Solve This Dichotomy Please. NE/SEA vs SF

[manxman2601]

Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch the 49er game so as a question to those who did, can you solve this dilemma thrown up on twitter:

Last week, NE converted 2 of 15 3rd downs against SF... Last night, SEA was 11-13 on 3rd downs against SF.

https://twitter.com/MoveTheSticks/status/283295365128675330

so why the difference? Obviously, as good as Russell Wilson has been, he's not as good as Brady so why were he and the Seahawks successful at 3rd downs where the Patriots so clearly weren't?

 

[Patsrock]

Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch the 49er game so as a question to those who did, can you solve this dilemma thrown up on twitter:



https://twitter.com/MoveTheSticks/status/283295365128675330

so why the difference? Obviously, as good as Russell Wilson has been, he's not as good as Brady so why were he and the Seahawks successful at 3rd downs where the Patriots so clearly weren't?

Seattle played a better whole game. SF was honestly tired and beat up last night after facing 92 plays in the Pats game.

 

[PatriotSeven]

All I can think of is that the spread option with a dual pass rush/qb is very hard to stop when executed to perfection at the NFL level and matches up good against SF's defense. SF used the WCO with Alex Smith, and their D is used to stopping that style of offense which ours resembles. Most NFL defenses are designed to stop offenses like ours, not the spread option. On top of that, we just didn't play very well to start off that game against SF with us turning over the ball like that.

Plus they played in Seattle. The crowd forced at least 2 timeouts and a delay of game with Colin was on the field. After I was certain it was a blowout, I stopped keeping up.

Having said that, our offense performed much better against Seattle's D than SF.

 

[fxkane]

It's hard to play two superior teams in succession. We won our first challenge, but were not up to the second. SF won its first challenge but failed in its second.

The NFL so far is still played by mortals.

 

[mayoclinic]

The Pats were something like 6/7 on 4th down, so the 2/15 may have been more our own fault than anything else. And I'm sure the absence of Justin Smith helped in this, as in many respects, for Seattle.

 

[DocHoliday]

Their WRs can beat press.

We have to rely on GOAT precision and accuracy to even get a pass through

 

[manxman2601]

As we also went 4-12 against the Jags on 3rd down, I'd suggest the problem goes beyond the 49ers just being tired against the Seahawks. Whether it's a short-term hiccup or something more fundamental, it seems to me that the problem is more Patriots-centric than is being suggested.

 

[Joker]

It's hard to play two superior teams in succession. We won our first challenge, but were not up to the second. SF won its first challenge but failed in its second.

The NFL so far is still played by mortals.

Make a sticky called Explaining the Obvious and use this post as the jumpoff point....

 

[patsfaninpa]

Absence of employee #87 had a lot to do with it. Teams saw what we were doing without him. And, made adjustments.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

Seattle's home field advantage is bigger than ours,
they were healthy and we were not,
SF had consecutive tough road games on two coasts,
we randomly underperformed last week,
SF randomly underperformed last night

 

[Sciz]

While the 3rd down stats don't necessarily show it (adding in the Pats' 4th down conversion would), that 49ers defense hasn't been good since Justin Smith got hurt. He got hurt late in the 3rd quarter last week, and the 49ers have given up 66 points in the 5 quarters since.

 

[serifyn]

Wet/Cold Conditions + Poor Ball Security.

The Patriots had 5 huge plays in the game that caused them to lose. 2 fumbles and 2 picks, plus a huge special teams breakdown are what caused these losses. In normal conditions i believe the Patriots win that game, perhaps not easily, but i believe they win.

 

[Finnishfan]

Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch the 49er game so as a question to those who did, can you solve this dilemma thrown up on twitter:



https://twitter.com/MoveTheSticks/status/283295365128675330

so why the difference? Obviously, as good as Russell Wilson has been, he's not as good as Brady so why were he and the Seahawks successful at 3rd downs where the Patriots so clearly weren't?

Seattle contained Aldon Smith, and they had help from us in two ways:

1) SF was tired (they played 92 snaps of defense against us)

2) Justin Smith (who helps Aldon Smith's pass rushing tremendously) was sidelined due to injury suffered against us, so Seattle didn't have account for him.

