Random thoughts on the Chargers game

[DavidSeven]

Also, I can't fathom people putting this on offensive play calling. The team was ridiculously efficient in their limited opps. Lynch didn't get the ball because we didn't have the ball enough and some penalties/blown up plays took the run game out of the mix.

This game was won on Rivers' ability to covert 3rd down on our defense. He's made an elite career on that, and I tip my cap to him. Would've loved to play him in typical SD conditions, but oh well, it is what it is.

Ridiculously efficient in their limited opps? The reason they had limited opportunities was because they failed to do anything with the ball on offense all but three times. Those three times they were ridiculously efficient, but were otherwise 3-9 on third and fourth down with a turnover. Ridiculous, yes. Efficient, far from it.

They only punted twice. 7.2 yards per play, 8+ yards per pass -- which is far from doing "nothing with the ball." They lost TOP because our defense couldn't get off the field and SD was determined to march the field 5 yards at a time, and it worked. SD converted nearly 100% of their 3rd downs and never turned the ball over. We only had one bad series before Harvin's ST fumble and SD's subsequent TD put us in catch-up mode.

They killed our D and dominated TOP, and yet, this was a one-score loss for all intents and purposes. Should've been a blow out based on our D's performance. Offensive efficiency was the only thing that kept it close until the last minute. We got nothing on turnovers. Nothing on ST. This game was only competitive because of our offense.

 

[Timmahawk]

Also, I can't fathom people putting this on offensive play calling. The team was ridiculously efficient in their limited opps. Lynch didn't get the ball because we didn't have the ball enough and some penalties/blown up plays took the run game out of the mix.

This game was won on Rivers' ability to covert 3rd down on our defense. He's made an elite career on that, and I tip my cap to him. Would've loved to play him in typical SD conditions, but oh well, it is what it is.

Ridiculously efficient in their limited opps? The reason they had limited opportunities was because they failed to do anything with the ball on offense all but three times. Those three times they were ridiculously efficient, but were otherwise 3-9 on third and fourth down with a turnover. Ridiculous, yes. Efficient, far from it.

Not a huge sample size on 3rd down, sure it would have been nice to get one or two of those, but it would have also been nice to see our D make a 3rd down stop. Our O wasn't quite at the usual avg 3rd down conversion rate in the NFL (around 40% I think)...Their O was at 75%...it's too bad Bevell and RW didn't dial up some better D play calls to get them off the field.

 

[RolandDeschain]

I love how our D bails our O out regularly and it's just expected, but the rare times when our D needs our O to bail it out, it's Excuse Central.

 

[DavidSeven]

When was the last time our D bailed out our O? Last year's St. Louis game? Our offense has otherwise put up 20+ in all our wins. Almost all of our losses in the Russell Wilson era have involved defensive collapses of some sort (minus maybe the AZ loss last year).

 

[Blitzer88]

Nothing from today's game makes me feel like we will win next week. I mean if we can't stop the Chargers offense how are we gonna handle the Broncos right now?

 

[RolandDeschain]

When was the last time our D bailed out our O? Last year's St. Louis game? Our offense has otherwise put up 20+ in all our wins. Almost all of our losses in the Russell Wilson era have involved defensive collapses of some sort (minus maybe the AZ loss last year).

It depends on how you want to define it. You could go with the D bailed out our O every game we won where the defense held the opponent to fewer points than the league average, but where our offense didn't score more points than the league average, but that's actually unfair to our defense because - as you probably heard the stat listed during the first quarter today - our defense didn't allow points on the first offensive possession of a single opponent last year. We basically spent almost the entire year getting to start with offense in the first half and the second half. Offenses often struggled early against us which made them panic more, etc.; a lot of factors play into it, but let's not avoid the fact here that our defense has carried our team a lot more the past two years than the offense has.

Don't forget to factor in that having a top-tier defense allows our offense to screw around and get away with it. They don't face the pressure a lot of other offenses do, knowing they HAVE to score plenty of points. These things don't show up on stat sheets, but they're there, and they matter.

 

[Timmahawk]

I love how our D bails our O out regularly and it's just expected, but the rare times when our D needs our O to bail it out, it's Excuse Central.

Our O has bailed out the D a number of times, RW has put the team on his back for something like 10 4th qtr comebacks (not all were because of the D).

The outlier is the fact that they were 75% on 3rd down, and recovered all 4 of their fumbles. Normal averages happen, we win the game. I'm not worried at all about our O, and trust that the D will move on from this game just like they did with the colts game last year.

 

[RolandDeschain]

Indeed, Timma. I would still love to know why the hell we basically ignored Lynch and Harvin, though. That is inexcusable, and if ANYBODY disagrees with that, please explain how to me. I'm waiting.

