Category Archives: #HOUvsSEA

#HOUvsSEA

Defense dominates; Mike Mac dreams of ‘all three phases clicking’

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“Just imagine when it’s all three phases clicking.” – Mike Macdonald to his team after a mistake-filled 27-19 win over Houston

If you had told us the Seahawks would score 27 points and beat Houston by eight on Monday night, we would have taken that. Heck, we still will – since the Hawks moved to 5-2 and kept pace with the NFC leaders with a 27-19 win.

But, as the quote above shows, even Mike Macdonald was dreaming about the blowout that should have been – and the day his team plays a complete game.

Early on, it looked like this might be one of those. The Hawks jumped to a fast 14-0 lead and kept threatening to blow the game wide open in the first half. But they kept turning the ball over, committing penalties and having other odd things happen. What should have/could have been a 24-0 halftime lead instead was just 14-6. And despite their dominant defense, the Hawks never could put away the Texans until the final seconds.

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#HOUvsSEA, The roster, Trades

Already supporting Darnold well, defense should get even better

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As the Seahawk face the NFL’s best defense on Monday, it is worth noting that Sam Darnold doesn’t have to do it all alone.

Mike Sando of The Athletic does a fun project called the Betrayal Index, which ranks quarterbacks by how much they have to carry their teams (i.e., how good they are vs. where their defenses and special teams rank in EPA).

Darnold is among the top 10 passers in that metric (as he is in pretty much every metric), but he is just one of four QBs who are complemented by top-10 defense/special teams combinations.

And his defense is about to start getting even better.

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#HOUvsSEA, X's & O's

Hawks are winning with play action, not giving up on run game

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“We need to improve on our run game. It’s pretty cut and dry.” – Mike Macdonald

The Seahawks have the NFL’s No. 5 scoring offense (27.7 ppg), the No. 10 offense by EPA and the No. 4 offense by DVOA – all without any consistent running attack.

There are two schools of thought about the Seahawks’ struggling running game – and both have their merits.

The first is what Mike Macdonald said on his radio show Monday: The running game is not good enough. The second is that the threat of the running game via play action has enabled the passing game to thrive and it’s a fair sacrifice to make.

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