Who was at fault for the Seattle
Seahawks “humiliating” loss to the Dallas Cowboys, a team that most of the
locals had written-off as frauds on defense and had no chance if Tony Romo was
forced to air it out against the most awesome secondary the world has ever
seen? It was true that this game could have gone one of two other ways: A
missed opportunity for a 100-yard interception return could have given the
Seahawks a presumably psychologically-damaging 17-0 lead (although the Cowboys
recovered from a 21-0 deficit to win against St. Louis earlier in the season,
with Romo having a QBR of 99.1 out of a possible 100), or the game could have
been what it appeared in the box score, say a 37-9 fundament-spanking.
Coach Pete Carroll, of course, gave
Dallas their just due in his subsequent press conferences, observing that the
Cowboys were prepared to play and his team was not. Even in special teams,
which was responsible for both of the Seahawks’ touchdowns after Dallas
miscues, the Cowboys recovered to prevent Percy Harvin from returning three
kicks to the 20-yard line in the second half. Despite the fact that the
Seahawks had sustained injuries on defense, they still had Kam Chancellor and
Richard Sherman on the field—and they could not prevent Romo from converting on critical third and longs (8,9, 14 and 20
yards).
What was most interesting about
the postgame commentary was the blame heaped on offensive coordinator Darrell
Bevell for not calling enough running plays for Marshawn Lynch. Consider: After
Dallas came back to make the score 10-7, Lynch ran for 3 yards, Wilson was
sacked twice, hurried on an incompletion, and there was a false start penalty. This
should have been an omen for things to come; the Cowboys’ controlled the line
of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Negate a 32-yard run and the Seahawks
gained only 48 yards on 17 carries; when the running game is so inconsistent,
and in most cases if two run plays would set up third and five situations, and
with the passing game inefficient, the question is whether to pass or run on
two of the three downs, and which is more likely to achieve first down yardage;
common sense would suggest that two pass plays (even if only one is for
positive yardage) is more likely to gain the required yards than two running
plays.
Of course, it wasn’t Romo who “imploded”
as the Seattle Times Jerry Brewer
expected; that was Russell Wilson. All I ever hear around here is that Wilson
is an “elite” quarterback, a “future” Hall of Famer. There is even intimations
that he is a “franchise” quarterback. If all of that is true, than why is it
that the Seahawks can only win if they don’t stray from “who they are”—meaning an
offense that is based on the running game? Are they saying that they can’t win
with Wilson passing the ball? What else could they be saying? Are they too
cowardly to admit to the implication that they are putting forward? The stats
don’t lie: The Seahawks are second from the bottom in the NFL in passing yards.
Another problem is that the
Seahawks are allowing the opponent to score more points than in previous
seasons. In 2012, the opposition scored 70 points in the first five games; in
2013 it was 81 points. This season the opposition has scored 113 points, and
average of 22.6 points again. Furthermore, the offense has gained only 7 more
yards than that allowed by the defense, and overall, the defense has not “outperformed”
the offense as it has the past two seasons. Thus I can see how Bevell can be in
a bind in his play-calling; for the Seahawks, both sides of the ball have to be
playing at least up to their capabilities—and if the defense is not, as against
San Diego and Dallas, you have to find out what your quarterback is made of,
because the running game is simply too inconsistent a weapon. It is all too
often that one or two long runs can make the final stats look a lot better than
what actually occurred on the field (last season, Terrell Pryor set an NFL
record for quarterbacks with a 93-yard run; the rest of that game he ran 10
times for only 8 yards).
I’m not a Seahawks fan, so it
makes no difference to me what they do this season, although my sense is that
they are not going to the Super Bowl this time; they might not even make the
playoffs if they become as “predictable” as the locals think they should be.
The NFL, after all, is still a league where passing the ball has been the
beneficiary of many rule changes, and a team that can’t pass under pressure
when it needs to can’t survive for long. It is just a “gimmick” team that got
lucky one year.
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