 

[Timmahawk]

Indeed, Timma. I would still love to know why the hell we basically ignored Lynch and Harvin, though. That is inexcusable, and if ANYBODY disagrees with that, please explain how to me. I'm waiting.

I dunno, smaller sample size of plays skews the numbers a bit, playing from behind as well limits the run opportunities (but I do think we could have ran a bit more).

The one play I absolutely hated was the sweep at the end of the game, one of Percy's touches. There were a few more that I was like, "huh, that was weird", but every game there are a few of those.

We all know RW loves to spread the rock around, so it's not uncommon that WR get only a few touches, but with Percy, I would like to see more like in the GB game.

The 2 min drive at half was 5 out of our 40 plays (12.5%), and we scored without using Lynch or Harvin.

 

[RolandDeschain]

So I can basically sum up that response as, "IDK."? :lol:

 

[Diezel Dawg]

Also, I can't fathom people putting this on offensive play calling. The team was ridiculously efficient in their limited opps. Lynch didn't get the ball because we didn't have the ball enough and some penalties/blown up plays took the run game out of the mix.

This game was won on Rivers' ability to covert 3rd down on our defense. He's made an elite career on that, and I tip my cap to him. Would've loved to play him in typical SD conditions, but oh well, it is what it is.

Very good points, time of possession killed us. But the offense couldn't get a rhythm because of lack of time of possession. You add about 12-13 more. Minutes on their time of possession, and the outcome of this game is different.
Also, I'm glad the Hawks lost, because we would never hear the end of it of how the refs helped us win by allowing Percys Touchdown to stand.

Put this loss behind them, and focus on the Broncos and take care of business next week. A lot of season left

 

[RolandDeschain]

Very good points, time of possession killed us. But the offense couldn't get a rhythm because of lack of time of possession. You add about 12-13 more. Minutes on their time of possession, and the outcome of this game is different.

They didn't earn their own time of possession, you act like time of possession was some outside force that the offense can't control. Sure, our defense gave up more of it than usual, but our offense also exited the field very quickly a number of times, too.

 

[themunn]

B.) A huge underdog.

This annoys me. San Diego were a 2013 playoff team with a top 5 offense! They went to Cincinatti (8-0 at home in the regular season) in the playoffs and won!

Every team should be an underdog to an extent given we are the defending champions... but San Diego no moreso than say... Green Bay, who we all considered a top contender

 

[themunn]

Another thing, if we won the talk was going to be about Percy's TD, but with how gassed our D was already looking at that point I remember thinking it might be better if we had it called back since we were carving them up and it would have given our defense more time off the field.

Just another one of many weird and wacky occurrences that happened in the game - San Diego having 3 (4?) big fouls in the redzone to put them outside the 20, but scoring a TD on each drive was another. When does that ever happen?

 

[Tokadub]

Pete has won us a lot of games before with conservative decisions in these exact kinds of situations. And it's not just Pete, going for the safe yardage on 3rd and 19 or avoiding a suicidal 4th down with plenty of time left on the clock in a one score game is NFL coaching 101.

Although I appreciate and respect your positive outlook/analysis I do disagree with some of what you and others have said in support of our Offensive play calling and decisions. Considering Lynch had 6 carries compared to the Chargers running the ball 37 times... we made no attempt to help our defense stay off the scorching hot field by slowing the game down with our dominant run game.

I think we called a very poor game offensively and although 7.2 Yards Per Play sounds great we must remember it was against the Chargers and their defense is terrible. The Cardinals went 6.2 Yards Per Play against the Chargers in Week 1 which is higher than what we would of had if you just subtract that one play where Harvin stepped out of bounds (we would of had 6.1 Yards Per Play if that play was simply erased from the records).

However the Cardinals ran the ball 26 times allowing them to win the time of possession against the Chargers even though they lost the turnover battle 2-1. I don't see any reason why we couldn't run the ball as well to make at least a slight attempt to keep our Defense off the field when they were mightily struggling all day.

I don't want to get too much more into the details but I think statistically we would of had a much higher chance to win the game going for it on 4th and 2 considering the Chargers had 24 First Downs at that point. We had a less than 50% chance to prevent the Chargers from scoring a Field Goal based on how the game went (they scored on 6/10 drives overall). Even if we did get the ball back it was unlikely to be on the 36 yard line which I consider pretty good field position compared to where we ended up on the 11 yard line.

Last season the Seahawks converted 6/11 (54%) of 4th downs even though our Offensive Line had a bunch of backups and Harvin was injured.

Last season the Broncos converted 8/9 (89%) of 4th downs. The Chargers were over 83%, the Panthers were almost 77%, Packers 69%, Cowboys 67%...

http://www.sportingcharts.com/nfl/stats/4th-down-efficiency/2013/

If you guys really don't think we could convert a 4th and 2 when we have arguably 3 of the best offensive play makers in the league (Wilson, Harvin, Lynch) when the Carolina Panthers went 10/13 on 4th down last season???

