game 7: Seahawks vs Bengals

[Sweezo]

People are over reacting to the fact that we lost to the Bengals instead of acknowledging we lost to a really good team.

The Bengals defense is good but their offense looks...average? I'm fine with the loss, but it's the process of how we ended up losing that gets to me. The combination of penalties, not taking points when they are there, and dropped passes just kills this team.

It's a rough transformation to watch considered how workman-like this team was when Holmgren was here. I may not have liked everything Holmgren did, but rest assured he wasn't going to have a team out there that lost the game due to penalties. Nor would we lose the game because of a brash play call...no matter how much I may have wanted Holmgren to go for it on 4th down or do anything but a draw on a 3rd and long, he stuck to his guns. But overall, his process worked.

I wouldn't be quite so irritated with Pete's decision making if we hadn't seen the same type of thing out of him at the San Diego game last year. After that game, he issued a similar mea culpa:

"I got a little bold about our situation," Carroll said the day after the San Diego game. "We need to take care of business better. I need to do a better job and make sure that we get our points when we get our opportunities."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/seahawks/2016653052_hawknotes31.html

He needs to get past the college mindset. It isn't working. For a coach who's worked the NFL before and is 60 years old, its hard to chalk it all up to some sort of learning curve.

[Danny Darko]

i honestly think he's tanking. Maybe he's really a great motivator and talent evaluator and D schemer, and sucks at situational calls, but i swear it looks like he's trying to make sure we get Barkley.

[Bulltalk]

There's just some leadership/x-factor that I just haven't quite seen in Barkley yet. I can't put my finger on it. It seems most of the top NFL QB's have it oozing out of them, guys like Rodgers, Brady, Manning, Roethlisberger, Brees, etc...

I want a QB who when he takes the field does so with such a self confidence that it inspires everyone around him, makes you feel like good things are going to happen.

Maybe Barkley has this quality. I guess I'll look a little closer.

[asdf1223]

People are over reacting to the fact that we lost to the Bengals instead of acknowledging we lost to a really good team.

The Bengals defense is good but their offense looks...average? I'm fine with the loss, but it's the process of how we ended up losing that gets to me. The combination of penalties, not taking points when they are there, and dropped passes just kills this team.

It's a rough transformation to watch considered how workman-like this team was when Holmgren was here. I may not have liked everything Holmgren did, but rest assured he wasn't going to have a team out there that lost the game due to penalties. Nor would we lose the game because of a brash play call...no matter how much I may have wanted Holmgren to go for it on 4th down or do anything but a draw on a 3rd and long, he stuck to his guns. But overall, his process worked.

I wouldn't be quite so irritated with Pete's decision making if we hadn't seen the same type of thing out of him at the San Diego game last year. After that game, he issued a similar mea culpa:

"I got a little bold about our situation," Carroll said the day after the San Diego game. "We need to take care of business better. I need to do a better job and make sure that we get our points when we get our opportunities."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/seahawks/2016653052_hawknotes31.html

He needs to get past the college mindset. It isn't working. For a coach who's worked the NFL before and is 60 years old, its hard to chalk it all up to some sort of learning curve.

I don't disagree with you at all. I just feel that his negatives in game management don't outweigh the positives in player evaluation and adjusting schemes to fit personnel(which i feel is a huge upgrade over Holmgren who was incredibly rigid in his methods). And I do think he will get better in those areas.

As for penalties and dropped passes, not a lot Pete can do about that. The team is young and hasn't played a lot together. Hopefully, they'll play smarter. Even if we Pete doesn't give an earful for that you can be sure people like Tom Cable wont let that kind of thing slide by.

[Sweezo]

I don't disagree with you at all. I just feel that his negatives in game management don't outweigh the positives in player evaluation and adjusting schemes to fit personnel(which i feel is a huge upgrade over Holmgren who was incredibly rigid in his methods). And I do think he will get better in those areas.

As for penalties and dropped passes, not a lot Pete can do about that. The team is young and hasn't played a lot together. Hopefully, they'll play smarter. Even if we Pete doesn't give an earful for that you can be sure people like Tom Cable wont let that kind of thing slide by.

Penalties can be addressed, and a lot of it probably comes from having a young team. And honestly, how many of the penalties have been of the complete bull variety [i.e. Chancellor's hit on Colt McCoy] that quite simply would not have been called a couple years ago before the lousy rule changes. Still, Carroll has that image of being a player's coach, not a disciplinarian. I don't care if it's Cable or Carroll or whoever but someone's got to crack the whip every now since we're the 4th most penalized team in the league.

The dropped passes though...even Holmgren struggled with that.

[TTown]

I can not come to any sort of definitive decision on Matt Barkley. His numbers are outstanding as a whole, but he's developed some home/away trends that I'm not particularly impressed by: his QB rating drops by about 32 points on the road, and his YPA and completion % are considerably lower. And it should be noted SC hasn't really played a good defense this year, and may not all season. Pac-12 is crazy bad defensively, as was their OOC. Also of (perhaps) interest is his completion % quarter-by-quarter: 70, 65, 74, 59.

Just to compare that with Andrew Luck, his road % (68) is lower than his home % (76), but 68% is fantastic and 76% is absurd. His road YPA actually goes up; and his quarter % splits goes 71, 70, 69, 80. That's a QB who freaking gets it.

But, that's why Andrew Luck is Andrew Luck. Obviously stats can say anything you want them to and they aren't the end-all, and Barkley is a top 10 prospect for a reason. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it.