Ruminations on the Cardinals Game

[Fade]

Ruminations on the Cardinals Game is a post-game thread for everyone on .NET to post their thoughts (ruminations) about the game.

Pete Carroll lost the game after his offense moved the ball on two straight possessions, and then decided to punt when he had a 4th and 1 from the AZ 33. The game just simply snowballed from there, with a comedy of errors. The injury excuse card is great, but every team is dealing with injuries, AZ is one of the worst defenses in the league, and they played the 2nd half with a backup QB. Seattle struggled in all phase of the game, and PC was thoroughly out-coached.

PLAYER & COACH NOTES

Schotty
*Had a tremendous 1st series blending run, pass, playaction, and boot. They are so much better in early game scripted plays than the previous OC it is not even funny. My favorite playcall was the jet sweep to David Moore.

KJ Wright & Lano Hill
Got exposed big time on that 80 yd TD run. Wright looked old an slow, over pursued in the hole and couldn't recover. Lano Hill just took a damn bad angle.

Wagner
*Sniffed out the bubble screen and makes the tackle on a 3rd and 3, great to see him playing fast.

Chris Carson
*On a 1st and 15 turns a nothing run into a 5 yd gain, very Lynch esque.

*Shortly after that play they run a checkdown to Carson for a huge gain. If feels good to do that to the other team for a change.

Ken Norton
*Falling asleep at the wheel, needs to put a spy on Murray. Norton bailed out, Murray is now out in the 2nd half with a hammy.

Queem Griffin
*Had Murray dead to rights on an excellent speed rush off of his usual LE spot, but Murray did his best young RW impression and escaped, but thankfully didn't complete the pass off of the scramble. It was still a sweet rush, and will translate to sacks down the road here in the playoffs.

Metcalf
*You have to deliver the ball into Metcalf's frame or he isn't catching it. Drop.

David Moore
*Fumble. The Seahawks WRs have to lead the league in fumbles, and fumbles lost don't they?

Mike Iupati
*Is back in the game in the 2nd half and steps on RW's foot, sacking him. Could the rest of the football team get out of Russell Wilson's way and let him go win the football game? He is carrying a clown car show.

Rasheem Green
*Blocks another kick, and Seattle returns it deep into AZ territory. The fans boo the ensuing playcalls, rightfully so, this coaching staff has been a comedy of errors and bad decision making all day.

Pete Carroll
*Spends a timeout 1st and goal. Wise decision as it avoided the delay of game, and the play was stonewalled anyway. Good thing he called timeout.

*4th and 1 should go for it. Brings out the kicker, delay of game, punt. God awful. The offense was cooking on the 1st two possessions and Pete decides to turtle, pathetic. He just killed the momentum of his own team. You call a game scared, your players will play scared.

*Pete calls timeout at the end of the half with the clock running down. He wants AZ to have time to huddle and call the perfect play for some reason. *Whew* Dodged a bullet, as Fitz doesn't quite corral the TD reception after further review.

*Kicking a field goal to cut the deficit from a two score game, to a two score game. Brilliant.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/hwkbgr/status/1208899585621610496[/tweet]

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*Pete with the good challenge on the not catch, good job.

*A desperate PI challenge by Pete, he has no other choice, but I don't think they are going to bail him out.

Kingsbury
*Wait, you're aloud to go for it on 4th and 2 from midfield up seven points? I thought it was against the rules. The Cards easily convert. I hope Pete is taking notes.

Hundley
*The Cardinals are better on offense with a backup, then the Seahawks are with Wilson, a HoF QB. The Cardinals have one of the worst defenses in the league btw.


FINAL THOUGHTS

The season is over. Pete is out of his depth on gamedays, they are too beat up to make a playoff run, and they likely cost themselves a bye week with this loss even if they win against SF next week. They will likely be the #3 seed if they manage a victory over the 49ers, and will be too injured to defeat a rested #1 or #2 seed coming off of their bye. Just enjoy a single playoff victory if they can even manage that. This sucks.

 

[AROS]

The season is over. Pete is out of his depth on gamedays, they are too beat up to make a playoff run, and they likely cost themselves a bye week with this loss even if they win against SF next week. They will likely be the #3 seed if they manage a victory over the 49ers, and will be too injured to defeat a rested #1 or #2 seed coming off of their bye. Just enjoy a single playoff victory if they can even manage that. This sucks.

LOL, love your posts in general but even you have to admit you could have waited 24 hours or so to post your analysis. Your sleeves are revealing your emotions all too well.

11-4. We can still win the division next Sunday night. And as crappy as they looked tonight, if you really think that is the same team that will show up next Sunday night against the 49ers I would suggest you have forgotten how this team tends to work. Chin up 12! This garbage game will NOT be any indicator for next Sunday night.

You have my word.

 

[edogg23]

I have to say after watching that game I have to agree with just about everything.

 

[hawk45]

I’m not taking this garbage game as an indicator for next Sunday I’m taking the last few garbage games as an indicator for next Sunday plus the loss of brown and Carson.

 

[mistaowen]

Schotty had no idea what to do today once Carson got hurt. He can't move the play without a strong run game that sets up play action. He literally kept forcing the run game, that wasn't working, to a guy who didn't have the trust of the coaches til all other RB's got hurt. Defenses know to cover the deep play action shots now. It's a problem that the offensive coordinator can't scheme an efficient passing game if the run game isn't there, especially in today's game with so many great passing attacks.

Norton needs to go but we've known that most of the year. Worst coached unit by far under PC. Though given Pete's track record, Norton will likely be here another 3-4 years.

