Why did the Seahawks come up short in Green Bay?
Plenty of fans and media are focusing on the end of the game: Pete Carroll’s decision to punt on fourth-and-11 from the Seattle 36 with 2:41 left (we would have punted, too), Ken Norton letting rookie Ugo Amadi cover Davante Adams on a third-and-8 that turned into a 32-yard gain and the close Jimmy Graham play against Lano Hill (why was he in coverage anyway?) on third-and-9 that sealed it.
But let’s be clear: That game was lost in the first half, when Russell Wilson and company scored just three points. It was the fifth time in nine road playoff games that Carroll’s Seahawks had scored three points or less in the first half (the four others were scoreless first halves). In those nine games, the Hawks have averaged 4.7 points in the first half, never scoring more than 13. They have led just once, 10-3 in Philadelphia in this season’s wild-card round, and they are 3-6 in those games (five of the losses in the divisional round).
Continue reading Why the Hawks again started slowly in a road playoff game
The Seahawks have been fighting in a dark alley so far this season — feeling their way against unfamiliar foes.
As the Saints come to town with Drew Brees sidelined, they still have Teddy Bridgewater and multi-tool quarterback Taysom Hill, and coach Sean Payton smartly is not letting on about how he is going to use them.
As good as Pete Carroll’s Seahawks have been at home in September (15-0 after the ugly win over Cincinnati last week), they have been inversely successful on the road.
We all should be used to this Seahawks fact by now: Pete Carroll plays a conservative (i.e., ugly) brand of football that almost always leads to slow starts.
Pete Carroll and John Schneider have to be kicking themselves over how badly they screwed up with Mark Glowinski, who has to be just as happy that they released him from Tom Cable’s broken system in 2017 so he could get his career going in the right direction.
Third downs get such a bum rap.
If Russell Wilson had found his receivers more often against the 49ers, the Seahawks quite probably would have won — despite all of the other errors by players and refs in the game.
