Carroll says "we're randomly going about our substitutions"

[pehawk]

I've never once heard "that won't fit" in my life. Not once.

Petes a master at using the media for precision "motivational" jabs. He's very underrated in that capacity.

 

[Blitzer88]

Well.................that doesn't sound all that great.

 

[edogg23]

What Pete said makes little sense. Harvin isn't even going out more than 10 yards how could he get winded? Here's an idea, instead of having all these "cute" plays for Harvin, the Cowboys are playing man coverage, I dare any db to cover Harvin 1 on 1 from the slot down the field, he should have been running crossing routes all day long.

 

[entropyrulesall]

So this is **just** a rumor but some of what I've read in this thread, and didn't hear anything like this before, coincides with what a customer and his family were discussing last night. The guy claimed to have insider info that Percy has been benched at several points this season because he doesn't know the nuances of the playbook and was making critical mistakes.

It doesn't make sense of the player making $13 million this year would not know the playbook especially since it's a playbook he's been familiar with for several years. It doesn't make sense that one of the teams top playmakers would be not playing in consecutive downs. It DOES make sense that if he did not know the playbook entirely that Pete would limit the plays that he is in because we know Pete has no patience for mistakes and plays conservatively. So far that seems to be the case, unless subbing him in and out every other play is a deliberate strategy to limit wear and tear on his frame.

Where there's smoke, there's fire and there may be something here... It's just really hard to believe that lack of preparation is limiting our "#1" receiver.

 

[Tokadub]

Yet another possible facet of this thought process, but I remember somebody interviewing Percy when he said "Russ wants to keep doing the same play over and over until we get it perfect, but a lot of times I have to tell him to just let me play." That bothers me.

Don't get me wrong, Percy has abilities that are off the charts, but depending upon him to execute anything beyond a sweep, bubble screen, hand off or go route might be a stretch with that kind of attitude.

In a 'game of inches,' I'm thinking that a true professional would jump at the chance to get the play dialed in, between him and his QB, to the maximum extent possible, but, no, he just wants to 'go out there and play (read: lean on his natural abilities).'

Maybe I'm taking that a bit too far, but I think the one-on-one time with his QB should be a top priority. I think, to a certain extent, the guy lacks some mental maturity. With as long as he's been in the league, that's a huge red flag for me.

Wow I never heard that quote from Harvin, but if he really does have that kind of attitude that kind of goes hand in hand with this theory of him not learning the playbook, or not consistently running the routes correctly.

It's actually not that surprising to me that Percy Harvin would have that kind of attitude although it is very disappointing.

Harvin was born with such natural off the charts athleticism that he probably never needed or cared to focus on memorizing playbooks/precision route stuff his WHOLE LIFE. All through school up until college he probably just ran a general "in this area" kind of route, caught the ball and they'd be lucky to stop him before he scored a Touchdown. Harvin is so incredibly gifted that this same kind of thing even works quite often in the NFL.

But Harvin would be unstoppable if he had the attention to details and could run precision routes and improvise on broken plays.

You see this same kind of phenomenon of not learning the fundamentals and perfecting your technique a lot in other sports. Probably the best example I can think of is Roy Jones Jr. maybe the most athletically gifted boxer of all time but he never cared to learn the basic fundamentals of how to actually box. He knocked guys out for years and clowned them with one or even both hands behinds his back. He never kept his gloves up because he was so fast nobody could hit him. But as soon as Roy Jones Jr. started to age and slow down even just a tiny bit he could no longer fight at a high level because his defense was so bad, he never learned how to do it...

The opposite of Roy Jones Jr. is Bernard Hopkins WHO IS STILL BEATING GOOD FIGHTERS AND HE'S 49 YEARS OLD!!! Hopkins is a master of his craft and although he never had 1/5th the athletic talent of Roy Jones he whooped him in their rematch 17 years after their original meeting when Jones was in his prime and beat Hopkins easily.

And then every once in awhile you have a guy who is incredibly gifted athletically but ALSO extremely focused and determined to master every single aspect that comes with their sport. When THAT happens you get legends like Michael Jordan, Floyd Mayweather Jr (even though I'm not a big fan), Jerry Rice, etc.

