Vision Board: Seahawks-Rams

Riq Woolen, DK Metcalf, and opening drives in Hollywood: Seaside Joe 1721

Is this the week that the Seahawks break the curse of the Rams?

Once dominant in the series, winning every matchup between 2005 and 2009 and going 17-3 between ‘05 and ‘14, the Seahawks have struggled to beat the Rams during the Aaron Donald era and especially since Sean McVay took over as head coach in 2017. Seattle suffered a 42-7 blowout to L.A. during McVay’s first season at the helm and most recently lost 30-13 in Week 1.

In fact, since 2017, the Seahawks have lost 17 games by eight points or more and five of those have come at the hands of the Rams. That’s three more than the next most, those being the 49ers, the Cardinals, the Packers, and surprisingly, the Baltimore Ravens.

Can Seattle break the curse this week? Maybe if we envision it.

In Week 10’s visions against the Moons, I foresaw:

Ken Walker with 100 total yards and 2 TD (incl rec)

Michael Dickson has a game

Bobby Wagner 12 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 sack, 1 turnover

Walker had 63 yards rushing and a 64-yard touchdown reception. Wagner had 10 tackles, 2 batted passes, 1 QB hit, and participated in a sack. I can’t recall Dickson doing anything exceptional, he was just usually solid.

I’m taking 1.5 points for Walker+Wagner because those were close, but not quite there. That gives me a season total of:

13/27

This week’s vision for the game in L.A. is fittingly movies about making movies.

Once Upon a DK in Hollywood

“That was the best acting I’ve ever seen in my whole life”

When I think of “acting” in football, the first thought that came to mind as it relates to the Seahawks is how opposing cornerbacks are going for the Oscar against DK Metcalf. Refs are keenly aware of Metcalf’s historic career pace for 15-yard penalties, making it all the more important that he not setup his opponents with opportunities to shed any fake tears.

Something else in Metcalf’s history is that he hasn’t had his best games against the Rams, other than the fact that he’s scored seven touchdowns in 10 career games, including playoffs. That includes 47 yards and a touchdown in the first half of Week 1’s loss, but L.A. shut him (and everyone else) down in the second half.

Now that the Rams shipped Jalen Ramsey across the country to Miami, Metcalf doesn’t have to be concerned with being blanketed by someone who can actually stand toe-to-toe with him, but former Seahawk Ahkello Witherspoon is enjoying his best career season.

Witherspoon ranks fifth in the NFL in passer rating allowed.

Still, I see Metcalf coming out ahead this week and much like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, re-writing history.

The Vision: DK Metcalf has 120 yards and a TD

Metcalf has only scored two touchdowns all year, both coming in the first half, both in the red zone, both on play action. Why not a longer score this week against Witherspoon?

Opening scene with The Player

Robert Altman’s The Player is known for having one of the greatest opening shots in movie history.

The Seahawks are known for being better “on script” than they are for the rest of the game.

On opening drives, Seattle has scored on five out of nine drives (55.6%, tied for 8th) and scored three touchdowns (33.3%, tied for seventh) with zero turnovers. But if you add up all the drives after the third of the game, the Seahawks’ score percentage drops to 32.9% and touchdowns to 15.1%, both ranking just below average.

In fact, the usually hapless Rams offense scores on 36.4% and 15.2% in those same situations.

There are much worse second half offenses than Seattle’s, but the Seahawks could do much better if they played as well for the rest of the game as they do with the plays they’ve been preparing to start with all week.

In Week 1, the Seahawks scored a field goal, touchdown, and field goal in their first three drives against the Rams. They then went: Missed FG, Punt, Punt, Punt, Punt, End of Game. For a TOTAL of 23 yards.

The Seahawks need a great start this week…and a great middle, finish too.

The Vision: Seahawks score a beautiful opening game TD drive

Compare these two opening drives by Seattle and L.A. in Week 1: The Seahawks go 57 yards over 5:08 and kick a field goal. The Rams go 75 yards over 9:13 and score a touchdown.

And Sean McVay, coming off of a bye week, had two weeks to prepare for this.

Seattle starts things right this week.

Riq Woolen impersonates a Hall of Fame CB

When most people list movies about making movies, they don’t mention Scream 3. I understand, but as my favorite film quadrilogy (as far as I’m concerned, the franchise stopped there) I owe it to Wes Craven to give Scream a shout out in the Vision Board sometimes.

Plus, Liev Schrieber is the voice of Hard Knocks so there’s also an NFL connection. It would have been interesting if in addition to voicing Hard Knocks, he had also been cast to voice Ghostface in the Scream movies.

In this opening scene, Ghostface plays a trick by using the voice modulator (which I’m still pretty sure has never actually existed in real life) to impersonate Liev’s girlfriend. Can Riq Woolen go back to impersonating a Pro Bowl cornerback this week against the Rams?

Pete Carroll had high words of praise for Woolen this week and sees him getting back on track to where he was as a standout rookie in 2022. Woolen had a batted pass and a fumble recovery (thanks to Devon Witherspoon) in last week’s win over Washington. Sam Howell targeted his way seven times, resulting in only two catches for 13 yards. In the last three games, throws at Woolen have gone 9-of-21 for 86 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT.

It seems fair to say that other than a tackling issue, Woolen is ready for his sequel and has been for quite some time.

The Vision: Riq Woolen gets pick-6 off Matthew Stafford

I could just vision an interception and that would be good enough, but this is a sequel and that means “more elaborate”. In the words of Randy in Scream 2:

So, it's our job to observe the rules of the sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate. Carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead.

Never assume Riq is done.