BlackSantasBicycle
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- Jan 22, 2015
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Hi, Seahawks fan here in peace. Just wanted to give you a reasonably comprehensive breakdown of your XLIX opponents.
First of all what a great matchup! Always nice when the two best teams in football meet in the big game, and though the Ravens pushed you close a couple of weeks back and we had to overcome some pretty substantial adversity against the Packers, we both found a way to prevail, and both deserve our shot at this game.
The brunt of our struggles against the Packers came from our offense, obviously hindered by the four uncharacteristic interceptions thrown by Russell Wilson. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Wilson wont ever throw four interceptions again in his career, and certainly not in the play-offs (I believe he had the highest post-season passer rating of any QB on a minimum of 150 attempts prior to Sunday and had only thrown one interception to Julio Jones on a hail mary at the end of the 2012 Atlanta game).
The thing is, whilst not quite to the same extent with which it occurred, many of our fans foresaw us struggling in the passing game, predominantly due to the fact we lost Paul Richardson to an ACL vs the Panthers. Our first (2nd round) pick in the 2014 draft, Richardson had a slow start in our Percy Harvin orientated offense at the beginning of the season, in fact our offense as a whole has been much better off since trading Harvin. However, whilst showing slow improvement across the season, Richardson really started to up his game down the stretch and had become our only receiver able to create separation with any consistency, on all kinds of routes. He was starting to look like the real deal though his numbers may not reflect it and he opened up space for our other guys (see Kearse’s catches vs Panthers), commanding respect of opposing defenses.
We put a lot of emphasis on a quicker passing game toward the end of the season and it had really started to click, with Wilson playing some of the best football in his career.
However, with Richardson down, and nobody to fill his role our passing offense is now as bad off as it’s been in the entire Wilson era. Baldwin, Kearse and Lockette make up our top three WRs, and yes, I’m whining to Patriots fans about WRs, because as much as I love them and they’ve provided us with some fantastic moments, it’s not the best group (Baldwin would put up decent numbers on a more pass orientated offense though, think Steve Smith at Baltimore).
I expect to see us struggle again in the passing game. Richardson’s the type of receiver who could have given Browner and Revis plenty to think about, but as it is we’ll probably see Revis on Baldwin and Browner swapping duties between Willson and Kearse (neither of whom should cause him too many issues).
So with that in mind, if we want to find offensive success in this game it will come from the running game. Despite all the media controversies and whatnot, come gameday there’s not a running back in the league I’d rather have on my team than Marshawn Lynch.
After a nice rest over three games that saw him only take 38 carries, Lynch ran the ball 25 times last Sunday and went off. I expect his health will be as good as it’s been all season (after experiencing some sickness and a prolonged back issue over the season). If you want to win this game, then shutting down Lynch is a must (duh).
Even if you do that with success, in Russell Wilson we have a top half RB in the league if we’re going by yardage. He’s not run the ball an awful lot over the past few games, he’s a passer first and since our passing game had been pretty good up til Sunday he’s not had to use his legs as much. However, I think we’ll see a change in that come the Super Bowl. After a dismal first half display on Sunday with very little read-option, we made it a focal point of our second half attack, evident in our last two regular time TD drives.
With your defense likely putting a lot of stock in defending the run, who can we expect to spy Russell Wilson, Collins? (I think that’d be great for us given it reduces his overall influence, and he’s the player I think stands the best chance of preventing Russ from having a big day)
I think we’ll get enough from our running game to give us a shot at winning, but I like (dislike) how your defense matches up to our offense right now, we’re not putting up another 43 points this year.
I also like how our defense matches up to your offense for the most part. We don’t give up big plays and Brady knows what can happen when you throw deep to Sherman or Thomas (both of whom will be good to go).
Gronk’s on a different level to any TE in the league, but with Kam Chancellor we are as well equipped as anyone you’ve faced to deal with him. I expect he’ll get his catches, but they will probably come against KJ Wright, who’s probably our weakest coverage guy. This is a huge game for KJ, a guy that not many people are talking about.
I’m guessing Stork will be back for you guys, and whilst we miss Brandon Mebane I see no reason why we should be too worried about Blount, we’ve been very good against the run this year, ranking 3rd in ypg. However, since our second year DT Jordan Hill went down (who had 5.5 sacks and an interception since week 12) we’ve really struggled to get to the QB, relying on Michael Bennett to provide the brunt of the pressure.
My biggest fear in this game is Brady having all day to throw, because as good as our secondary is, they still need pressure. We’ve only had three sacks against Cam Newton and a gimpy Aaron Rodgers so far in the play-offs. That has to change for us, and I expect to see us get more aggressive, with some stunts through the middle. Our All-Pro MLB Bobby Wagner has shown ability to get to the QB like this before and he’d be our best shot.
We’ve shown a weakness to the shorter underneath stuff, but our redzone defense is tough. Gostkowski could be busy on FG duty.
All in all it should be a great matchup, with lots of cool storylines to follow. I’ve seen some of you guys predicting big wins, though I’d be weary of that because other than two games (which we lost by 9 points) all our other losses in the Russell Wilson era have been by one score.
It looks like the Patriots will be favourites for this game and I have no issue with that, I agree. Still can’t pick against my team though. 27-26 Hawks.
