Julian Peterson

I was about to write a post (which will appear later) that started with "I don't have much more to add on top of what I wrote yesterday," and then I started thinking about the game and I immediately came up with a bunch of things to add.  I'll keep this post limited to some thoughts on Julian Peterson.

On two consecutive plays early in yesterday's game, Julian Peterson literally bounced off Brandon Jacobs while trying to tackle him.  Dude is supposed to be a pro-bowl linebacker and he's bouncing off a running back like a superball.

Tim Ruskell is all about building a smallish defense built around speed, and Peterson is perfectly representative of this.  I watched the Pittsburgh-Jacksonville game last night.  Every time I watch the Steelers play I come away amazed at the size of their linebackers.  I know they run a 3-4, so their linebackers have to be a little bigger, but the difference is beyond noticeable to the naked eye.  The Steelers' linebackers are built.  The two outside linebackers for the Steelers average 6'1", 258 lbs.  Peterson, a 4-3 outside linebacker, is 6'4", 240 lbs, and is skinny as hell.  How is he supposed to take down a 265 lbs back like Jacobs?  Exactly - he doesn't.

Peterson's smallness may be sticking out more due to the (horrendous) play the Seahawks are getting out of their right defensive end, but I'm starting to get tired of seeing Peterson unable to tackle running backs and tight ends.  I know he gets a bunch of sacks each year, but that shouldn't be a reason to inflate his value.  I would much rather have the linebackers focus on making tackles and let the ends pile up the sacks.  Again, the right ends aren't doing squat, but if they were the Seahawks wouldn't have to rely on a smallish outside linebacker to produce pressure, probably at the expense of overall tackling ability, specifically in stopping the run.

I know Peterson got a huge six-year contract, and hopefully it's front-loaded, as it would be a shame to lose Hill because too much money is already committed to an aging (31 at the start of the 2009 season), undersized veteran with a large contract.

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.

Thoughts on the Giants Game - Preview Edition

My girlfriend is an east-coaster. I, obviously, am a west-coaster. We like to argue about which coast is better, and there are pluses and minuses to each, of course. One of the huge pluses to living on the west coast is that I get NFL games at 10am on Sunday mornings. This Sunday will be one of the lucky occasions where I get the Seahawks at 10am in my living room.

I'm looking at this game like gambling with house money. What (besides more injuries) can the Seahawks lose? Conventional wisdom around the league is that the Giants are one of the best, if not the best, teams in the league. The Seahawks started horribly, and have already shown this year that they don't travel to the east coast well. I haven't seen a single pundit pick the Seahawks, and really, I can't expect any of them to. Hell, in my pick 'em leagues I'm picking the Giants. The Seahawks should have no business winning this game.

So, what happens if they lose? I initially ranked this game as the third-most difficult game of the season, and it has to be more difficult than a home game against the Brady-less Patriots. Regardless of what the Seahawks record is now, regardless of their division or conference standings, unless they were thinking this game was going to be the difference between 15-1 or 14-2, this wasn't a game that they had to win to get into the playoffs. Now, the 49ers game at home was one they had to win, and now they have to make up for it, but this Giants game isn't that. The game at Tampa, or home vs. Philadelphia, those are the tough games they now have to win to make up for the loss to the 49ers. This game, again, is house money.

Regardless of the final score, if the Seahawks come away from the game without a major injury, they can't be worse off than they are today. Perhaps you can argue that a Rams-style blowout would put them in a worse place in terms of confidence and momentum, but horrible losses can be put in the rear-view mirror.

But think of what a win would do. First, in terms of wins and losses, it would be an absolute steal and would completely make up for the 49ers loss. It will make the trips to Tampa, Miama, and maybe Dallas, easier from the standpoint of having confidence in travelling east. Maybe most important of all, a win would go a large way towards writing off the first two losses to injuries - to the receivers, to Locklear, to Morris. It would put the Seahawk right back on track as the favorite in the NFC West, and give them a ton of momentum going into a home game against a beat-up Packers team.

