The Seahawks entered this week in control of a wild card berth, and they held on to it today with a road win against the Bears.  At times, it seemed like overthrows, bad calls, and Cutler-to-Marshall were going to conspire to drop Seattle to 6-6, but in the end the offense got it done.

And you know what?  At the end of the fourth quarter, with the game on the line and the ball in Wilson's hands, I was surprised at how much confidence I had that the Seahawks could drive the length of the field for a touchdown.  I don't think I've felt like that about a Seattle offense since Hasselbeck's last pro bowl season in 2007.

Enjoy the win in the comments below.

I don't really have all that much to add to yesterday's article on the Bears game, other than to remind you to watch for the return of #28 Walter Thurmond, who will likely get the start at nickelback over injured veteran Marcus Trufant (hamstring).  Also, there's this:

SEA! HAWKS!

The Seahawks are currently 5-0 at home, but an abysmal 1-5 on the road.  Even worse, in three of those five losses (versus the Dolphins, Lions, and Cardinals) the Seahawks gave up a fourth quarter lead with less than six minutes to go.  As with those previous defeats, there are several mitigating factors to which I cold point¹ – Wilson is clearly building up a great rapport with his receivers, the offense converted 50% of its third downs, etc. – but with so few games remaining on the schedule and a playoff spot on the line, a decent stat line or two is not going to be enough to soothe away the loss.

Thankfully, there are only two road games left to play this season, starting with this Sunday’s matchup against the Bears in Chicago.  And don’t let the Bears’ 8-3 record or intimidating defensive stats fool you, this game is very, very winnable.  I know I tend to go a bit heavy on the statistics around here, but this is one of those times when the numbers are just not telling us the whole truth about a team.

Not that I’m saying the Bears are a bad team, mind you.  On defense, starting CBs Tim Jennings and Charles Tillman are playing like all-pros, LB Lance Briggs is still a beast at age 32, and as a unit they’ve been excellent at pressuring opposing quarterbacks.  On the other side of the ball, Chicago has a solid rushing attack, albeit not a spectacular one, and despite the team’s weak overall stats through the air QB Jay Cutler and his old Denver teammate WR Brandon Marshall are one of the best passing combinations in the NFL this year, and I’m saying that as someone who detests Cutler.

However, as well as Chicago has done, they’ve only looked like Super Bowl contenders when they’ve faced teams with glaring problems on one or both sides of the ball.  In the five games they’ve played against teams with winning records, the Bears have gone 2-3, losing to the Packers (7-4), Texans (10-1), and 49ers (8-2-1).  

The two wins are also questionable, seeing as how they were earned when the two teams in question were not playing their best football.  They had the good fortune of playing the Colts (7-4) at the beginning of the season before Andrew Luck and his teammates turned a 2-3 start to the season into a legitimate postseason bid, and their recent win over the Vikings (6-5) comes well after Minnesota’s hot start to the season cooled off into what is now a 2-4 midseason slump.

In short, the Bears may currently be first in the NFC North, but as emperors go this one appears to be suspiciously clothing-free.  For one, there’s a marked difference in how their run defense has performed this year before and after their week six bye – for whatever reason, they’ve gone from holding teams to 65.8 yds/att to allowing nearly double that yardage (122.83 yds/att) through their last six games.  If Marshawn Lynch and his blockers have some leftover frustration from the Miami game to get out of their system, Soldier Field appears to be a pretty good place to do it.

For another, the Bears have a pretty shallow receiving corps.  Despite playing in a run-first offense, Marshall is currently the second most targeted receiver in the league with 124 passes thrown his way.  That’s more than the rest of the players on Chicago’s roster combined (119 targets), with the single next most targeted guy being Earl Bennett at a mere 40 balls thrown his way.  Richard Sherman, take note: as Marshall goes, so goes the Bears’ passing game.  

Better yet, their offense is having trouble hanging on to the ball lately, having committed two or more turnovers in four of their last five games.  The Bears’ defense has been able to make up for the offense’s deficiencies by leading the league in takeaways (they’re currently averaging three per game), but if Wilson and his cohorts can manage to protect the ball on the road, Cutler et al may very well end up giving away the game via interceptions and fumbles.

