WIN

Hawthorne continues to impress and Babineaux has surely let fans forget Brian Russell. Queestion though John. I was listening to Seahawks radio and Steve Raible was talking about how we need to get both Hawthorne and Tatupu on the field playing next year and could we potentially move to a 3-4 scheme? I’m not saying I want it to happen but it seems like the only way we could get both of those guys on the field playing.

I was at the game today and was saddened by the reality that the old spirit in the stands was just not there. The Hawks beat a dreadful team and were painful to watch. Many of our past stars have grown old and are on the way out. David Ruskell has not planned for the reality of attrition and aging and we are now in a situation where our downside is much greater than our upside. With the game still on the line—at least 15,000 seats or more were empty. The twelth man is losing his strength and patience. Its going to be a long few years until we can replace the aged with a team that is young enough and strong enough to compete

The only thing this game proved is that we’re not as bad as the Lions.

The defense, without question, kept this team in the game. If they didn’t have to defend two short fields moments after a nine-minute opening drive, this very well could’ve been a blowout.

Red Zone offense is quite worrisome – six trips and only two TDs. Neither of which came from further out than 3 yards.

Mare and Ryan must have switched bodies today. All three of Ryan’s punts ended up inside the 20, including the punt to the Detroit 5 in the game-deciding drive. Meanwhile, Mare struggled to reach the end zone, and the coverage unit did him no favors.

We need to find a replacement for Hasselbeck sooner rather than later. Apparently he injured his shoulder making the tackle on his interception during the first play. I have a bad feeling that one more bad hit like the one he suffered in Week 2 might end his career.

A win at Arizona next week puts this team one game back in the division. I’d like to think that a gritty, come from behind victory like today’s will give this team some momentum, more so than a 41-point bludgeoning of an underachieving Jacksonville team that was missing its biggest playmaker. At the very least, we’re tied for second in the division, and there are second-place teams that are further behind their division leader than we are (GB, CHI, ATL, HOU).

Hasselbeck hurt his shoulder on the first play so the short pass fixation has a rationale behind it. Of course, the fact that he hurt his shoulder on the first play of the game reinforcest he point that Dude’s Getting Old, soooo

John talks about the low yard-per-attempt numbers and all the passing to the backs as some kind of sign that Hasselbeck is an “aging game manager”. I remember him saying at one point during the game in the game thread that he thought Matt didn’t trust his receivers.

This could be true. But I think, today in particular, circumstances forced much of this situation, not some kind of distrust in the WR’s.

The game was 17-0 very early. Not only did it force Knapp to move to more passing in an attempt to catch up, it allowed Detroit to go into a soft shell defense so as to keep everything underneath. I can’t prove this entirely, but it sure looked to me like Detroit was dropping quite a few DB’s VERY deep and allowing a lot of short stuff up to ten yards from the LOS.

This means, quite frequently, that Matt (especially if he doesn’t have a ton of time) has to check down. There were a couple of longer throws, at least one of which came on a 3rd and two or so, meaning that Detroit was probably playing up tight (it was a pump and go route, too, so we even KNEW that they’d be biting short).

Another long pass didn’t count as one because we got an iffy PI call on the DB.

Now, there may be evidence that Matt doesn’t trust particular receivers. But I don’t know why this would be particularly true NOW, especially given that I think this batch of WR’s and Carlson is probably just as good if not more reliable than any we’ve had in a long time. Remember the drop years? KDrop? Now THEN I would expect Matt to be going WTF I’m not throwing to you.

It took 51 attempts to get 329 yards. 17 passes were to his backs or fullbacks. Hasselbeck played like the aging game manager I think he now is.

When you say “aging game manager”, I’m assuming that’s euphemism for “you think he can’t throw the deep ball anymore”.

Dan Marino in his prime- with his inhumanly quick release- could have that O-line protecting him..and even HE’D have to resort to that kind of chucking and ducking.

He’s not getting the TIME to throw 40-yard darts downfield. It’s not that he’s incapable of it.

Was finally able to watch the game and I think it was less “ugly” than some make it out to be. Remove the bad early start that put us down 17-0 and our defense gave up 3 points and our offense marched for 32 in 3 quarters. Stafford definitely helped by pulling a Vinny Testeverde by making more completions to us than his receivers but Kelly Jennings doesn’t make the two interceptions Hawthorne did (snark). So I say defense gets a B. They didn’t get off the field a number of times when they should have, but I place a lot of that at Kerney’s feet who really doesn’t look like much of a threat anymore (his caused fumbled was a oops I dropped the ball).

On Offense – Hass had horrible protection and his passing lanes were obscured on numerous occasions. If the dink and dunk is advancing the ball why stop dinking and dunking to gamble by throwing a long ball that wastes a down that could have been a forsett run? they couldn’t stop the short pass underneath or the screen very well at all. Tsun Tzu says go after your opponents weakness and exploit it while the opportunity is there. Not to mention the short plays have the added benefit of running the clock down like a run play would, something we used to suck at and I seem to remember allowed many a teams to come back or stay in the game despite the number of points we put up. Hass knew he couldn’t toss anymore INT’s and knew we could roll over them in the short game, and we did. Now if he needs to stretch the field and does the same thing to opposite effect, shame on him. I just don’t see the shame in an effective clock burning comeback.

One last thing…everyone stop with the just run Forsett instead of JJ gambit. What makes forsett good is that he is a good change of pace guy. Put him in his starting role and you no longer have that flexibility since he’ll just be another mediocre rush first RB. He needs JJ or someone else to be the effective player he is.

What I saw was a team that was once again was not prepared to start a game (I’ve seen this 6 of the 8 games), a defense that still gives up way to many 3rd downs and big plays, and a offense that has an O-line that is below average and a running game that SUCKS!

The good things I saw was a QB that didn’t freak out and led the team on some nice drives and let his playmakers make plays with the ball in their hands. Also I saw DB’s that were making plays on a QB that is still young, but alot better than the 5 picks he threw, so you really need to give the DB’s some credit. I also saw a guy named David Hawthorne, who is a future “full time” starter if he finishes the season out like he has started this year (it will be hard to keep him off the field next year).

A few things I would love to see over the next few weeks (outside of wins) is a O-line that stays healthy and starts to gel, so the coaches can really see what they have for next year. A defensive front four that puts SOME PRESSURE on the QB (starting this week), they just aren’t getting it done. Third could we please see more of Forsett, the guy just make plays (sometimes fumbles) when he gets the ball, just split 50/50 with Jones. Fourth give Matt some time, he has to dink and dunk when he has 2-3 seconds to pass, show me someone who gets 3-4 seconds I will show you a guy that gets some 20-30 yard gains once and a while. Lastly (but not last), please get he team prepared to START a game. The calls look bad a times from the coaches, and the players look lost when they see something new. Make adjustments during the game, let Deon and David change calls when they see the need to, and alow Matt to run his game, I worked for Matt this week, what about next?

This team is better than 3-5 and win on the road against a very good Cards team this week would be huge. If they win by 1 or 20 I don’t care, they just need to put 60 minutes together this week. It will start today (Monday) and end with a good gameplan and the players and coaches showing up on Sunday.