House money. That means no worries when watching on Sunday.

Watching the Injuries Pile Up

And, this time, not for the Seahawks.

With the Seahawks-Packers game coming up in two weeks, the Packers have been hit with the following:

• Al Harris has a ruptured spleen.  It's unclear whether or not his season is done, but he's definitely out for the Seahawks game, and that's huge, because the Seahawks receivers had a horrible time dealing with the Packers' physical corners.  Now they'll only have to deal with Woodson, and he's nursing an injury himself (though it wasn't bad enough to prevent him from returning an interception for a touchdown last week).
• A.J. Hawk, Nick Collins, and Jason Hunter all were unable to return to the game against the Buccs.  I'm not sure who Hunter is, but Hawk and Collins (especially with Atari Bigby hurt) are key defensive players.
• Cullen Jenkins is out for the year.  Here's what PFW had to say about him:
  

  The loss of Jenkins is a huge blow to the Packers’ defense. He had missed only two games in the four-plus years he had been with the Packers and was off to an exceptionally strong start this season with 2½ sacks, 10 QB pressures and four tackles for loss.
  

  The Packers use a rotation of Jenkins and Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila at the all-important right defensive end spot.  KGB was hurt going into the Buccs game, and he was more of a situational pass-rusher.  Jenkins got the majority of the playing time.  And who is third on the depth chart behind those two?  Jason Hunter.  This should be a huge blow to the Packers' pass rush.
• Lastly, Aaron Rodgers suffered some kind of shoulder injury.  It sounds like he's going to play, albeit with pain.  Rodgers has been shaky enough as is, and this injury can't help.  Even worse (for the Packers) is that their back-up QB is Matt Flynn, whose abilities the Packers seem to have little confidence in, as they brought in an injured Aaron Rodgers over Flynn for the potential game-winning drive.

The Seahawks injury situation hurt, but the initial wave may have passed.  Injuries are fairly random events that, in most cases, even out between teams over the season.  The Seahawks lost the 49ers game in large part because they had no receivers.  Perhaps they're due to pick up a win or two due to opposing injuries.

Early Game Halftime Thoughts

With the Seahawks not playing, this week is all about rooting against the Cardinals and Niners, and, of course, fantasy.

Currently, the Cardinals are getting beat down 34-0. Kurt Warner's line: 9-15, 99 yards, 0 TD, 2 Ints. Yep, same old Cardinals. In my Pick-'em league I originally picked the Cardinals, figuring that spending the week back east would somewhat negate the travel factor. The Jets also looked awful in their last two games. Then I saw that the Cardinals defense would be without Bertrand Berry and Adrian Wilson and I switched my pick. Will those two ever stay healthy? The Cardinals need both to be healthy for their defense to function. As you can see, it's not functioning today. (On a side note, my girlfriend has Laveranues Coles starting for her fantasy team today. She's quite happy).

The 49ers were keeping the game close for a while but it looks like the Saints have finally broken through and are up 21-6. O'Sullivan hasn't done much, nor has Frank Gore.

I'll grant that it's just halftime, and I may be counting my chickens before they hatch (moreso with the 49ers than the Cardinals), but as a Seahawk fan, these are exactly the kind of results I want to see from the other NFC West teams. Playoff teams win road games like these. Not-quite-playoff-teams don't. I'm not saying this means the Seahawks are obviously better. On the contrary, the Seahawks also lost their one road game, quite badly too, and have another tough road game coming up next week. However, what this does mean is that the Cardinals and 49ers (I guess I have to take them seriously as a division title threat) have yet to take that next step as a playoff-caliber team.

