Failures upon Failures upon Failures upon Failures up...

by John Morgan on Nov 10, 2010 5:54 PM PST

Portrait of a Manning that made Qwest his personal playground.

Not sure I have the stomach for the fourth quarter. Maybe, better said, not sure if tape of the fourth quarter will tell me much. The rest of the game, however ugly, is worth analyzing, because if the Seahawks are going to fail this completely, I would like to know why.

Kentwan Balmer continued to succeed as Seattle's strongside end. He split a double team and shed a pull blocker and was able to accomplish the nigh-impossible: stop Brandon Jacobs where the two met. Lawyer Milloy assisted the tackle and the two stopped Jacobs after two.
The next play ended in a 17 yard reception that Steve Smith dove and caught away from Marcus Trufant. Mostly good placement of the pass and an excellent catch--no knock on Tru.
Before all that, there was a shining moment when something good almost happened. What pitiful saps we are to cherish the almost good.

Seahawks rush David Hawthorne and Aaron Curry and Hawthorne splits Craig Terrill and Junior Siavii and blows through the line clean with a head of steam.

But as you can see, he's already stumbling. A split second later, Hawthorne stumbles into the block of 66 over there, David Diehl.

Then the Giants ran up the gut against a blitz and it worked like a run against a pass blitz is supposed to work. Lofa Tatupu was able to separate from Bear Pascoe and reach for Jacobs but Jacobs ran through Tatupu's finger tackle like one might expect Brandon Jacobs to run through Lofa Tatupu's finger tackle. What a mighty wordsmith I be.

Earl Thomas and Trufant meet to stop Jacobs after 14.

Next run: Seahawks can not manage any weakside pursuit and Jacobs beats Tatupu around the edge for seven.

Eli stares down Steve Smith. Smith pushes off Trufant and is called for OPI.

No pressure; bad pass. Moving on.

Raheem Brock generates pressure. That's the good part. Trufant loses after attempting to square and maybe press Nicks. Nicks uses his right hand to throw Trufant aside. That's the bad part. And as Troy Aikman puts it, "Nicks was about as open you can get."

Another curl in front of Trufant.

Hawthorne reads the play and pursues Ahmad Bradshaw towards the left sideline. That's great. His read and react are quick and he escapes any chance of being locked down by a pull blocker. Heater stops the run but only after three and the first. He makes one mistake, but it's critical. He takes a bad angle of pursuit, first overpursuing towards the line of scrimmage and then correcting and angling too far away from the line of scrimmage. That prevents him from stopping the first. Not bad though. Just not good enough.

Seattle puts in its pass rush line and that's ripe to run against. Brock is knocked back and Tatupu fills, but he doesn't tackle cleanly and Bradshaw is able to rush for five on first and 10.

Then, hey hey hey, another good play! Seahawks align with only three down linemen, and blitz Curry and Thomas off the right end. Curry draws the blocker and Thomas arrives in a flash and forces Manning to throw the ball away.

The Giants are penalized for an illegal shift on the above play. I mention this because Pascoe motions wide left and that creates confusion between Kelly Jennings and Milloy.

And then, we get a play that can be best summarized with a picture. Steve Smith ducked behind Kevin Boss and ran a short dig underneath. You'd never know it from the outcome, but Seattle ran the perfect defense to stop this play, but something wacky happened instead. Overpursuing to his left, Jordan Babineaux hip-checked Lawyer Milloy and tore open the middle of the Seahawks zone. That allowed Smith in for the score. That Babineaux, what a card.

Quintessential_seahawks_jordan_babineaux_medium

Tweet Comment 23 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Yep

I saw the play and thought to myself “that’s vintage Big Goof Babs”.

Michael Robinson leads the Seahawks in completion percentage, yards-per-attempt, and QB rating.

by SSreporters on Nov 10, 2010 6:05 PM PST reply actions

"card" as in "card to play"

by Hawkhammer19 on Nov 10, 2010 6:21 PM PST reply actions

Babs is thin and made of laminated paper

15.
Informal .
a.
a person who is amusing or facetious.

by John Morgan on Nov 10, 2010 6:28 PM PST up reply actions

finally!

an article about how shitty our seahawks team really is. bout time.

by jerjaxon on Nov 10, 2010 8:01 PM PST reply actions

Jordan Babineaux

The Henny Youngman of football.

“The other day, I broke 36. Too bad he was on our team!”

Ba-dum dum.

by Buster! on Nov 10, 2010 8:29 PM PST reply actions

Oh I see

The loss is on Babs, not on Charlie.