That's just sad how little faith some of you have in our offense, if our Defense was playing well I could totally understand but they were getting spanked. I think if you just took all the previous statistics from how this game had went up till that point we would have a MUCH higher chance to win the game going for it on 4th and 2 than punting. We weren't gonna get a better opportunity than that unless we got extremely lucky, and we didn't this time.

I am fairly certain that Wilson was crushed by not getting a chance to win the game on that 4th and 2, punting it back in a game where our Defense was getting owned all day when we are nearly mid field with amazing play makers at our disposal???

All of this is really good discussion though, I just wanted to throw in my opinion for our offense here.

 

[Tokadub]

Whoops mispost, gonna make a new topic on Lynch's career carry totals. I spent so much time gathering these stats I forgot where I was writing this although it certainly applies to this discussion.

I guess I should just shorten the conclusion for here since it's relevant to this discussion. Lynch's total of 6 rush attempts last night ties his lowest as a Seattle Seahawk in his total of 60 games here. It has only happened twice and we lost both games.

 

[Largent80]

There is a reason for us having the 6th lowest T.O.P. in league history (17:45)...It's called not STOPPING the other team.

In those 17:45 we scored 21, I'll take that every game.

Look at the length of Seattle's touchdown drives. None consumed more than 3 minutes. Two of them lasted less than 90 seconds, and while the Seahawks did seem to spring to life in a hurry-up format, that is not the style that this team is accustomed to playing. At least not when it's winning.

You score that fast and guess what?...defense back on the field. We had a great opportunity on one drive and Unger let a player come right through the middle without even seeing him. It was, well, ugly.

 

[Evil_Shenanigans]

Foremost in my mind is that Rivers and particularly Gates played a damn good game yesterday when they needed to. There can be no taking that away from them. Charger fans have reason to rejoice after that game. They parked our offense (on a smoking hot bench) for more than 2/3 of the game and it worked to perfection.

Just do not know what to say about all the lost turnovers. You would like to think that at least one would break your way. Cest La Vie!

For me the bright spots on our side were Kearse, Wagner and Wilson. Wilson did a lot of running for his life as the OL Screen door re-appeared. Bobby had ten Tackles in this Game and seemed to be in on the stop on every running play they tried. That Kearse catch in the first quarter was just awesome I thought.

The biggest concern I have coming out of this game is that Gates made KJ look quite vulnerable yesterday. So the big TE’s we have coming up will surely be going at him hard. He did a good job neutralizing most of these types last season including Jimmy Graham so I know he is capable. Perhaps Gates just had an extra bowl of Wheaties before this game?

Seeing Earl limping off the field and Sherman simultaneously bending over like he was hurt was just about more than I could bear. I think the trainers and Doctors should have been (maybe they were?) hydrating every one of them long before the game started. I am left to wonder how many of them had to have IV’s after the game? Kam, Earl and Maxwell all did during the game! I know conditions were horrendous but this is practically inexcusable.

It seemed like an uncharacteristic game for Miller yesterday. Not only was he practically invisible (the 30 yarder in the first quarter aside), but all the penalties told me something just wasn’t right with him.

As has been mentioned Bruce Irvin actually looked pretty solid yesterday, the shove notwithstanding. So B+ on game play and a solid F for his decision-making.

I have to assume something was wrong with Lynch yesterday. Dehydration, bad attitude, out of Skittles, whatever it was he was clearly missing in this game. I know the offense only had so many possessions but it is a marked step down in production without him in there. Nothing against Turbin, but he is just not in the same league as the Beast. And Defenses play it that way too. Perhaps it was a coaching decision to keep him fresh, but it clearly did not work if that is the case. To see him trotting off to the locker room before the clock ran out was fitting!

 

[Cinnamongirl]

There is a reason for us having the 6th lowest T.O.P. in league history (17:45)...It's called not STOPPING the other team.

In those 17:45 we scored 21, I'll take that every game.

Look at the length of Seattle's touchdown drives. None consumed more than 3 minutes. Two of them lasted less than 90 seconds, and while the Seahawks did seem to spring to life in a hurry-up format, that is not the style that this team is accustomed to playing. At least not when it's winning.

You score that fast and guess what?...defense back on the field. We had a great opportunity on one drive and Unger let a player come right through the middle without even seeing him. It was, well, ugly.

You actually know a little bit about football that is surprising.

 

[BadgerVid]

Wilson did not fumble the ball; he is not credited for a fumble in the game...

Game stats on NFL.com DO show a Wilson fumble recovered by Willson...