Oh, and if you’re worried about Chicago’s return game, you shouldn’t be.  Devin Hester has been ruled out for the game with a concussion, but even if he had been able to suit up, this season he simply hasn’t been the dangerous return man he once was.  At the moment, the Bears are 22^nd in yards per punt return and 30^th in yards per kickoff return.

I know the Dolphins loss hurt – I’m still feeling the effects myself – but as you can see there are plenty of reasons to believe the Seahawks will win on Sunday, reasons based on something more substantial than fervent hope.  So, while the Eagles probably won’t give Tony Romo a reason to make that teary-eyed losing face of his (my wife loves it when he does that) and the 49ers will most likely cruise their way to an easy victory over the rebuilding Rams, the Seahawks may very well give us a reason to smile anyway.

*        *        *

 

¹ Don’t worry, the stats article will make a return next week regardless of the outcome of the Bears game.  Here’s hoping I’ll get to spend the whole thing talking about how the Seahawks went about crushing the life out of Chicago.
 

Louis Bacigalupi posts comments on the site as LouieLouie.  He’s an accountant by trade and worked in a USFL front office.  He can be reached by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

As I suggested I might do a couple of weeks ago, I went shopping with my wife the Sunday the Hawks had the week off.  That didn’t turn out to be such a good idea, as the “bye” week turned into the “buy” week – it was almost as painful as last Sunday’s loss to Miami.

The Miami Game

What was it that lost the game to the Dolphins?  The difference in the game was that at crunch time, with the score tied and time running out on the clock, the Seahawks tried to play it safe on both sides of the ball, while Miami let ‘er rip and won the game.  As I’ve heard it said, real teams play to win instead of just playing not to lose.

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As if the loss to Miami wasn't bad enough, word has now gotten out that the NFL is planning on handing out suspensions to both of Seattle's starting cornerbacks, Brandon Browner and Richard Sherman, for violating league rules prohibiting the use of performance-enhancing drugs.  Sherman responded to the news by vehemently denying using the drug in question, Adderall, and has vowed to appeal the suspension.

Very few details have been released, including when the tests in question were administered, but losing two of the team's best defensive players for four of the Seahawks' last five games will likely do serious damage to their chances of making the playoffs.  If the suspension is upheld, Marcus Trufant and Walter Thurmond would start in their place, with either CB Byron Maxwell, rookie CB Jeremy Lane, or FS Chris Maragos taking Trufant's spot at nickel back.

Rookie safety Winston Guy was also suspended for four games last week for violating the NFL's performance-enhancing drugs policy, but that infraction appears to be unrelated.  According to his agent (possibly not the most reliable of sources, but in this case he's the only source), Guy's suspension was due to a banned ingredient found in an over-the-counter supplement he was taking, not Adderall.  His suspension also warranted little attention, as he has only been active for two games this season and was in no danger of seeing the field again anytime soon.

In case you aren't familiar with it, Adderall is the brand name for a combination of amphetamines and dextroamphetamines that is used primarily to treat patients suffering from ADHD and narcolepsy.  The drug is also highly addictive and has seen widespread abuse (particularly among college students) because it allows users to stay awake longer, and can also aid in concentration and induce a feeling of euphoria.  Its side effects range from minor complaints like nervousness and nausea all the way up to good stuff like cardiac arrest and full-blown psychosis, so, y'know, I think I'll stick to coffee.

This one hurt.  I wasn't terribly happy with several calls in the game, but there weren't nearly enough questionable ones to explain away ten accepted penalties -- the Seahawks simply regressed in that department.

Despite that problem, the team played well enough to win on both offense and special teams (Washington's return TD was fantastic to watch, and how good was Russell Wilson and his receivers?), but were let down once again on defense.  The number of big runs they're giving up in the middle of the line is a major concern.  I'd have to watch the All-22 film to confirm this, but it looked to me like Bobby Wagner is charging forward too soon and getting lost in the wash instead of hanging back and filling whichever hole the ballcarrier ends up choosing once he gets to the line.

I'm also thinking about writing a letter to the Vatican nominating Leroy Hill as the patron saint of blown coverages.  Vent your frustrations in the comment thread below.

Headed into their bye week back in mid-October, the Dolphins were riding on a respectable 4-3 record, but since then they've lost their last three games to drop their record to 4-6.