Whew!

by dingoeatbaby on Nov 10, 2010 9:51 PM PST reply actions

Quick! Start Hasselbeck!

That’ll fix the defense!

Block for Charlie Whitehurst. Everyone.

by Misfit74 on Nov 10, 2010 9:57 PM PST up reply actions

Insightful

Charlie was on the field for 17 minutes. If I were picking one person to pin the loss on, it is the Defense.

by StonerHawks on Nov 11, 2010 1:56 AM PST up reply actions

because defense is the reason

we were not converting 3rd downs

by jerjaxon on Nov 11, 2010 9:28 AM PST up reply actions

Did this make sense when you typed it?

by John Morgan on Nov 11, 2010 9:48 AM PST up reply actions

Special Teams didn't convert any 3rd downs either, they need to step it up.

by jacobstevens on Nov 11, 2010 11:00 AM PST up reply actions

Screw you, Jon Ryan!

He hasn’t converted a 3rd all year!

by thebyron on Nov 12, 2010 6:46 AM PST up reply actions

still after our last touchdown

it would of been nice to see if charlie couldn’t continued doing when with another possession. instead the giants ran the ball down the middle for 12 minutes.

by noweat on Nov 11, 2010 9:48 AM PST up reply actions

oops

‘could of’

by noweat on Nov 11, 2010 9:48 AM PST up reply actions

did other people watch a different game than I did?

Seriously. Here are the Giants first 6 possession results:

Fumble, TD, TD, TD, TD, TD

Their last possession was a nearly 13 minute drive. How this game was anything other than a complete and absolute defensive breakdown is beyond me.

by Snuffleupagus on Nov 11, 2010 9:50 AM PST up reply actions

One TD was a result of the Washington fumble

but yes. Defense = broken

by m_b on Nov 11, 2010 10:32 AM PST up reply actions

Yes, the offense started the game horribly

But they were far from the reason we were down 21-0 at the end of the first quarter.

by SmartAssCoug on Nov 11, 2010 9:54 AM PST up reply actions

And Charlie wasn't the reason they were horrible

The first five possessions in the Raiders game (a much worse defense than the Giants) were 3 and outs.

by Snuffleupagus on Nov 11, 2010 9:59 AM PST up reply actions 1 recs

did other people watch a different game than I did?

Seriously. Here are the Giants first 6 possession results:

Fumble, TD, TD, TD, TD, TD

Their last possession was a nearly 13 minute drive. How this game was anything other than a complete and absolute defensive breakdown is beyond me.

by Snuffleupagus on Nov 11, 2010 9:55 AM PST up reply actions

No, we watched the same game.

I feel for you though, as apparently you watched it twice?

Bird Law in this country isn't governed by reason.

by Tyler Jorgensen on Nov 11, 2010 12:45 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs

It was pretty awful but I don't feel hopeless

On the defensive side, I’d say Thomas and Thurmond improve Seattle’s “top end” talent. Talent does not necessarily equal production but it is a necessary condition. At the other end of the spectrum, Seattle does not have near the amount of absolute dead wood that used to clutter up both Holmgren’s and Ruskell’s rosters.

Don’t get me wrong, the overall talent level is still pretty mediocre. There is precious little pass rushing talent and even less depth. Offensive lines that can handle the blitz expose our coverage as adequate at best. It’s not a defense that can impose its will on an offense. Rather it is good enough to make (some? enough?) plays when time and score render the opposing offense one-dimensional (see San Diego, Chicago, and Arizona). It is very susceptible to collapse when Seattle’s offense puts it in difficult score/field position.

On the bright side, two things:

1. There are enough replacement-level players (I know that’s impossible to specify in football with any precision, but you know what I mean) that one good off-season could make this a legit top-quarter DVOA defense.

2. Carroll/Schneider have done more than just get lucky in the NFL’s bargain bin. They look like they know what they’re doing. Consider the freely available defensive talent Seattle has signed off the street (Brock, Saiivi) or re-purposed (Milloy, Red Bryant). The trades have been more mixed when factoring in what was lost, but that practically by definition be true. The market isn’t always kind, even to the savviest shopper. But it’s nice to know that Seattle won’t necessarily need to devote market-rate resources to solve every problem.

"Those who fear disorder more than injustice inevitably produce more of both." -- Rev. William Coffin

by dcrockett17 on Nov 11, 2010 10:33 AM PST reply actions

Carroll/Schneider > Mora/Ruskell

I know that one year is a small sample to evaluate, but I, too, feel a lot better about Carroll and Schneider’s approach to team-building than I did about Ruskell’s.

by TMann_2 on Nov 11, 2010 10:53 AM PST up reply actions 2 recs