Tag Archives: Pete Carroll

A look at Wilson’s best playoff performance yet

January 12, 2015 cc Leave a comment

Russell Wilson has almost always played well in the playoffs — six games and counting — and his performance Saturday against Carolina was his best yet.

The third-year quarterback buried the ghosts of his poor home games earlier in the season with a nearly perfect outing that also was probably his best game of the 2014 season.

He threw a postseason-career-high three touchdown passes and tallied a 149.2 rating, completing 68.2 percent, while tying Matt Hasselbeck for most playoff wins in Seattle history (five).

Wilson now has nine TD passes and just one interception in six postseason games, and his passer rating has been over 100 in four of them. In fact, his postseason passer rating of 109.6 is the best in NFL history (hat tip to Hawk Blogger for first reporting that stat).

So why was Wilson so good vs. the Panthers? (1) His offensive line kept him clean, (2) he was perfect on third downs, (3) he got the ball out quickly when he could and (4) he trusted his receivers to come down with long passes.

Continue reading A look at Wilson’s best playoff performance yet →

Playoffs: Carolina

Like Easley, Chancellor is heart of defense

January 11, 2015 cc Leave a comment

It was only appropriate that Kam Chancellor had perhaps the best game of his career on the day Kenny Easley raised the 12th Man flag.

Just as Easley was once Seattle’s best player, Chancellor — who, like Easley, is from Virginia and once dated Easley’s daughter — has been this team’s MVP the past two years.

Yeah, that’s a loaded statement on a team that includes so many star players — fellow Legion of Boomers Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman, linebackers Bobby Wagner and K.J. Wright, defensive linemen Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril, quarterback Russell Wilson, running back Marshawn Lynch.

Everyone likes to say Lynch is the heartbeat of the team — embodying the tough, relentless style Pete Carroll wants his guys to play with.

But the defense is the backbone — the reason Wilson has won more games than any quarterback in his first three seasons — and Chancellor has been the heart and soul of that unit for the past two dominant years.

Continue reading Like Easley, Chancellor is heart of defense →

Playoffs: Carolina

History is on the Hawks’ side vs. Panthers

January 7, 2015 cc Leave a comment

Pete Carroll can identify with Ron Rivera’s Carolina Panthers.

Four years ago, the Seahawks were in the same spot: a sub.-500 division winner that won its home playoff game and advanced to the divisional playoff round.

Now the Panthers are trying to do what the Seahawks and five other teams without winning records failed to do over the past decade: Win in the second round.

Since the NFL realigned in 2002, seven teams have made the playoffs at 8-8 or worse, and six have advanced to the divisional round. But none have won.

Like this Carolina-Seattle matchup, each of the five previous games has been a rematch of a game played earlier that season. And, in all but one of those cases, the team that won earlier in the season won the playoff meeting comfortably at home. (Seattle beat Chicago earlier in the 2010 season but lost 35-24 in Chicago in the divisional round.)

As if Carolina didn’t already have enough going against it Saturday.

Continue reading History is on the Hawks’ side vs. Panthers →

CHAWK LINES

January 4, 2015 cc Leave a comment

Dan Quinn reportedly had interviews with five teams lined up.

Darrell Bevell and Quinn both reportedly interviewed with the Bills this weekend. Bevell previously talked with the Raiders, too.

Quinn seems to know who he wants to work with if he gets a top job.

Three Seahawks were named to the No. 1 All-Pro team, and two are on the second team.

Bobby Wagner was named NFC defensive player of the month.

Hugh Millen explains why the Seattle offense had trouble in the first half against the Rams but fared better in the second.

Pete Carroll was miked up for Sound FX, which let us hear a conversation he had with owner Paul Allen.

The offense set records this season despite changing drastically after the Percy Harvin trade, Bob Condotta writes.

Harvin will make a little extra money if the Seahawks win the Super Bowl again.

Former Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren says he has “gotten a couple of inquiries” from teams in search of new coaches.

Coaches, State of the team

Hawks would be fine even without Quinn, Cable, Bevell

January 1, 2015 cc 1 Comment

As Pete Carroll’s assistants interview with various teams this week, plenty of fans are wringing their hands at the prospect of losing them. But there is no reason to fret.

Defensive coordinator Dan Quinn reportedly is on interview lists of San Francisco, Atlanta and the New York Jets. Carroll said offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell already has interviewed with the Oakland Raiders. And Tom Cable will talk to the Jets as well this week.

In fact, Jets owner Woody Johnson reportedly is going to pull off a trifecta interview session in Seattle, talking to Seahawks pro personnel director Trent Kirchner about replacing former general manager John Idzik. Apparently Johnson is not put off by the idea of hiring another Seattle executive.

It seems very unlikely that Bevell or Cable will be hired away — even though they orchestrated the franchise’s best rushing offense ever (the third-best in the NFL since 1985, according to the team).

Continue reading Hawks would be fine even without Quinn, Cable, Bevell →

Playoffs, Week 17: St. Louis

No. 1 defense/seed combo is nigh unbeatable

December 29, 2014 cc Leave a comment

For the second straight year, the Seahawks are the No. 1 seed in the NFL — and this time, no one should be questioning whether they can use that home-field advantage to win the Super Bowl.

