Seattle Sports Insider

Seahawks 17-23 Rams

you can't lie to yourSELF ...

Posted by

12/27/15

QUOTABLE

This was a big headline, Michael Bennett calling Johnny Hecker a coward: "He's just scared," Bennett said of Hekker, a Bothell native. "He ain't nothing. He's soft in my eyes. Anybody who hits somebody when they're not looking – and then he's in a protected position and he wants to hit somebody when they're not looking. So to me, he's just a coward."

So to Dr. D, that's also every MLB starter who ever threw a pitched baseball at a hitter. As well as being Mike Singletary, back in the 1980's when he delivered the helmet-to-helmet KO to a sliding quarterback, and then interviewed later with mock humility, "I wouldn't wish that kind of hit on anybody." No? Then get in a MMA ring and you won't have to worry about delivering that kind of hit.

These quotes here are from 710's Brent Stecker. Defensive end Chris Long on Ayers' fumble recovery for a touchdown: "It was the difference in the game. Mathematically it was the difference in the game. It ended up being a six-point game. It was huge. Opportunistic, that's how we played defense today."

Personally, I'm not real worried about a flat game ...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there were 4 fumbles and the Rams collected 4/4 of them. If even 1/4 of them had bounced into the Seahawks' hands, the Seahawks win - with the Rams playing their best and the Seahawks playing their worst. (Edit to add, we see Field Gulls had made a headline out of this idea. A corollary we'd been discussing is, Who can beat you on your best day? That team is dangerous. See you nex' week in AZ, kiddies.) (If you haven't visited Pro Football Outsider, it might possibly be a team skill to force fumbles, but it is most definitely not a repeatable skill to jump on a wildly bouncing football after it hits the turf.)

... it was real early on that Wilson handed off and faked a pitch to a second running back. With no exaggeration, he lollygagged the fake pitch motion half speed with hand only, sort of like you'd wave a waitress off if she was coming to your table. Did you see that? Dr. D is a big believer in body language. Right then, I got off the couch and watched the rest of the game out of the side of one eye.

The Seahawks probably spent all week telling themselves the Rams were dangerous. They just couldn't make themselves believe it. Same thing happened to the Arsenal Gunners the day before, stomped 4-0 (!) by a mediocre Southhampton team. This is the kinda thing coaches talk about when they say, "Boise State SCARES me." They've been through this before. About once a year times 30 years per coach.

Linebacker Akeem Ayers on why the Rams' defense gives the Seahawks trouble: "We just really know them. We really study our opponents. We study for teams each week and we are always pretty prepared every time we play. Just having this team in our division, we really know this team inside and out. We really know what to expect from them."

Hence the problem with division games. That, and a transient confidence kind of syndrome; you try something that works and if it does, you sort of take a magnifying glass to the ants. That's the Rams' DL and the Seahawks' OL.

For all that, the Seahawks held the Rams to 207 net yards while gaining 313 themselves. (Edit to add, we see the internet conceding that the Rams "outplayed" the Seahawks. It was ugly, but I don't call that "outplaying" your enemy, when they have 150% your yardage, but you win the fumbles by 4.)

Play that game 10 times, same DL/OL problemos, and the Seahawks win what? 8 of the 10? The takeway, if you're a Pollyanna, is that the Seahawks' defense is still REALLY good. It has gingerly shifted its goodness some from pass prevention to run prevention. That's not necessarily a negative.

Head coach Jeff Fisher on the Rams' defensive line: "They played hard. We got good pressure. (Seahawks quarterback Russell) Wilson is so good at getting out of the pocket. We got good pressure on him. We got him down a couple of times. You can see what he can do when he scrambles around and makes plays, like the last play of the game (an 18-yard touchdown pass from Wilson to Jermaine Kearse on Seattle's final offensive play). That last touchdown pass was just classic Russell Wilson. We had him bottled up, he got out, he found out we were playing zone, trying to shorten the game. He makes a great throw. That's what he has been doing."

It's actually kind of nice to know that Wilson isn't now a 150-rating passer. They rewrote the basketball rules for Wilt Chamberlain, making the key a lot wider, and that was a cheesy reaction.

