managed to pull off a win and there's nothing particularly thrilling about it. Reaction is more "well, a win is a win, we'll take what we can get." It's probably because I knew Wilson to be a second half pressure player, and Geno comes across as a 1st quarter then fizzle kind of QB. JUST HOW I FEEL, not speaking for anyone else.
Trade DK he is the most overpriced player on the Seahawks and the biggest problem with the offense that is suppose to go through him. The Seahawks were lucky he was not called for a hold on the scoring play. Two of the interceptions are on him for running the wrong route. I like being contrarian.
Adams has a contract that will be hard to get out of as will Diggs. That leaves Smith a player that was lucky to not have had a 3rd pick. He may well be the odd man out as IMO as he is replacement level since the Germany game last year. The caveat is if he takes a pay cut next year
Chuckled at Jamal’s postgame interview; “I just jumped as high as I could”!
First off, the defense has made lots of mistakes. But this defense has swagger and punch. Too many penalties, yeah, and I guess some plays got away from them. I didn't expect to win and somehow we did. All I know is that I like this team. Geno is Geno, and Pete has an interesting history with starting QB's. I bet he's thinking about would it be cool to see Drew for a play or 2.
My random thoughts and takeaways from the game:
1. Dickson is a BEAST, perhaps the best punter in the NFL. Multiple HUGE punts, he really helps the defense out a lot when the offense stalls (which is often)
2. For the first time in forever, we actually possibly have a legitimate screen game. Bobo and the TEs are legitimately great blockers, and DK is big and physical enough to block well as long as he's avoiding holding penalties. Add in JSN and Walker being quick and shifty out in space, and that's a recipe for success.
3. Both our O-line and D-line (for the most part) were fantastic today, Myles Garrett still got a sack but that was more of a great effort play by him than a failing by the O-line. It felt like Geno had more than enough time to sit in the pocket and scan the field (more on that later). On the other side it felt like PJ Walker was being hit every other dropback, yet he did a great job scrambling and making good throws with big hits coming. Our run game felt great all game long, though I'm not sure why we didn't continue to stick with it even as our offense struggled. Wonder if it was the Jason Peters effect....?
4. I'm not gonna call for Geno to be benched, but he really needs to clean up his decision-making. 2 picks (one of which was a great play by the browns lineman), another shoulda-been-pick six, another couple really dangerous throws. Also multiple off-target throws.
5. Witherspoon and Jamal Adams were suspiciously quiet all day long. It feels to me like the Browns avoided Witherspoon, but that Jamal simply wasn't out there that much. Is he still feeling the injury a little? If that's the case hopefully he'll be fully back for next week. We'll need him against the Ravens.
6. A win's a win, onto the Ravens. The defense was good enough today, let's see how they do against the Ravens offense.
Wish I could say this win means we're a good team. The defense is a work in progress but it's been improving. I don't see us beating any good teams, however, as long as Geno Smith is under center. I agree that there's no way Carroll will start Lock but I wish he would. May as well find out what we've got. We'll need to draft a QB in 2024 and either resign Geno to a lower contract or cut him. He'd be fine as a backup but he's not a viable starter.
We won, yay!
Frankly, we should have lost, but the football is oblong and takes crazy bounces. We should have won in Cincinatti. We should have won in Cincinatti because of all the opportunities we had to win that game, but did not take advantage of them. In this game, we gave the Browns every opportunity to beat us, and it was they who self-destructed. We were a Jamal heads-up assisted INT away from a loss today.
The key for me in assessing how good/bad Geno was running the offense today was in the 4 minutes before/after the half. As pointed out by Ken in the chat, that was "make or break" time, and not only did the Seahawks score 0 points on three possessions but they let the Browns tie them up. After taking a 14-0 lead, the Seahawks were outscored 20-3. The blame for that falls the execution of the offense, and that is on Geno.
But hey, we won! And my Week 8 dinner in honor of the Browns game was a major hit--one of the best meals I have made in a long time. So there's that!
https://open.substack.com/pub/dougflet/p/nfl-week-8-dinner?r=fjrpt&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web