Unfortunately it seems like Harvin is more like Roy Jones Jr, so hopefully he's not starting to approach the age when his athletic gifts can't entirely carry him in our team's offense. It seems like something he should be able to fix if he really focuses to learn the play book, but if you've been doing it one way your whole life it's sure going to be a lot more difficult for him now :?


And sorry for getting so off-topic with the boxing comparisons, but I really think the comparison to Roy Jones Jr. with succeeding off pure athleticism his whole life might apply to Percy Harvin.

And if anyone hasn't seen Roy Jones Jr. in his prime, dude was absolutely filthy but notice how bad his technique is and how much he show boats instead of being a disciplined professional:

[youtube]KPU5qFJAJGg[/youtube]

 

[pocketprotector]

It seems like one of the most popular conversations right now is about the way that we are using our Offensive Personnel. Particularly, we are using Bryan Walters instead of guys who should be obviously better than him like Harvin, Norwood, Richardson, even Bates in my opinion.

Harvin seems to be sitting out on a lot of critical 3rd downs which doesn't make much sense...

So maybe I missed it but I haven't seen anyone comment on how Pete Carroll had this exact quote word for word in his press conference the day following our loss to Dallas:

"Umm that's just the rhythm of the game you know coming at us and who's ready, who isn't... to go for the sequences. If you notice, we're... we're randomly kind of going about our substitutions sometimes we get the guys that are exactly the right guys sometimes we don't. It depends what happened on the play before or the couple plays before."

http://www.seahawks.com/videos-phot...nference/38fa039e-9696-4401-8050-6431fca480a4

Quote starts at about 16 minute mark.

Kind of an interesting quote and I can only think of one guy who wouldn't be "ready" as Carroll states... and that's Harvin. I noticed at least 2 or 3 plays just in the first half where Wilson had to specifically yell and motion to Harvin because he was starting on the wrong side of the field. It wasn't that Harvin needed to come in motion during the snap... Harvin wasn't even in the right starting locations and appeared confused as to what plays they were running.

There's probably even more examples of Harvin's confusion that I can pick up when I re-watch the game.

That could explain why Harvin isn't in on critical 3rd downs if he doesn't even know what routes to run. It could also explain why we hardly ever use him down-field because if him and Russel aren't on the same page that's an interception waiting to happen.

It also makes sense why Walters is in there in his place, if there's one thing I do believe Walters can do well it's to run the correct routes and to run them cleanly. Walters does not seem to be the kind of athlete to be a real "explosive" threat on a consistent basis, but it's pretty dang obvious that Harvin is really having trouble picking up our Offense if Walters needs to run plays in his place on so many crucial game changing 3rd downs.

I also noticed on one of Harvin's runs against Dallas he didn't seem to know where the block was going to be and instead of cutting up straight down field around Britt's awesome block (that knocked the defender over) he ran laterally towards the sideline completely ignoring the obvious running lane. It's impossible to know if Harvin didn't know where he was supposed to run, perhaps it was just a broken play... but it looked like he messed up.


I'd like to hear if anyone else has a different interpretation of Carroll's quote, but to me it sounds like if we are "randomly" having to substitute guys something is seriously wrong with one or more of our current players. The only guy who seems to fit this description to me is Harvin.

If everyone knows what to do in the offense nothing should ever be "random" with who's on the field. You should know which are the best guys to pick up all those 1st downs that we keep failing miserably for in our ugly and pathetic attempts.

If it was just them trying to rest Harvin between plays then for Pete's Sake... save Harvin for the most important 3rd and 4th downs... I'll take my chances with our other players on 1st and 2nd but I DO NOT WANT TO EVER SEE BRYAN WALTERS ON 3rd OR 4th DOWN.

Good lord. You couldn't have interpreted Pete's quote any more incorrectly. Congratulations.

 

[sc85sis]

It's random in that the down and distance, previous plays, defense, etc. determines who goes in rather than following some step-by-step predetermined plan of who plays when.

 

[-The Glove-]

It's random in that the down and distance, previous plays, defense, etc. determines who goes in rather than following some step-by-step predetermined plan of who plays when.

That's what I got from it

 

[bjornanderson21]

This is really weird.

I don't buy that Harvin doesn't know the play calls or the offense. For pretty much his entire NFL career, he's been in Bevell's offense.