Miami's offense is pretty bad.  Their rookie QB Ryan Tannehill has thrown a combined five interceptions in his last two games, he hasn't completed at least 60% of his passes since week six, and he's currently tied with Matt Cassell for fewest touchdown passes in the NFL (among QBs with a minimum of 200 pass attempts, anyway).  Reggie Bush is averaging a little over four yards per carry, but he's the only part of the running game that seems to be working.

However, it would be a mistake to dismiss the Dolphins as an easy win.  Their defense is a top-ten unit with plenty of accomplishments to its name (7th fewest points allowed, 5th lowest TD percentage allowed, 4th lowest yards per rushing attempt average allowed).  The two defenders to keep an eye on are DE #91 Cameron Wake, who has 9.5 sacks already this season, and LB #58 Karlos Dansby, whom most of you will probably remember from his years with the Cardinals.  The Dolphins also have a strong special teams unit with a great return man (#34 Marcus Thigpen) and an even better punter (#2 Brandon Fields).

That said, as long as the Seahawks don't take this game for granted they should be able to fly home tonight with their seventh win of the season.  The Hawks are already halfway through a sweep of the AFC East, having beaten the Patriots and Jets already, but more importantly they need to prove to themselves and the rest of the league that they can earn wins even when they play somewhere other than Seattle. 

Over the last few games, we’ve seen Russell Wilson start to come into his own, first with a good showing on the road against the Lions, then with a great game at home against the Jets’ top-five pass defense.  As I said in last week’s stats article, the Seahawks appear to have finally found their next franchise quarterback, and unlike the Redskins, who effectively used up four high-round picks in order to land Robert Griffin III, all John Schneider and Pete Carroll had to do to acquire Wilson was wait patiently until their number came up in the third round.

But bargain or not, Wilson can look forward to a great many comparisons to Matt Hasselbeck in the years ahead.  All new NFL starters are inevitably measured against the last great player to man his position for the team in question, but no one has to put up with more of that kind of relentless scrutiny than quarterbacks.  Even when a quarterback has a pretty strong career, if he didn’t perform better than the team’s previous great then in many cases he ends up being considered a failure.  Just ask Danny White, who was a reliable passer for Dallas for the better part of the 1980s (Tom Landry had nothing but praise for White in his autobiography) but is largely looked upon as a disappointment by Cowboys fans because he wasn’t quite as good as Roger Staubach.

Since Wilson has just ten career starts to his name, any comparison to a veteran QB with 150+ starts under his belt like Hasselbeck is going to be borderline ridiculous at best, but I’m going to do it anyway.  (Hell, if I was the sort of person who let my brain talk me out of doing potentially stupid things, I never would’ve started posting articles on the internet in the first place.)  Both quarterbacks are intelligent, and both have a certain Tarkenton-like flair for improvisation when a play breaks down.  Before injuries began to slow him down, Hasselbeck was surprisingly mobile (from 2001-08, he averaged 3.9 yds/att on 273 rushes), but even in his prime he was nowhere near as fast or elusive as Wilson.  Wilson also leads Hasselbeck in the all-important categories of hair, Levis commercials, and cult leadership potential, while the veteran QB is the undisputed winner in terms of height, wisecracks, and Super Bowl starts.

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Louis Bacigalupi posts comments on the site as LouieLouie.  He’s an accountant by trade and worked in a USFL front office.  He can be reached by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Don’t talk about playoffs. Actually, let’s talk about the playoffs.  We could get all hung up on tie-breaker scenarios and the what-ifs, but if the Seahawks can get to 10-6 they should be in the playoffs.  As everyone knows, to do that the Hawks will need a 6-2 record in the last half of the season.  Well, two Ws are down (the Vikings and Jets), so there are four Ws left to go.  A win in Miami after the bye week would help immensely.

The Thursday night game on NFL Network this week should be of particular interest to Seahawks fans because it involves two of their upcoming road opponents, the Bills and Dolphins.  While neither matchup will be a cakewalk, both of those games are winnable.  The Monday night game should also be of interest, because the Seahawks also have upcoming games against the Bears and 49ers.