But one big part is also that Seattle went into that game in a better mental state than we did and they were executing well from snap 1. We had some serious clogs in the machinery during the first half. In the second half we shredded them apart but I think we didn't even have to play many 3rd downs there so that stat line remained ugly.

 

[DarrylS]

When any team has 4 turnovers, no other statistic really matters.. the chance of winning in the NFL borders on nonexistent...

 

[JFK]

Russel Wilson is a dual threat
Plus they had favorable fumbles compared to us when we played. I'm very convinced we can beat SF. We did lose to SEA

 

[borg]

Wet/Cold Conditions + Poor Ball Security.

The Patriots had 5 huge plays in the game that caused them to lose. 2 fumbles and 2 picks, plus a huge special teams breakdown are what caused these losses. In normal conditions i believe the Patriots win that game, perhaps not easily, but i believe they win.

In normal conditions??

Seems normal conditions this year get the Pats losses vs NFC West opponents. Its funny how Pats losses are due to self inflicted wounds and wins are due to their mighty greatness. 2004 was a long time ago and 7 teams have shown more greatness...like SF did against them last week. Your view of that game differs dramatically vs my view. In general, SF kicked the crap out of them for 2 quarters....took the foot off the gas with the prevent defense for the next 25 minutes. And with the game on the line, SF resumed kicking the crap out of NE.

Here's a recap of SF TD drives vs NE....
6 plays...63 yds TD
4 plays...80 yds TD
1 play ...3 yds TD
1 play ...27 yds TD
1 play ...38 yds TD
----------------------
13 plays.....211 yds...16 yds/play....35 points

The only thing normal was that a quality team continued to expose the Pats greatest flaw with near perfect efficiency

 

[SHOWTIME15]

As we also went 4-12 against the Jags on 3rd down, I'd suggest the problem goes beyond the 49ers just being tired against the Seahawks. Whether it's a short-term hiccup or something more fundamental, it seems to me that the problem is more Patriots-centric than is being suggested.

i have a simple answer to this. WIthout gronk, they just double teamed welker and made brady force throws to lloyd and hernandez. i believe hernandez is still hurting and at times has not looked the same since his injury. and brady and lloyd are still lacking some chemistry. ergo you have poor play on third down.

 

[dannydyn]

12th Man made the Seahawks look like the Energizer bunny...

 

[PatsFanSince74]

I think you're going to get as many opinions on this as there are posters, and everyone of them that is thoughtful would have a grain of truth.

Here are my two cents:

1) The win on Sunday in Foxboro in the cold and rain had to take a lot out of SF, both physically and emotionally. Add a cross country flight that, along with a road trip up the coast created a "short week," and factor in the noise plus the cold and rain in which they had to play again, and I think that SF was just plain spent. I know these are young guys and world-class athletes, but they are still human.

2) Kaepernick is a very talented guy, but he is still young and relatively inexperienced. He showed a lot of hesitation and uncertainty, missing a lot of open reads. I think that he gave his team the best chance of beating the Pats, but I think Smith might have been a better choice in Seattle's noise tunnel. It's unfortunate that the costs of platooning QB's are too great in terms of team rhythm and consistency, but this was a case where I think the experienced hand would have been the better one, even though Kaepernick is clearly the SF QB of the future.

3) Seattle is a damn good team and Russell Wilson, after being mocked for his magic TD in the GB game, is a damn good QB, who would be getting a lot more press as a rookie starter if this were not the "year of RGIII" in the minds of the media.

 

[Patradomous]

I'd take Seattle against anybody right now.

Until the Pats have a top ten defense they will struggle to win a SB.
How many times do you have to see it? You have the most dynamic offenses ever seen lose Super Bowls and playoffs Pats and the Colts and the Rams.
You have to win games other than Brady.
When the last time you can say the defense won a playoff game? Or a regular season game for that matter.
You can win SB's with a QB being complimentary to a great defense but not the other way around. (See Eli)
If Tom not perfect its over with. If Eli,Russ Wilson, Kapernik, not perfect it dosen't matter they don't have to be.