Likewise him being gassed. Harvin is one of the best conditioned athletes on the team, from all reports. He's never had a conditioning problem that I've heard about in his NFL career. With his speed and acceleration, it makes more sense that the defense would be gassed chasing him around the field.

As a viking, harvin REGULARLY took entire drives/quarters/halves off. It wasn't the coach taking him out, it was Harvin taking himself out. It was one of the things that the Vikings got tired of. I guess this is ANOTHER thing that 99% of hawks don't know (the other is that Harvin has ALWAYS been used as a gimmick player and never as a normal WR).

That's harvin, folks. He takes plays/drives/quarters/halves off and needs to have gimmick plays designed for him. Thats how he was in minny and thats how he is here.

Though it is bevell's fault for calling plays with bad personnel groupings. Don't call a Harvin play if harvin isn't playing.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Yeah, I'm sure Harvin is taking himself out. Nope

 

[Sgt. Largent]

Yeah, I'm sure Harvin is taking himself out. Nope

A lot of players do, and Percy is one of them.........so is Marshawn.

That's all Pete's saying, that sometimes when players come out he has to substitute. Other than the first couple series, games aren't scripted.

Playcalling is fluid depending on the situation, and in Pete's case he really doesn't care if Percy or Marshawn are in the game, he and Darrell are going to call the play they think will work..............that's why you see Walters and Turbin on plays where you're like "where the hell is Marshawn (or Harvin)?"

 

[SoulfishHawk]

I'm sure they do. But there is no reason that Walters should be out there way more than Harvin on 3rd downs etc.

 

[Grahamhawker]

I'm sure it goes something like this:

"Hey, we're short a man- Walters (who always hangs out next to the coach), get out there"

 

[chris98251]

I'm sure it goes something like this:

"Hey, we're short a man- Walters (who always hangs out next to the coach), get out there"

Pete knows Wilson is Short.

 

[Tech Worlds]

If the substitutions truly are random then the question begs.. How long before Pete is on the hot seat?

 

[RiverDog]

Wow, good discussion, Tokadub. Those are some observations you made.

I don't know whether or not to subscribe to this theory about Percy not knowing the playbook, but something is obviously not right when we have the most explosive player in the league, in perfect health, standing on the sidelines in a tight game on a number of critical 3rd down situations. You would think that even if we didn't have a play designed to go to him that we would at least have him on the field to act as a decoy. The Cowboys had already stuffed the two or three plays we had run against them involving Percy, ie bubble screens of one sort or another or a fly sweep to one side of the field or another. By scratching off the bubble screens and fly sweeps, did we exhaust all the plays we had on the 3rd and 8 menu involving Harvin?

As a side note, this is a prime example of Pete saying too much, and leaving too much open to speculation like we're doing now. It's not unlike the "we're going to build around Tavaris" comment he made a few years ago. Did he really mean it, or is he just winging it? It's nice that he's open and candid about our problems, but there are times he just needs to end the questioning with a half dozen word answer and leave it at that.

 

[RiverDog]

Yeah, I'm sure Harvin is taking himself out. Nope

A lot of players do, and Percy is one of them.........so is Marshawn.

That's all Pete's saying, that sometimes when players come out he has to substitute. Other than the first couple series, games aren't scripted.

Playcalling is fluid depending on the situation, and in Pete's case he really doesn't care if Percy or Marshawn are in the game, he and Darrell are going to call the play they think will work..............that's why you see Walters and Turbin on plays where you're like "where the hell is Marshawn (or Harvin)?"

That doesn't make sense. No one in their right mind is going to leave their best players on the sidelines in the fourth quarter in a close game on multiple 3rd down plays, and no player worth their salt is going to take themselves out in those situations unless they're injured, which was clearly not the case with Percy.

Something else has to be at work here.

 

[ImTheScientist]

Maybe they will randomly bench Walters.

 

[3Girls'HawkDad]

River dog sniffed this one out. I owe him a beer.

 

[dusktreader]

River dog sniffed this one out. I owe him a beer.

Yeah, in hindsight, that answer from Pete was really evasive...even more than usual. The random factor in their substitutions was Percy waffling like a toddler over whether or not to do his job.