The Seahawks will be well-rested when they face Miami after the bye week, but because they play on Thursday this week the Dolphins will play the Hawks after a couple of extra days off as well.  The Titans, who are not exactly a juggernaut, went into Miami last week and put a pretty good whooping on them.  I like Seattle’s chances of flying out of the sunshine state with a W (and maybe some fresh-squeezed orange juice, too).  Joe Philbin, Miami’s coach, said that the Titans “played well, they played fast, and they played decisively.”  Does that remind anyone of a certain football team’s defense?  (I’ll give you a hint: they play in a place called the Clink.)

Dolphins QB Ryan Tannehill threw three picks against Tennessee, and the Hawks’ secondary is much better than the Titans’.  Tannehill is also very mobile, but so was Cam Newton in Carolina and the Seahawks roughed him up quite a bit.  There has been much written about Russell Wilson’s road woes, but he played very well on the road in Detroit.  The defense lost that game, and I wouldn’t expect that to happen very often.  Wilson has also been getting better every week.  If the Hawks can minimize mistakes and play well, fast, and decisively they should beat Miami.

The toughest games should be against San Francisco and Chicago.  If the Seahawks are truly a playoff team they should be capable of beating both of those teams, but going 1-1 for those two games would be just fine.  If the Hawks can win out at home, including against the 49ers, they would only need to win one of the three remaining road games to get into the playoffs.  Doing even better and going 5-1 in the remaining six games for an 11-5 season record isn’t that far out of the question.

The tie between the 49ers and the Rams could make for a very tight finish for the division this year.  If the Seahawks can beat San Francisco (the division title and possibly a first round bye could be on the line in that game), they could be in position to win the NFC West.  Stranger things have happened.  It’s nice to have the Hawks back in the conversation.

Miscellaneous Notes and Observations

Man, can Golden Tate catch and jump or what?  The guy’s playing like a madman, much less like an excellent late 2nd round draft pick.  He had a huge impact in both of the last two wins.  His leap for a touchdown reception against Minnesota and his pass for a touchdown against the Jets were both top ten plays of the week, and it was his catch earlier this season against the Packers that wound up settling the referee’s strike.  I don’t know how common it is for one player to catch a TD pass and throw one in the same game, but Tate got ‘er done [According to Pro Football Reference.com, Tate's performance on Sunday is the 49th time it's been done since 1960.  Who knew?  -Ed.] 

His leap on 3rd and 5 for a first down was a thing of beauty.  With all of his leaping over defenders, I hope Tate doesn’t end up getting injured like Leonard Weaver did in Philadelphia, but if he keeps playing at this level for the rest of the season the guy could wind up in the Pro Bowl.  [The last player to go to the Pro Bowl for Seattle as a wide receiver was Brian Blades in 1989.  WR Alex Bannister went in 2003, but he was chosen as a special teamer. –Ed.]

Darrell Bevell’s play calling is evolving nicely.  He’s grown from ultra-conservative (i.e. always run on 1st down, always run on 2nd down) to having wide receivers throw touchdown passes.  I’m down with that.  Of course, his play calling early in the season was conservative because he had a rookie quarterback starting, but the way in which he and Pete Carroll have brought Russell Wilson along is a masterstroke in the making.

I wouldn’t say that Richard Sherman is a Pro Bowl-caliber cornerback, I’d say he’s an all-pro cornerback and sack specialist.  Against the Jets, he had a 100% sack and forced fumbler rate per blitz.  Not bad for a 5th round pick.  I cannot think of any corner in the league that I would trade straight across for Sherman.  Besides, he gets the Seahawks in the national news with some regularity.  Are you mad?

Penalties have been much less of a problem the last four games.  The physical play hasn’t let up, but the bubblehead penalties have.  Nobody wants to see the Hawks lose their nasty edge, but it would seem that penalty rates are like setting the idle on a finely-tuned engine.  If there are too many penalties, it’s like setting the gas mixture too rich; the engine burns too much fuel, becomes inefficient, and its performance is affected. 

Likewise, too weak a gas mixture causes an engine to sputter the same way too few penalties makes a team soft and in need of a dirtbag infusion.  If the players aren’t exploring the grey areas in the rules, they’ll never know how much they can get away with.  I liked that earier in the year the Patriots’ receivers were worried about getting hammered, which caused a lot of dropped passes.  Receivers should always be worried about the Seahawks’ defenders, and Kam Chancellor and company will make sure that they are.