Not after they did it last year.

Forget the fact that no Super Bowl champ has won a playoff game since 2005, when New England did it, and no champ has repeated since the Patriots did it in 2004.

Forget the fact that four teams have not even made the playoffs the next season or that four were bounced in the first game.

Pete Carroll didn’t want to hear it after the Hawks beat St. Louis at home in the season finale for the second straight year to secure the top seed. It’s the fourth time in Carroll’s five seasons the Hawks have beaten the Rams in Seattle in the season finale — three of those wins resulted in NFC West titles.

Continue reading No. 1 defense/seed combo is nigh unbeatable →

State of the team, Week 17: St. Louis

Carroll’s Legion of Boom channels Grant’s Purple People Eaters

December 29, 2014 cc Leave a comment

If you want to know the secret to Seattle’s uncommonly dominant defense, all you have to do is go back about 40 years to the Purple People Eaters.

Before the Seahawks — led by the Legion of Boom — capped a three-year run as the No. 1 scoring defense Sunday, the last defense to accomplish that feat was the Minnesota Vikings, from 1969 to 1971. Led by one of the NFL’s legendary lines — Alan Page, Carl Eller, Leonard Marshall and Gary Larsen — they were known as the Purple People Eaters.

It might not surprise you to learn that those Vikings were coached by Pete Carroll’s mentor, future Hall of Famer Bud Grant. (To add to the historical symmetry, Grant’s D-line coach was Jack Patera, who later became Seattle’s first coach. And Eller finished his career with Patera’s Hawks in 1979.)

Continue reading Carroll’s Legion of Boom channels Grant’s Purple People Eaters →

Week 16: At Arizona

Penalty ‘chasm’ is becoming absurd, but Carroll embraces it

December 23, 2014 cc Leave a comment

You know the
Seahawks are a dominant team when they end up with an 11-1 disparity in penalties and three missed field goals and still win by 29 points.

Steven Hauschka’s misses in Seattle’s 35-6 win over Arizona were uncharacteristic, but the penalties — and the ridiculously lopsided nature of them — were a continuation of a theme.

The Seahawks came into the game with 1.9 times as many penalties as their opponents — the worst factorial since the 1953 Cleveland Browns, according to NBC’s stats folks. It only got worse as the Hawks were called for 11 and the Cardinals were assessed just one. Now the Hawks’ penalties outnumber their foes’ by an even 2-1.

Pete Carroll has decided to embrace the obvious bias of the officials.

“I’m not griping about it,” he told 710 ESPN on Monday. “Matter of fact, I kind of like … the (penalty) chasm. Let’s let the chasm continue to broaden for the heck of it and see what happens.”

Continue reading Penalty ‘chasm’ is becoming absurd, but Carroll embraces it →

Week 16: At Arizona

Offense sets records & Carroll has a blast

December 22, 2014 cc Leave a comment

Few doubted the Seahawks would beat the offense-challenged Arizona Cardinals on Sunday night. The only question was whether Seattle’s struggling offense would manage to score any touchdowns.

Russell Wilson and company answered that emphatically, amassing a team-record 596 yards and scoring five times in a stunningly offensive 35-6 victory that served notice to the entire league that the Hawks are poised to run over anyone in their path on the way to another Super Bowl title.

Wilson played perhaps his best game of the season, throwing for a career-high 339 yards and two touchdowns and running for 88 yards and a score. He and Marshawn Lynch both turned in mindboggling TD runs — juking, stiff-arming and overpowering Arizona defenders — to put the game out of reach in the fourth quarter.

Combined with a defense that expectedly shut down the Cardinals — 216 yards, just 29 rushing — it was Seattle’s most complete, dominant victory since the opener against Green Bay. And it was Arizona’s first loss of the season at home.

It gave the Seahawks control of the NFC West and the inside track to the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs — both of which can be theirs with a home win over the St. Louis Rams next week.

Continue reading Offense sets records & Carroll has a blast →

Week 16: At Arizona

Nothing against Lynch’s awesome run, but Beast Quake was better

December 22, 2014 cc Leave a comment

In the heat of the moment, plenty of people are calling Marshawn Lynch’s career-best 79-yard touchdown run Sunday the best run of his career. It certainly was another unbelievable effort by Beast Mode, but those people apparently have short memories.

While Lynch’s cutback dash past and through the Arizona defense was a sick run, especially for a guy who had a queasy stomach early in the game, it was only his second-best run ever. His 67-yard Beast Quake run against New Orleans nearly four years ago still stands as the superlative play of his career.

That is not to diminish the Beastly beauty of this latest run, which was remarkably similar to the one that sealed Seattle’s upset win in the 2010 playoffs. On both runs, he started left, cut back right to the sideline and then knocked down a defensive back (or two) on his way to the end zone. And he also finished each run with a satisfying backward dive into the end zone.

Continue reading Nothing against Lynch’s awesome run, but Beast Quake was better →