On Max Hall and Quality of Quarterback Competition
by John Morgan on Oct 26, 2010 1:14 PM PDT
Email
PrintFor Seattle to achieve above their ability and ride a tough run defense and home field advantage deep into the playoffs, something kind of important must be accomplished first: the Seahawks must become a good team. Yes, folks, I have hope and Seattle has a real chance of making noise in the postseason, but I also have tape and time, and a sick fascination with finding the truth about this team. The truth is often ugly stuff.
One truth we will explore over this week is that Max Hall is the third quarterback Seattle has faced this season that probably will not be starting anywhere in 2012. Both Hall and Sam Bradford are pretty bad, but excusably so because they're rookies. Alex Smith and Jay Cutler are ruined. Cutler could potentially be reclaimed but I think time has about run out for Smith. We are not quite to 2007 territory, but we're damn close.
One thing that popped out to me while watching the first quarter last night is that Hall is tiny. He is both short and slight, and on one play, a short pass to Stephen Spach, it looked as if Hall simply couldn't see over his linemen and so lobbed the ball high and sort of towards Spach in the hopes that Spach could run under it. He was wide open. It fell incomplete. By a few yards.
Size doesn't define a player, but it's correct to say quarterbacks like Drew Brees are an exception to a pretty concrete profile. I am not size obsessed by any measure, but football is a game of force and speed and vision, and tiny rookies with cap gun arms and little idea what they're doing represent about as bad a quarterback as a team can ever start. And as for Hall's future, if you're much shorter than your lineman and can not start a game without being injured partway through, all the leadership in the world is not likely to save you.
Hall might represent a new low, but he had to really scrape the barrel to achieve that. It's been a season of bad quarterbacks.
In week one, Alex Smith was wild and Seattle capitalized. The 49ers are now 1-6.
In week two, Kyle Orton took apart Seattle. Yesterday "Tebow" chants echoed across Mile High during Sunday's 59-14 blowout loss to the Raiders. The Raiders. Orton may be good or may be concluding a hot streak, but Seattle made him look unstoppable.
In week three, Philip Rivers, playing from behind all game, threw for 455 yards on 52 attempts. It wasn't the spectacular performance the raw numbers would imply, but it was still pretty damn good. And it still put Seattle's backs against the wall late into the fourth quarter.
In week four, Sam Bradford -- who, if you've only seen his highlights and so bought into the hype that he's the second coming of whoever, is performing at 86% of league average for ANY/A, on par with a rookie Tim Couch -- had probably his best game of his young career. Seattle was smothered to death by the Rams suffocating defense. The Rams.
In week six, Jay Cutler returned from a concussion and bobbed and weaved his way into sack after sack. This past Sunday, Cutler was sacked four times, threw four interceptions, all to DeAngelo Hall, and amassed -155 DYAR.
And then there was Hall, who finished 4/16 for 36 yards and an interception. Interceptions are worth -45 yards in the classic Hidden Game of Football formula, meaning Hall essentially broke the system. Factor in the additional 18 yards lost on sacks, and Hall was worth -27 yards on 18 pass attempts. The only thing that prevented him from surpassing Cutler's -155 DYAR was a lack of opportunities.
The Seahawks can not control for the quality of quarterback competition they face. It's a boon that the opposition has been so bad and I'm not saying we should give back any wins, but where Seattle should be dominating, running over weaker opponents, they are squeaking out wins. Even Sunday's home win was frustratingly close.
When Seattle collapsed in 2008 after showing a dominating-looking defense in 2007, we were forced to face the fact that some of what looked dominant was in fact only beating the already broken. If Seahawks fans are looking for a sobering counterpoint to yesterday's optimism, well, the rest of the season, in which Seattle will face Eli Manning, Drew Brees, Matt Cassel, Matt Ryan and Josh Freeman, may just provide it.
40 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
we also get
Matt Moore/Jimmy Clausen and Sam Bradford at home.
Max Hall/Derek Anderson and Alex Smith David Carr again.
Eli Manning has been pretty average at Qwest.
Our defense is performing well against poor QBs
But our offense is incapable of scoring a TD from 5 yards out in 3 plays.
Michael Robinson leads the Seahawks in completion percentage, yards-per-attempt, and QB rating.
