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Another crunchy Field Gulls article on the Sea-Fence, this one using a By The Numbers format.  My fave stat:  209.8 yards per game.  And we're talking about Romo, Rodgers and the NFC West to date.  After consuming the Gulls article, you'll be left with the question, is this the NFL's best defense?  Is it one of the best ever?  Dr. D., though not up to speed on this year's football fantasy, can help a bit with a question like this, one that involves sense of proportion.

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=== Bruce Irvin ===

Here's a neat .gif that catches Irvin circling his prey like a shark.  Not a bad metaphor, as long as Aaron Rodgers signs off on the "chum" role.

Pete Carroll drew a lot of hoots and jeers for taking Bruce Irvin with the #15 overall.  Even those who were willing to give Irvin a chance, cautioned us not to worry when Irvin finished with two sacks in his rookie year; a lot of current star DE's had low sacks totals when young, didn't they?

It's all about context.  Ask Richard Dent or Charles Haley to rush the passer as the focal point of the pass rush, and they're going to be nonfactors, too.  But add them to a swirling maelstrom of chaos up front and you've really got something.

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Irvin still doesn't take out his man right off the snap like Reggie White.  A passer is supposed to go "1, 2, 3, THROW" and ... if he doesn't throw, that is when Richard Dent, Charles Haley and Bruce Irvin are going to close escrow.  It's a second-wave concept, and as second waves go, these types of hybrid DE/OLB's can be magnificent.  Where other DE's are sucking air, can be stuffed for 5, 6, 7 seconds in some situations .. when you are talking about that 3-5-second milestone on a play these speed DE's can be men among boys.

How many times over the past 35 years have you seen a John Elway back there, stands there, looks, looks, looks, looks, and finally launches a missile 30 yards downfield?  Fans tend to focus on whether the DL can engulf the QB before he plants his back foot.  There's a subtler joy in knowing that the fins are circling, and that come 4 seconds, they're going to take you off at the belly button.

If you were there, you would acknowledge the 1985 Bears as the best defense ever.  The end.  Wilber Marshall was their strong-side blitzing (?!) linebacker and perhaps their meanest player.  He explained their 46 Defense as "our secondary has to cover for 4 seconds.  Four.  Give us four seconds, and we'll go back there and get him."

Bruce Irvin is Mr. Four Seconds.  At four seconds, the curtain comes down.

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Coming out of halftime at C-Link, Aaron Rodgers focused on the one thing that Carroll's defense concedes.  The underneath pass that always takes less than four seconds, the one that exploits Carroll's paranoia against big plays.  Drop the ball in front.  Do it every play, or in effect every play.  

Carroll loves his Cover Twos and Cover Threes and feels uncomfortable in bump-and-run.  He wants to let Browner and Chancellor close vertically after the catch, and lay the lumber.  You've seen team after team start flinching after they've heard those footsteps for a couple of drives.

Why doesn't everybody throw underneath and take their six yards, like Rodgers did?  Three reasons:  (1) everybody doesn't have Aaron Rodgers.  (2) The punishment absorbed by the receivers is almost prohibitive, especially over 60 minutes.  (3) Carroll can overplay against that particular strategy at any given moment if he chooses.  It only takes one botch-up to ruin a 12-play, 70-yard lookin pass drive, and the Seahawks only need one or two "anticipations" to punish.

Still, quick passes underneath are what teams have against the Seahawks.

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Bruce Irvin's at what, 4.5 sacks in 5 games and it's time to give it up for Pete Carroll.  This was the final piece.  Carroll went immensely Stars & Scrubs calls in the draft -- Bobby Wagner and Russell Wilson were also extremely high risk, high reward.  

With Bruce Irvin and Russell Wilson, he could not possibly have slid the lever any farther over to [RISK/REWARD] than he actually did.  There were no picks more risky or reward-y available.  But he wasn't just throwing dice.  Carroll believed he saw things in those players that others didn't, and he had the courage of conviction.  We fans are reaping the benefits of Carroll's courage.

There's nothing in sports that is more fun to watch than a shark-attack NFL defense.  Enjoy the season.

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