Looking forward to getting all the other crap out of the way and watching some football come Sunday.
First of all what a great matchup! Always nice when the two best teams in football meet in the big game, and though the Ravens pushed you close a couple of weeks back and we had to overcome some pretty substantial adversity against the Packers, we both found a way to prevail, and both deserve our shot at this game.
The brunt of our struggles against the Packers came from our offense, obviously hindered by the four uncharacteristic interceptions thrown by Russell Wilson. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Wilson wont ever throw four interceptions again in his career, and certainly not in the play-offs (I believe he had the highest post-season passer rating of any QB on a minimum of 150 attempts prior to Sunday and had only thrown one interception to Julio Jones on a hail mary at the end of the 2012 Atlanta game).
The thing is, whilst not quite to the same extent with which it occurred, many of our fans foresaw us struggling in the passing game, predominantly due to the fact we lost Paul Richardson to an ACL vs the Panthers. Our first (2nd round) pick in the 2014 draft, Richardson had a slow start in our Percy Harvin orientated offense at the beginning of the season, in fact our offense as a whole has been much better off since trading Harvin. However, whilst showing slow improvement across the season, Richardson really started to up his game down the stretch and had become our only receiver able to create separation with any consistency, on all kinds of routes. He was starting to look like the real deal though his numbers may not reflect it and he opened up space for our other guys (see Kearse’s catches vs Panthers), commanding respect of opposing defenses.
We put a lot of emphasis on a quicker passing game toward the end of the season and it had really started to click, with Wilson playing some of the best football in his career.
However, with Richardson down, and nobody to fill his role our passing offense is now as bad off as it’s been in the entire Wilson era. Baldwin, Kearse and Lockette make up our top three WRs, and yes, I’m whining to Patriots fans about WRs, because as much as I love them and they’ve provided us with some fantastic moments, it’s not the best group (Baldwin would put up decent numbers on a more pass orientated offense though, think Steve Smith at Baltimore).
I expect to see us struggle again in the passing game. Richardson’s the type of receiver who could have given Browner and Revis plenty to think about, but as it is we’ll probably see Revis on Baldwin and Browner swapping duties between Willson and Kearse (neither of whom should cause him too many issues).
So with that in mind, if we want to find offensive success in this game it will come from the running game. Despite all the media controversies and whatnot, come gameday there’s not a running back in the league I’d rather have on my team than Marshawn Lynch.
After a nice rest over three games that saw him only take 38 carries, Lynch ran the ball 25 times last Sunday and went off. I expect his health will be as good as it’s been all season (after experiencing some sickness and a prolonged back issue over the season). If you want to win this game, then shutting down Lynch is a must (duh).
Even if you do that with success, in Russell Wilson we have a top half RB in the league if we’re going by yardage. He’s not run the ball an awful lot over the past few games, he’s a passer first and since our passing game had been pretty good up til Sunday he’s not had to use his legs as much. However, I think we’ll see a change in that come the Super Bowl. After a dismal first half display on Sunday with very little read-option, we made it a focal point of our second half attack, evident in our last two regular time TD drives.
With your defense likely putting a lot of stock in defending the run, who can we expect to spy Russell Wilson, Collins? (I think that’d be great for us given it reduces his overall influence, and he’s the player I think stands the best chance of preventing Russ from having a big day)
I think we’ll get enough from our running game to give us a shot at winning, but I like (dislike) how your defense matches up to our offense right now, we’re not putting up another 43 points this year.
I also like how our defense matches up to your offense for the most part. We don’t give up big plays and Brady knows what can happen when you throw deep to Sherman or Thomas (both of whom will be good to go).
Gronk’s on a different level to any TE in the league, but with Kam Chancellor we are as well equipped as anyone you’ve faced to deal with him. I expect he’ll get his catches, but they will probably come against KJ Wright, who’s probably our weakest coverage guy. This is a huge game for KJ, a guy that not many people are talking about.
I’m guessing Stork will be back for you guys, and whilst we miss Brandon Mebane I see no reason why we should be too worried about Blount, we’ve been very good against the run this year, ranking 3rd in ypg. However, since our second year DT Jordan Hill went down (who had 5.5 sacks and an interception since week 12) we’ve really struggled to get to the QB, relying on Michael Bennett to provide the brunt of the pressure.
My biggest fear in this game is Brady having all day to throw, because as good as our secondary is, they still need pressure. We’ve only had three sacks against Cam Newton and a gimpy Aaron Rodgers so far in the play-offs. That has to change for us, and I expect to see us get more aggressive, with some stunts through the middle. Our All-Pro MLB Bobby Wagner has shown ability to get to the QB like this before and he’d be our best shot.
We’ve shown a weakness to the shorter underneath stuff, but our redzone defense is tough. Gostkowski could be busy on FG duty.
All in all it should be a great matchup, with lots of cool storylines to follow. I’ve seen some of you guys predicting big wins, though I’d be weary of that because other than two games (which we lost by 9 points) all our other losses in the Russell Wilson era have been by one score.
It looks like the Patriots will be favourites for this game and I have no issue with that, I agree. Still can’t pick against my team though. 27-26 Hawks.
Looking forward to getting all the other crap out of the way and watching some football come Sunday.
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