Sam Bradford has played pretty well for a rookie
While he’s losing WRs a pretty quick rate, I expect his skills to improve by the time we face him again.
by Greetings from the Lord Humongous! on Oct 26, 2010 1:52 PM PDT up reply actions
Also, don't we get Jason Campbell this week?
He’s become a pretty lousy QB….maybe not Max Hall-lousy, but not much better than Cutler or Anderson.
Jason Campbell has historically not been very good, but he has had a couple very good games this year
Last week he threw for over 200 yards with no TDs, 0 INTs, for a QB rating of 127….and he did that on the road.
I am going to come into your house at night and rec up the place.
This was part of the preseason analysis, if I remember right.
Wasn’t there some sort of hooray-we-face-a-lot-of-horrible-quarterbacks post sentiment when the schedule came out?
Yes, I think John's just trying to set realistic expectations
Basically: yes, we’re 4-2. But many of the victories were close calls against poor or very poor teams.
"Pass rushers enter the world of Okung but never leave." - JM
http://seahawksblog.wordpress.com
But the point remains he is an elite QB.
Michael Robinson leads the Seahawks in completion percentage, yards-per-attempt, and QB rating.
You can classify him as
Superman with shoulder-pads on, as long as he has a bad game against us.
I'm confused by the adverbs
You say here
In week three, Philip Rivers, playing from behind all game, threw for 455 yards on 52 attempts. It wasn’t the spectacular performance the raw numbers would imply, but it was still pretty damn good.
But after that game you said:
Rivers threw a ton of passes, completed 29 for 455 yards, but factoring his sacks and the projected value of his interceptions, his adjusted net yards per attempt for Sunday’s game, 6.3 yards, was well below his season average, 7.8, well below his career average, 7.2, and well below his average performance in 2009, 8.3, and 2008, 8.0.
Was Rivers below Rivers’ average, but still above league average? I’m confused how we could hold a QB to a below average day and then have it be called a good day for the QB.
Rivers is the best QB we'll face all year...
At least in my opinion…Yes, Brees is great, but he’s not putting up the numbers that Rivers is this year.
That game he had against us was no surprise to me. It’s just that the Hawks were clicking on 2 out of 3 parts of the game (ST & D), and the Chargers were only really clicking on (O).
I think that game is a better testament to how we do against an elite QB. I do think the Giants are a better team, but I don’t think Manning is nearly as talented as Rivers.
Ka-Kaaa!
Manning isn't even close to Rivers.
Take away Rivers running game and he’ll still beat you. Take away Eli’s and you get to see Manning face on the NY Post.
The Seahawks held Rivers below his typical performance
but Rivers is one of the best quarterbacks in football, and 6.3 ANY/A is still 111% of league average. So, worse than can be expected from Rivers, but still good.
My point being, it was a good showing by the Seahawks defense, but hardly spectacular. Seattle held a great quarterback to a merely good performance.
And did so while playing from ahead almost all game.
So shouldn't we be impressed with Seattle's defense
for holding a great quarterback to a good performance?
Thanks for this
I do not wear optimism well.
by Moresoftness on Oct 26, 2010 2:08 PM PDT via mobile reply actions
"Why do you build me up (build me up)...
…buttercup, baby, just to let me down…"
In all seriousness, good write up. And who knows, Carrol may well have found the guys he likes, at least with who he can get this season, but in his first year with the team, there’s plenty of room for improvement from everyone, no?
So maybe it’s a good thing we faced all the terrible QBs in the first part of the season.
I'm not all that phased.
Brees’ year isn’t going well, Freeman is no superstar, and we can take away Manning’s running game. How will Cassel do if we can limit their ground production? That’s a question mark for me.
And we rocked, and they said that we rocked, and they rejoiced, and there was much rejoicing. Seahawks astride the division at 4-2 and gunning for the lead in the conference. Look out Rodney Harrison.
Cassel will fall over.
He just doesn’t look the part. I’ve watched two chiefs games this year, and been surprised at how bad and indecisive he looked when the game was on his shoulders.
Take away Wes Welker and his body of work doesn’t look that impressive.
Set phasers on homophone!
inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
by shams on Oct 26, 2010 5:59 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Caption: You'll always have the memories, Max...
Not if he takes many more hits.
I like the sobering articles John
I enjoy winning so much more if I feel like we’re going to lose, and I don’t hate the losing quite as much.