The game I'm watching right now is Green Bay-Tampa - convenient as the Seahawks will play both in upcoming weeks. Both look good, but neither looks dominant. Both have tough defenses that force turnovers. Aaron Rodgers looks a little mistake prone while Brian Griese is a bit more conservative. Tampa doesn't seem to have any gamebreaking talent on offense (Galloway is hurt, Cadillac Williams hasn't played a game yet this season), so I'm not entirely sure how they're scoring points. Isn't Warrick Dunn about 43 years old? Anyway, the games the Seahawks play against these teams should be close - both winnable, both losable.

My Favorite Play of the Rams Game

Here comes a story that will seem totally unrelated to the title but does actually have a point:

For two years in high school I ran cross country.  After jogging through my first year, I ended up with a serious coach for my second. Example:  In my first year a workout my first year might have been to run six miles.  In my second year the warm-up and cool-down for the workout involved running three miles to the place where we would do the workout and three miles back when we were done.  It was crazy.  And this coach wasn't just about running hard.  He approached training from all angles.  One day, instead of our typical grueling workout he had us jog a couple of miles then had us watch Rudy for inspiration.  How awesome is that?

One of the most memorable things he did as a coach was talk about a race strategy (yes, there's more to cross country than one foot in front of the other) he called 'Will-Kill'.  The theory went like this:  There are certain times during a race (5k in my case) your opponents will be most psychologically-vulnerable to a sudden burst of effort, lasting maybe a minute or so in our 5k races.  By executing these will-kill efforts at the proper times you can drain your opponents of the mental energy it takes to win.

Pseudo-y?  Possibly.  Basically, what's being described is a way of manipulating that ethereal substance known as momentum.  When a runner performs their temporary burst, they want to do it at a time where their opponents think "damn, this guys isn't actually running hard now, is he?" rather than "good, I'm ready to take it up a notch too."

So, flash-back to the game against the Rams: 8:02 left in the first quarter, the Seahawks are up 3-0 and just came up short on a third and five from the Rams' 19.  The Seahawks have a choice: kick the (chip shot) field goal or take a chance on fourth and one.

The Seahawks went for it, got it, and two plays later Bumpus caught his first touchdown pass.  There are so many reasons why I love this call.

• I love Holmgren's aggressive play calling.  Worst-case scenario the Rams offense starts deep in their own territory, going against a jacked up Seattle defense supported by jacked-up Seattle fans.
  
• The Seahawks converted.  If the Seahawks are going to be a good team they have to know they can get a yard whenever they need to.  This is a great step in the right direction.
  
• After stalling in the red-zone on their first possession, coming away with only a field goal, a second defensive stop for the Rams (leading to a second field goal) could have been a momentum shifter.  I know the Rams went three-and-out on their next possession, but what if the Rams offense had taken the field thinking they'd dodged a bullet and knowing they could take the lead with a touchdown?  An inspired team could have driven the length of the field and taken a 7-6 lead, and the game would have been very different from there on.  Instead the Seahawks literally imposed their will through the running game, and figuratively kept their foot on the Rams' neck and didn't let them get up.  Will-kill.
  

Burress Out For Seahawk Game

Hot off the AP wire:

Super Bowl star Plaxico Burress was suspended for one game by the New York Giants on Wednesday for an undisclosed violation of team rules... The suspension takes effect immediately, meaning Burress will miss the Giants (3-0) game against the Seattle Seahawks on Oct. 5... The Giants did not specify why Burress was suspended. FoxSports.com said that Burress did not show up for work on Monday and did not telephone or answer phone messages to explain his absence.

Here's to hoping that this doesn't end up as an all-around misunderstanding, that everything ends up fine in Giant land, and the Plax is welcomed back for the Seahawk game with open arms.  Putting aside the obvious statement that I hope nothing serious has happened to Burress or someone around him, it would be huge if he doesn't play in the Seahawk game.  He's one of the most difficult receivers to defend and he's Manning's favorite target, one he has unmatched chemistry with.  With Burress out the Seahawks can focus more on stopping the Giants' massive running game without fear of being burned.  Stay tuned....