Sunday, October 5, 2008

No Longer Watching the Seahawks Game

Not by choice though. The game was such a blowout that Fox switched to the Eagles-Redskins game. I would have liked to have watched Seneca Wallace play, but at that point it's like watching a preseason game. Of course I would have watched to the bitter end (how often do I get to watch Seahawks games in my living room?) but Fox just put me out of my misery. Now I have a chance to watch some competitive games.

So, let's get onto some quick thoughts about the three quarters I did see:

The Giants are a damn good team. I didn't really believe it until I watched them in this game. From a pure win-loss perspective, there's no shame in losing to the Giants in the Meadowlands. (There is, however, shame in losing by 40 points to anybody. The Giants treated the Seahawks like the Seahawks treated the Rams. Ouch).

Deion Branch left the game with another injury. Deion is a great guy, and a good weapon when healthy, but this guy doesn't stay healthy. Did he have problems staying healthy in New England? The sad truth is that the Seahawks' receiving situation is completely handicapped by Branch's contract and his potential. He's like D.J. Hackett only three-times as expensive.

But, on the flip side, the only receivers with meaningful receptions in this game were Branch and Engram. McMullen is awful. Daryl Johnston spotlighted a horribly-run route by McMullen early in the game, where in jogging out of his route he allowed the defensive back to break up the completion, which I believe would have been a third-down conversion otherwise. McMullen was pulled off the scrap heap of unsigned receivers for a reason.

Where was John Carlson? I'm not even sure if I saw him targeted. That's just good defense I guess, but with a dearth of good receivers Carlson needs to be a reliable target.

Kelly Jennings has regressed. Or maybe there's enough game film on him that offensive play-callers know how to attack him. Whatever the case he's become an absolute liability, especially on deep passes. I don't know how this can be fixed, but it is currently the greatest weakness on defense, and opposing teams are exploiting it every week.

Lastly, I know I said this game was house money.... but the Seahawks did lose something today - hopes of beating any NFC East team in the playoffs. At least, if the playoffs were to start next week, the Seahawks wouldn't be able to be, well, pretty much any NFC playoff team. Of course, at 1-3, if the playoffs started today, the Seahawks wouldn't even be in the playoffs. At this point, I'm still not worried about the Seahawks having a chance to make the playoffs - this game wasn't supposed to be a win, and ultimately it will be all about beating Arizona twice. But this loss is certainly demoralizing. I'm much less confident about the Seahawks chances against the Packers next week, what with Aaron Rodgers looking good this week and the Packers coming in off a tough home loss.

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