As Bill James said once about batters who go .400 for a month: "If it were possible to REALLY hit .400 for a month due to skill, somebody WOULD hit .400 for a career." Although Ichiro's Davenport Translations were .370, .380 in his prime. Some of it was obtained with his speed and athleticism, but ... in a good park Ichiro might have been close to a .400 hitter from about age 26 to 30 or so.

Back on topic, Russell Wilson was 25-of-41 for 300ish yards, 2 TD's, and a pick. (Running for his life. In the rain.) Back in the day, that would have been a pretty nice game for Joe Montana. Things have changed, I guess. Bill Walsh realized that throwing the ball was better than running it, and he reaped the benefits. Next up: teaching left hand hitters to bunt.

THE PLAYOFF PERMUTATIONS

(1) If the Seahawks lose next week in Arizona, then they are the #6 and your rooting interest is simply the GB-Min game next week; we'd play the winner of that game. Interesting to see the Packers crushed so badly this weekend.

(2) If the Seahawks WIN next week -- don't let the Rams hangover skew you about that -- then (I think) they would still play the NFC East champ, if and only if Green Bay wins its division.

DREAM TEAM

Have you seen the ESPN special on the Michael Jordan-Magic Johnson-Larry Bird NBA Olympic team? Coach K and Lenny Wilkens swore up and down that Chuck Daly "threw" the first practice game against Chris Webber's college All-Stars, to put a little fear of failure into them.

That's a great life lesson, fear of failure. If the Seahawks go to Washington and then Carolina nervous about the games, it's all systems go.

BABVA,

Dr D

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Comments

Just Flukey

I don't know if I can spell flukey, so I probably shouldn't have included it in the title. Maybe I'm just coming out flat and not writing too good. The professors at school all tell me I shouldn't not consider writing for a living, like my father did. But some days I can't puntuate or speel reel good. neither.

Reasonably okay offense minus the run against a D-Line that has our number and without our best O-Line guy. Wilson was fine with only one TO/Punt - probably could have thrown that ball better to an open Lockett. The 6" or so past the line of scrimmage on the 47 yarder to Brown. Two horrid snaps that killed drives. One of the few Wilson brain-dead plays of not going out of bounds. Bevell with the fullback dive to Tuk on 3rd and 1 was puzzling, but hey sometimes you decoy your weapons right? Sometimes, like in Feb 2015, that can cost you a game. I forget when it works....

The Rams D-Line is ferocious, and especially so against the Seahawks. That and Gurley is about all they have.

The Seahawks need to find a way to be better prepared to deal with the Rams intensity, their D-Line, their headhunting, and the fact that they almost always play their best against them.

A few random thoughts, bullet

A few random thoughts, bullet-pointed out because Monday :)

I personally think the Rams are a dirty team, with dirty coaches. Gregg Williams, Fisher, etc. You'll notice that all the guys out with concussions were either on the STL D or the SEA O. Guy got suspended from football, and his guys are still coached to lead with the helmet on every play. How is this guy still allowed in the NFL? That one play where the two STL guys colided - that was intended for Russell's head no doubt.
There was some interesting stats going around yesterday about the Seahawks' opponents this year. They've been underpenalized and over-rested. Of their 8 home opponents, 4 of them came to SEA off bye weeks (CAR+ARI+SF+PIT) and STL just had 10 days rest. We also had the short week going into CIN.
Earl Thomas has looked off all year to me, has anyone else noticed? He still seems to be covering a lot of ground out there, and QBs are surely still avoiding him based on reputation. But he's not tilting the field the way he was his first 3 years in the league. I wonder if it's injury related, decline, or effort. Or maybe a misperception on my part.
Baldwin and Wilson are putting this whole team on their back, and it's a lot of fun to watch. Multiple 3rd-and-long conversions on blown plays.
Did you know Jeff Fisher has only had 6 seasons better than .500 in his 21 years of coaching? The best outcome of this game might be convincing STL owenership to keep him on board ;)