First offseason move- Fire Norton

[bbsplitter]

There must be a lot of new people here. See previous seasons where we do frustrating things on defense. Norton wasn't the D coordinator.

Guess What.
This is Pete's D.
You need pretty talented players to run what Pete wants, especially at certain positions.
We don't have said talented players at some of those positions.

 

[Natethegreat]

There must be a lot of new people here. See previous seasons where we do frustrating things on defense. Norton wasn't the D coordinator.

Guess What.
This is Pete's D.
You need pretty talented players to run what Pete wants, especially at certain positions.
We don't have said talented players at some of those positions.

This isn't about doing frustrating things on D. Its about this current D being the worst in the Pete Carrol era. Its about a D that is bottom tier in almost every category except turnovers.

The tackling this year has been downright atrocious and EVERY D Norton has coached has SUCKED at pass rush! Even when he had Khalil Mack and Bruce Irvin for the Raiders they had league low sacks!

Edit: when Norton was D coordinator at Oakland with the aforementioned players of Khalil Mack and Bruce Irvin they had a grand total of 25 sacks on the year. That put them at DEAD LAST IN THE LEAGUE! ITS NOT A TALENT PROBLEM FOLKS!!!!

 

[WestcoastSteve]

I'm not enough of an x's and o's guy to intelligently comment on scheme, but with some of the talent gaps we had at times this year on defense, I'm just wondering if its fair to lay all of the blame on Norton.

The defense wasnt good this year. Just wondering how much of that was actually his fault.

What talent gaps? Wagner, Clowney, Diggs, McDougald, Wright have all been pro bowlers or pro bowl alternates.

 

[lukerguy]

I agree. Heading into the season I thought Seattle would have an elite front 7... and yet they were bottom 5 in the league. LBs are Norton's specialty.. and they were bad in coverage and against the run.

 

[bbsplitter]

I'm not enough of an x's and o's guy to intelligently comment on scheme, but with some of the talent gaps we had at times this year on defense, I'm just wondering if its fair to lay all of the blame on Norton.

The defense wasnt good this year. Just wondering how much of that was actually his fault.

What talent gaps? Wagner, Clowney, Diggs, McDougald, Wright have all been pro bowlers or pro bowl alternates.

"Tre Flowers sucks"
"Clowney is the only member of the D-Line making a difference"
"McDougald plays the run well but is terrible in coverage"
"Griffin still sucks" (this one magically changed halfway through the year, weird almost like a player can get better... hmm... like between this year and next)
"Our linebackers are now slow and ineffective"

Look, I'm not saying you are responsible for all these perspectives, but if if you looks at a lot of posts, a lot of people believe all of these of most of these to be true. There is a much more perceived and blamed talent gap then you let on.

 

[OrangeGravy]

I'm not enough of an x's and o's guy to intelligently comment on scheme, but with some of the talent gaps we had at times this year on defense, I'm just wondering if its fair to lay all of the blame on Norton.

The defense wasnt good this year. Just wondering how much of that was actually his fault.

This ^^^ here needs to be a permanent header attached by .Net to every post on this site. It would probably cut the needless arguments in half.

I guess you also can't criticise music or movies because you don't know how to make them

criticize until your hearts content. just don't come off like you know how to fix a problem and if you do, let's hear it. Example, let RW loose is not a fix. It means nothing. You might as well suggest we just score more in the first half. That's just as generic and meaningless.

Don't you think it would be much more enjoyable (and maybe even constructive) to read about specific suggestions to improve the offense early in games that are scheme related?

I don't agree with everything @Fade puts down, but he puts in the effort to give specific details which is appreciated and respected by the reader. It's less likely to start a worthless pissing match between 2 or more people who don't know enough about football to even be arguing about it.

 

[OrangeGravy]

The tackling alone has to put Norton on the hot seat.

But if you want to find the one overriding factor behind the defense's suck, you have to look at player acquisition, specifically the attempts to fix the defensive line. Just not nearly enough done there. Injury has played a part in that, but this DL was never configured for speed, either. Beyond Shaquem, who was used only sparingly, and Clowney, there was zero speed on this roster, and that is almost entirely to blame for all the bad stats you see.

No secondary can hold up well when there's no pass rush. Not even the Legion did.

The DL was really poor. Everyone thought it was gonna be bad, then after Ziggy/Clowney, it looked like it might actually be pretty scary. Turns out it was terrible and I thought Clowney played well all season. Can you imagine what that defense would've looked like without him?

 

[rcaido]

Sehawks needed Michael Bennett & Coleman...Would have fixed our defense.

 

[kjreid]

Hawks defense is predicated off pressure on the quarterback or stuffing the line. the back 7 swarm, attack and strip. if you don't have a solid D-line that doesn't work. Since we never had a full rotation on the D-line and we overplayed lineman because of injuries or being short (every game) I think Norton did a good job at scheming Wagner and Wright to more coverage and using Clowney to his strength of holding the line and stuffing the run we just did not get pressure on the quarterback and our line was gassed. Is that a Norton problem or a personnel problem? I am still think Norton did a decent job.

 

[truehawksfan]

We need to add more talent on defense because we have a huge talent gap.

Someone put a list of 5 players on defense and used this as an argument this isn’t the problem. Really?

Yes, Clowney is elite, but do you really think our Dline’s ok? Obviously, no. Our SB team had Clemons, Avril, Mebane, and Bennett. Look at the Niners. They have 3 first rd draft picks on that Dline and they’re all playing elite.

Our defense was so bad, we traded for Clowney before the start of the season and we traded for Diggs just before the trade deadline. We had no pass rush and our safety play was awful. But, this is just the start. We need more help.

Quinn was a great DC, but he was the guy who made all the D calls at ATL -Until this year. And, they have one of the worst defenses in the league. It’s about players!

Scapegoat. Easy to claim Norton needs to go, but the fact is we have a talent gap.

We have over 66M in cap dollars and lots of draft picks. It’s time to not reload. It’s time for an overhaul. And, we have the dollars and draft picks to do it.

 

[Natethegreat]

Norton has had talent and has done nothing with it. If you don't think Khalil Mack and Bruce Irving are talented then I don't know what to say. Having those two guys along with a vey good offense that year should have led to a league leading sacks. Instead they had the absolute fewest of anyone. Thats a problem that can't be pointed at talent.
The D line here was being touted as a league best unit yet it hasn't stopped the run or pressured the QB all year. There is talent here and we are still bottom rung.

Edit: also it is the coaches job to bring out talent regardless.