Watching the Seattle Seahawks
cruise through the media circus it is interesting to watch the way that they
simply expect to win easily once again this year without any regard to the
facts. Let us examine them, look at them
as they truly are:
Super Bowl XLIIX
In advancing to their first
Super Bowl victory Seattle first faced Drew Brees and his New Orleans Saints.
At home. The 2013 New Orleans Saints went 8-0 at home and 3-5 on the road. The
Saints lost in New England and Seattle which is fine but they also lost to the
Rams, Jets and Panthers. Carolina did have it going on at home in 2013,
knocking off the Patriots albeit in a game with a questionable ending
(Gronkowski was clearly being held in the end zone and it was flagged
nevertheless the game ended anyway), but losing to Geno Smith and then losing
their top seeding by losing to Kellen Clemens ended the Saints season for all
intents and purposes – The Seahawks merely dealt the last blow. Had the
schedule called for the Seahawk/Saints regular season game to be played in
NOrleans instead the Seahawks may never have even made the NFC Championship game?
In the NFC Championship game,
the Seahawks faced the San Francisco 49’ers led by Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick
passed for an average of 100 something yards per game during the season and in
the NFC Championship he managed only 153 yards but more importantly threw two
interceptions. In fact, in the fourth quarter San Fran had three (3) drives
which ended with a Kaepernick fumble, a Kaepernick interception and a Kaepernick
interception. While Kaepernick deserved a lot of the blame, Romans (former SFO
OC) called a terrible game handing it off to Gore 9 times on first down and
twice on second down. And that was it. This game should not have been close but
it was due to the relative ineffectiveness of the Seahawk offence. Those three
turnovers San Fran committed in the 4th quarter, on their own 6, their own 40
and deep in Seahawk territory resulted in a grand total of 3 points.
In the Super Bowl Seattle
faced the king of the one-and-done, the least effective post season quarterback
in the history of the NFL, career 11-13 Peyton Manning. The Broncos made it that
far mostly because three quarters of the Patriot defence was on IR, the AFC Championship
was played in Denver AND Tom Brady just had a bad day. In the game itself, Pete
Carroll put together a masterful game plan and Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas,
Rob Wagner and Kam Chancellor played extremely well, for 60 minutes, the
defence and special teams put up points and just killed it in the field
position game. The Seahawk offence did very little with 206 yards passing and Lynch
rushing for only 39 yards as the Broncos committed four (4) turnovers and a
safety touch.
Fast forward to 2014 and the
Seahawks were 3-3 in October until they faced three teams that finished with
losing records and then lost to Kansas City. Fortunately for Seattle they faced
Drew Stanton, a disintegrating Colin Kaepernick, Mark Sanchez, a disintegrating
Colin Kaepernick yet again, Ryan Lindley and Shaun Hill to finish out the
season. Seattle’s first playoff match was against a team with a losing record
in the Carolina Panthers and then the Green Bay Packers, with considerable help
from the pathetic Dom Capers, had maybe the biggest collapse in the history of
the play-off format to punch the Seahawks ticket to Arizona.
But the buck stops here. Josh
McDaniels keeps his foot on the gas which is why the Patriots frequently finish
the season first in Net Points as they did again this year. Matt Patricia does
a masterful job of translating Belichicks concepts into the requisite X’s and O’s
and having the defence carry out their assignments. The Patriots specialize in
one thing: Taking away what their opponent does best. Marshawn Lynch doesn’t
dominate every game he plays in – The Patriots have faced him 5 times in his
career and kept him under 100 yards every time, 41 yards in his lone Seahawks
game and 25 in his last game with the Bills. So assuming Belichick neutralizes
Lynch and Collins has good success keeping Wilson in the pocket let’s look at
the match-ups.
Richard Sherman and Earl
Thomas, who together with Chancellor and Wagner make the Seahawks team go, were
badly injured a scant two weeks ago and it is impossible for either of them to
play anywhere near top capacity. Indeed, one good collision with Legarret
Blount and Thomas could easily be out of the game. With Sherman, a serious
sprain simply does not heal in two weeks so his ability to pluck the ball out
of the air will be severely limited or eliminated altogether and his tackling
will not be anywhere near where it should be. It is debatable as to whether Sherman
could keep up with Patriot Deep Threat Brian Tyms at 100% so it will be
interesting to see who wins that match-up with Sherman hurt.
The Seahawks have claimed that
Kam Chancellor (6’3”, 232) will knock Left Tackle Nate Solder (6’8”, 314) into
next week so it will be interesting when Sebastien Volmer (6’8”, 315) pulls to
open up room for 250 pound Blount just how solid Chancellor is when those three
are bearing down on he and Wagner in the run game especially when New England
throws Cameron Fleming (6’5”, 325) into the mix as the sixth lineman. With the
back-end of Seattle’s defence suspect and the Patriots ability to double-up
with the Tyms/LaFell, Edleman/Amendola, Blount/Vereen and Gronk/Wright
pairings, not to mention occasional targets like Develin, Hooman and even
Solder, Brady’s uncanny ability to find the open man in traffic may very well
be Seattle’s undoing.
On the other side of the ball,
New England’s third corner, Arrington, is eminently capable of covering
anything the Seahawks can throw at him while Jamie Collins can take care of the
tight ends and most probably Lynch (with help) in coverage, and we haven’t even
mentioned Revis and Browner. New England’s secondary and linebackers should be
able to severely limit the Seahawks ability to move through the air while
Belichick will have an answer for Lynch and Wilson in the box. The Green Bay
Packers were able to keep the Seahawk offence off the board until well into the
fourth quarter and the Patriots have the better, in some cases much better,
personnel groups. Add to that the fact that since the Colt game in November the
Patriots have given up a touchdown only once in the second half, and instead of
the Motley Crue Seattle faced down the stretch New England achieved that
against Rodgers, Rivers, Luck, Flacco, and Stafford while limiting a healthy
Peyton Manning to one the week before their bye week.
On offence, there is no
comparison. The Patriots scored at will after September in the regular season
before taking their foot off the gas the last two games and have scored 80
points, against a very good Ravens defence and a decent Colts one, in their two
play-off games to the Seahawks 53 (in regulation) with 31 of those points
coming against 22nd ranked (points allowed) Carolina who averaged 24
points per game allowed all season however they did have a tough schedule,
tempered as it was by weak divisional games and Johnny Football’s tremendous
flop.
So how is the game likely to
go? The Patriots will win the toss and elect to kick-off. Seattle will go
3-and-out. New England will get two 1st downs and hem the Seahawks
deep with their first punt. After another 3-and-out Brady will drive down the
field and Blount will run in a TD. Seattle will finally get a few first downs
and a field goal early in the second quarter. The Patriots will answer with a
field goal and the first half will end New England 10 Seattle 3. The Patriots
will score two TD’s in the third quarter and another at the beginning of the
fourth quarter to go up 31-3 and put the game away. Seattle will get a field
goal in the fourth quarter and maybe a TD around the 2 minute warning and that
will be it for the scoring. New England will win 31-9 or 31-13, Brady will be
the MVP, Tyms and Amendola will catch the TD passes while Blount runs one in
and maybe Brady sneaks for the other, hits Gronk or Edleman.....
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