For now, I guess we’ll have to endure the bye week.  Maybe I’ll go shopping with my wife or something.  But after that, the next stop is the playoffs.

Playoffs?
 

(Note: Since I was redoing my spreadsheets anyway, I went ahead and revamped the tables I've been using for the stats articles as well.  That part took a heck of a lot longer than I thought it would, but such is life.)

Entering their bye week, the Seahawks’ record stands at 6-4 with six games left to play in the season.  Last year, the team was 4-6 after ten games, and in 2010 they were 5-5 with three of those wins coming against some truly awful Rams and Cardinals squads.

It wasn’t that long ago that most everyone pretty much took it as a given that the Seahawks were probably going to lose whenever they played a top-ten team.  We’d still scream our throats out for the Hawks to win, but we all knew that a victory was probably not going to happen.  This year, they’ve beaten the Patriots and their 1st-ranked offense as well as the Packers and their 10th-ranked offense and 9th-ranked defense. The Vikings sit just outside that top tier with their 14th-ranked offense and defense, but their 6-4 season record is reason enough to be proud of that win, too.

And as frustrating as all four losses have been, they only lost by an average of 5.25 points in those games.  Compare that to 2011, when the Seahawks were outscored in their losses by an average of 9.78 points, or 2010, when nine regular season opponents blew them out of the water by a 21 point average margin of victory.

After this bye week, the Seahawks will face two back-to-back road games in Miami and Chicago that may very well determine whether they make the playoffs this year.  The Dolphins have been surprisingly good this year, although the strongest team they’ve managed to beat so far is the Bengals, and the Bears’ 2nd ranked defense is at or near the top of the league in nearly every statistical category.  If they win one of those games, they should have a good shot at winning a wild card berth; if they win both, wresting the division crown from the 49ers falls within the realm of possibility, too.

(Note, for explanations of some of the stats included in this piece, please see the first article in the series.)

Rushing Averages
 

After a statistical drop in weeks five and six, over the last four games the Seahawks’ rushing stats have moved back up into the 4+ yds/att territory where they belong.  Really, when you’ve got a runner like Marshawn Lynch in your backfield, anything less is unacceptable.  

That said, there’s a false positive lurking in the stats here.  Seattle’s rushing attack performed well against the 49ers, Vikings, and Jets, but Lynch’s 77-yard touchdown run in the Lions game artificially inflated the numbers for what was an otherwise lackluster showing.  The Seahawks averaged just 3.11 yds/att on every other carry in that game, and Lynch himself posted a dismal 2.33 yds/att on his 11 other rushing attempts.  Being able to pull off explosive plays like that is important to the success of any offense, but it’s no substitute for being able to sustain an acceptable level of production throughout a whole game.

Individually, Lynch is currently averaging 4.74 yds/att this season, plus he’s now officially rushed for 1,000 yards in each of his first two seasons with the Seahawks.  Better yet, he’s only 26, so as long as the team watches his touches and doesn’t wear him out unnecessarily (he’s already racked up 212 carries this season) there should be plenty of Beast Mode left in his tank.  His backup Robert Turbin is doing respectably well, averaging 3.98 yds/att on his 42 carries.  He’s not quite the battering ram that Lynch is, but he’s a shifty runner and it doesn’t take him long to accelerate up to full speed.

Unfortunately, the run defense has not fared quite so well.  At the beginning of the season, the Seahawks’ ability to stonewall opposing running backs was widely considered to be one of the team’s core strengths, but over the last four weeks they’ve allowed teams to rush for an average of 5.67 yds/att.  It’s one thing to get mauled by a great run blocker like the 49ers’ Mike Iupati or an all-pro runner like the Vikings’ Adrian Peterson, but it’s quite another to let the Lions’ Mikel Leshoure run you over for 4.6 yds/att.

The middle of the line has been particularly vulnerable, so Bobby Wagner has a share in the blame here, but I’ve also been seing Brandon Mebane and Alan Branch get shoved backwards on a concerning number of plays.  Unless the team has been violating league rules by keeping those two off the daily injury reports, I’m not entirely sure what their problem has been.  Here’s hoping the coaching staff can correct whatever’s gone wrong during the bye week, ‘cause I’m not enjoying the sight of opposing rushers bursting into the clear at top speed with Seahawks defenders trailing in their wake.

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