| 13 September 2009
The St. Louis Rams tried out their version of the 12th man at Qwest field today and it was a dismal failure wiping out their only touchdown of the day. While Seattle keeps their 12th man in the stands making a deafening roar that caused several false start penalties, St. Louis tried to use theirs on the field to block a punt and return it for a touchdown. Someone was on the ball though and caught the illegal use of the 12th man and the play was brought back and Seattle scored their 3rd touchdown of the day to keep the victory a certainty. The Seahawks have now won 6 out of their last 7 home openers.
Seahawk Addicts "Assclown of the Year" Josh Brown missed his only field goal chance of the afternoon a 37 yard chipshot to everyone's great enjoyment. That left Seattle with the only shutout of the opening weekend subject to the two Monday night games to be played tomorrow. All in all, a pretty satisfying opening weekend.
Greg Knapp said that his offense is a slow starting offense that gets stronger as the game progresses and is particularly effective in the third and fourth quarters when the offense using the ZBS has worn out the defensive front 4 from all the cut blocking on the backside. Those big guys don't like to have to pick themselves up off the ground time after time and it begins to wear on them the further the game progresses. Today, that was pretty much the story of the game. Seattle's offense started out slow but the defense kept them in the contest by shutting down Steven Jackson and the Rams attack and the stalemate lasted until the second quarter when Hass threw a pair of touchdowns to Carlson and Burleson to take a halftime lead of 14 - 0 into the locker room.
The second half, the Seahawks got the running game going and then fed off of it with play action to dominate the Rams and bring the game to the conclusion most of thought it would come to. The defense continued it's domination and ended pitching a shutout and holding the Rams to 247 yards of total offense. Some of us (including me) thought the Seahawks would come right out and torch the Rams but as Knapp promised, it started slow and ended furious. The Seahawks were still trying to score at the end of the game and it was refreshing to see them not pull in the offense and start having their possessions end with the three and outs from running the ball into the middle of the defensive line three times as we saw too many times with Holmgren. To continue reading this article please press "Read more..." below.That agrresive style of play may lose us a game here and there but over the long run will preserve the lead and maintain the victory more often than not in my opinion. I love a team that keeps running what got them the lead to take into the 4th quarter when the games get tough rather than go conservative and meekly play not to lose rather than continue to be aggressive to win. Of course, there was no chance of this one getting into a dire situation by the end of the game as the Rams were thoroughly outplayed.
The Seahawks gained 446 yards of offense to 247 yards as previously mentioned for the Rams. They won the time of possession 32:27 to 27:33 and were 66% in red zone efficiency to 0% for the Rams. Both teams fumbled twice and lost one. Hass was intercepted twice compared to none for Bulger. One was a deflection but the other was a bad decision on his part. He could have had a couple more picked off but for luck. Mare kicked off 5 times and put 4 of them in the end zone compared to 1 kickoff for Brown with no touchbacks. The Seahawks running game prevailed gaining 167 yards to 77 for the Rams. The Seahawks logged three sacks while Hasselbeck was not sacked all afternoon. Hass was 25/36 for 279 yards while Bulger was 17/36 for 191 yards. The Seahawk's ruled the day.
Individual performances included Carlson with 6 receptions for 95 yards including a 38 yard reception and two touchdowns while Jones ran 19 times for 117 yards breaking a big one for 62 yards and a touchdown which was a nail in the coffin score. Nate Burleson also snagged 7 receptions for 74 yards and a touchdown. Hass threw for three touchdowns. Babineaux played well in his first starting role and made 3 tackles with 2 assists coming in third in the tackle/assist stats. Nick Reed was active for the game and logged one tackle in his NFL regular season debut. Ryan boomed a 70 yard punt at the end of the game finishing with a 40.4 yard average with 2 inside the twenty which were responsible for his average being low. He punted well during the game and showed his power when there was enough field to do so.
Tatupu injured his hamstring and Hill injured his groin which is a big concern and a scary proposition looking back at last year when we lost whole squads to injured reserve. We don't want to lose our linebackers this season. We'll have to keep a close watch on those two players as the week progresses. Hawthorne and Herring filled in for the two starting linebackers and played well in reserve showing at least against the Rams that our preseason display of our depth on defense was no fluke. Mora said after the game that the injuries are not considered serious and that they were playing it safe pulling both players from the game especially with Lofa.
I made 10 bold predictions before the game (actually 11 including a bonus prediction) and I'll own up to how well I did. Here's what I said would happen today and how it actually turned out.
1) The Seahawks will get at least 4 sacks.
Wrong. They only got three but it was close. If Bulger hadn't pulled the ball down late in the game and made it a run, we would have got the fourth.
2) Mora will run at least one trick play.
Correct. DSAhawker correctly predicted in the comments section of that article that it would be a wildcat play and so it was. It worked beautifully.
3) The Seahawks will come out of the game +2 or better in turnovers.
Wrong. The Rams came out +2 and the Seahawks are now -2.
4) Hass will enjoy a quarterback rating of at least 100.0.
Wrong. I don't know what his rating was but with two picks, it couldn't have been over 100 even with three touchdowns.
5) The Seahawks running backs will gain at least 100 yards on the ground.
Correct. 167.
6) The Seahawks receivers will gain at least 250 yards through the air.
Correct. 279.
7) Locklear will give up at least one sack.
Wrong. Hasselbeck was not sacked today.
8) Houshmandzadeh will lead the Seattle receivers with Carlson Second.
Wrong. Carlson led the team in receptions with Burleson second. Housh finished third.
9) Tatupu will lead the defense in tackles with Curry second.
Wrong/Correct. Wilson led all tacklers with 5 but Curry was second with 4. Tatupu got 3 but left the game with a hamstring injury.
10) The Seahawks will win by more than 10 points. My prediction: Seahawks 31 - Rams 17.
Correct. Not the final score but the did win by more than 10 points.
11) (Bonus Selection) The 49'ers will beat the Cardinals Sunday in Arizona. Seattle and San Francisco share the division lead until next week where it gets decided who gets the early NFC West lead. I'll tell you next week who gets it before Sunday.
Correct. San Francisco won 20 - 16. Next week we play San Francisco for the early NFC West division lead. All of a sudden, the second game becomes even more important as an early jump on the division lead is just what the Seahawks need to gain confidence and set themselves up for a couple of tough games against the Bears and the Colts.
I put that at .500 for my predictions with 5 1/2 correct and 5 1/2 wrong (I split on the leading tackler prediction). Oh well, not too bad for a first cut at it I suppose.
Overall, I was pleased with today's game. The biggest criticism would probably be what we also saw in pre-season and that's that it seems to take some time for the Seahawks to get it going. Even though Knapp said that this is a trait of the ZBS, it seems that with a potent passing attack such as we have, we should be able to get it going earlier than midway through the second quarter. I suppose that as long as our defense keeps us in the game while our offense gets untracked, that's alright but sooner or later, a high powered offense is going to put some points on us right off the bat and we are going to need to get our production going to quickly match that output or fight an uphill battle the rest of the game. The Seahawks haven't proved they are much of a come from behind team yet either so that's what I'm going to focus on as what they need to work on to improve in the short term.
San Francisco is another ball control team who likes to run the ball and control the tempo of the game. Winning against Arizona on their field should serve notice that we need to be sharp to win next week and we definitely don't want to get behind early in that game with them controlling the game tempo and keeping our offense off the field. That being said, I'll come out with more predictions later in the week when I talk about the game factors going into Candlestick. For now, enjoy the win and start believing that the Seahawks are for real.
Hasta,
BillT
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