While these wins have been awful it’s worth mentioning that in recent years we would lose close games and give up in others, where this year we seem to be getting the ugly wins.
Would you attribute this to luck, coaching, or a solid combination?
I look forward to playing the first semi-contender of the year
that being the Giants. That game will give us a good glimpse into what our team is slowly growing up to be.
"Pass rushers enter the world of Okung but never leave." - JM
http://seahawksblog.wordpress.com
I read that as semi-conductor at first.
And we rocked, and they said that we rocked, and they rejoiced, and there was much rejoicing. Seahawks astride the division at 4-2 and gunning for the lead in the conference. Look out Rodney Harrison.
Considering our relatively makeshift DL and young secondary (minus Milloy and Trufant) I think our D has out performed.
What is missing from each of those prolific performances by opponents is the bind our offense repeatedly put us in. The D had to give yards because frankly they had to play 75% of the minutes. No D except maybe the Ravens or Jets can spend that much time on the field and not give up huge numbers.
I believe the rest of the season we will live or die by the amount of clock our offense can eat. If we don’t get close to 50% we’ll lose. We’re still too thin on defense to sustain. if we get an extra quality rusher or two on the DL for next year I think that unit could be unstoppable. Terrill, Brock, Balmer don’t quite count as Quality right now. They are makeshift.
I think a sobering dose of pragmatism is a good thing right now.
We’ve beaten some bad QBs this year, and have some bad ones coming up still. But some of the bad QBs coming up, have been having good years.
It’s hard to classify any of our upcoming games as freebies, when teams that sucked so bad last year (KC, OAK, TB, STL) combine at a few games over .500 this year.
I am going to come into your house at night and rec up the place.
Manning is an elite quarterback.
I kept hearing how cool he was last night. He cooly threw three interceptions in the first quarter and then, what, two more in the fourth? All this en route to beating a one-win, Romo-less Dallas team by a touchdown. What a champ. When the Giants play like this, they’re a great team because great teams find a way to win ugly. New Orleans, San Diego and Minnesota are playoff teams who are just about to turn it on. Chicago was still considered top notch when they squeaked three points by Carolina. Once they lost to Seattle, though…
He can't play defense.
How many points did they put up?
Whether or not Manning is good, though, depends a lot of his supporting cast, which is awesome.
Matt Hasselbeck was nearly as bad as Max Hall
Until the spurt in the late 3rd early 4th quarters, Hasselbeck was basically as inept as Hall.
Hasselbeck will need to improve mightily for this team to have a chance to win the NFC West.
It is what it is...
If we win two of the next three......
Then I think we’re golden the rest of the way. (No that wasn’t a call for Tate to get more involved in the offense, but it might not be a bad idea……. right?)
Here’s hoping (We Stay Healthy)…….
1. at OAK – Mebane is back and near 100%. We find a way to bottle up McFadden. We tally near or more than 200 yards rushing. and Hass for the third consecutive game doesn’t throw an INT. All we need to do is play well enough to win UGLY, which is how most Raiders fans look normally, although the good news for Raider Nation is that they’ll fit in exceptionally well on Halloween :) – Score prediction W, ’Hawks 23 – Oakland 17
2. vs NYG – Okung is back and has some semblance of being able to be effective vs Umenyiora. 12th man needs to show-up huge and cause as many G-men false starts as it did in the 2007 game. Unfortunately where I think we’ll be in real trouble is the Pass Defense. Manning will likely throw 300 + against us and at least two touchdowns. I think that we unfortunately come up just a bit short…. L NYG 24 – SEA 20.
3. at ARZ – Hope that whichever very below average QB that the Cards happen to start has failed to jell with the offense and/or has a bit of a bad game at home. Run D needs to contain Hightower and Wells far better than it did this past Sunday. Bates rolls out Butler and/or Tate, someone in addition to BMW in order to open things up, causing more room for Lynch and Forsett to run as well as stretching the field to allow Carlson and Stokley to catch some Short- Medium Range Pases on a consistent level. And again stick Thurmond on Larry Fitzgerald. Prediction W – ’Hawks 27 Cardinals 24 OT.
If this all happens. I will feel supremely confident that we’ll win the NFC West (and we’ll have a good shot at a First Round Bye). If we don’t, obviously it’ll be a bit more of an uphill climb the rest of the way.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on Field Gulls
Related FanShots on Field Gulls
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