We've essentially neutered Russell the final 1/4 of the season which is insane given how dominant he started. Today felt like they didn't have any desire to lean on him to get a nice team-boosting win going into a huge matchup. Not once til like 10 min left did it feel like the coaching staff wanted the ball in his hands to dictate the game. They keep making comments how the offense 'doesn't look like the offense they want to see' and yet are the ones directly causing it. Just so god damn frustrating.

 

[olyfan63]

Get a few guys healthy, and who knows. But I don't know who is going to be healthy. And we lost some depth and plays with suspensions this week, losing Woods and Gordon. DK showed he's still a rookie and needs a lot of work, no catches today? And Lockett, is he actually healthy yet? No hops to go up and get the ball, but Russell keeps throwing the contested deep balls to him.

 

[Fade]

The season is over. Pete is out of his depth on gamedays, they are too beat up to make a playoff run, and they likely cost themselves a bye week with this loss even if they win against SF next week. They will likely be the #3 seed if they manage a victory over the 49ers, and will be too injured to defeat a rested #1 or #2 seed coming off of their bye. Just enjoy a single playoff victory if they can even manage that. This sucks.

LOL, love your posts in general but even you have to admit you could have waited 24 hours or so to post your analysis. Your sleeves are revealing your emotions all too well.

11-4. We can still win the division next Sunday night. And as crappy as they looked tonight, if you really think that is the same team that will show up next Sunday night against the 49ers I would suggest you have forgotten how this team tends to work. Chin up 12! This garbage game will NOT be any indicator for next Sunday night.

You have my word.

Yeah, I think they can win next week because Pete will go full pedal on offense for four quarters and play to win. But they will run out of gas in the playoffs even if they pull off the division title. They needed the bye week.

Pete had one of the worst games of his career, and I am very worried it is a downward trend going into next season. Wilson has been making up for dubious coaching errors for a while now, and it is not sustainable. Pete needs to be better, and it appears he is getting worse. JS or someone in that building needs to put his ass in check.

I am not reacting due to this one loss, it's game after game of bad decision making, that isn't being corrected. I am a process guy, not a results guy. Carroll's decision making has no logic or reason, but it gets swept under the rug because Wilson is there to bail him out most of the time.

Losing the game sucks, but I am more worried about carrying this flawed process into the next season, and more seasons to come. Pete needs to fix this as it can be easily corrected, but he is surrounded by "yes" men, I don't see it getting corrected. He is going to keep punting on 4th and 1 in enemy territory, he is going to keep kicking fgs when it still keeps it a 2 score game, he is going to take the ball out of his QBs hands at the most inconvenient times, and he is going to call and manage the game like he has a top 5 defense whether he has one or not. Very troubling.

 

[Shanegotyou11]

All bad.


Injuries make it way worse.

 

[edogg23]

Get a few guys healthy, and who knows. But I don't know who is going to be healthy. And we lost some depth and plays with suspensions this week, losing Woods and Gordon. DK showed he's still a rookie and needs a lot of work, no catches today? And Lockett, is he actually healthy yet? No hops to go up and get the ball, but Russell keeps throwing the contested deep balls to him.

DK had a bad drop, probably the worst drop I’ve seen him make all year. But how the heck did he show he was still a rookie when Russ won’t let go of the damn ball. He had 1 target. He had way too much talent for 1 target in a game.

 

[olyfan63]

Schotty had no idea what to do today once Carson got hurt. He can't move the play without a strong run game that sets up play action. He literally kept forcing the run game, that wasn't working, to a guy who didn't have the trust of the coaches til all other RB's got hurt. Defenses know to cover the deep play action shots now. It's a problem that the offensive coordinator can't scheme an efficient passing game if the run game isn't there, especially in today's game with so many great passing attacks.

Norton needs to go but we've known that most of the year. Worst coached unit by far under PC. Though given Pete's track record, Norton will likely be here another 3-4 years.

We've essentially neutered Russell the final 1/4 of the season which is insane given how dominant he started. Today felt like they didn't have any desire to lean on him to get a nice team-boosting win going into a huge matchup. Not once til like 10 min left did it feel like the coaching staff wanted the ball in his hands to dictate the game. They keep making comments how the offense 'doesn't look like the offense they want to see' and yet are the ones directly causing it. Just so god damn frustrating.

Hard to defend the seemingly brain dead effort by Schotty; losing Iupati, and no Brown to start, just wiped out the continuity on that left side of our O-Line. So 3/5 of our O-Line, the center and whole left side, lost to injury.

Why not let Russell run a hurry-up a couple series? Nothing else was working.

The pathetic offense lost this game, not the defense. 3 and out, 3 and out, repeat. Unbelievable futility.

 

[Fade]

Schotty had no idea what to do today once Carson got hurt. He can't move the play without a strong run game that sets up play action. He literally kept forcing the run game, that wasn't working, to a guy who didn't have the trust of the coaches til all other RB's got hurt. Defenses know to cover the deep play action shots now. It's a problem that the offensive coordinator can't scheme an efficient passing game if the run game isn't there, especially in today's game with so many great passing attacks.

Norton needs to go but we've known that most of the year. Worst coached unit by far under PC. Though given Pete's track record, Norton will likely be here another 3-4 years.

We've essentially neutered Russell the final 1/4 of the season which is insane given how dominant he started. Today felt like they didn't have any desire to lean on him to get a nice team-boosting win going into a huge matchup. Not once til like 10 min left did it feel like the coaching staff wanted the ball in his hands to dictate the game. They keep making comments how the offense 'doesn't look like the offense they want to see' and yet are the ones directly causing it. Just so god damn frustrating.

A lot of truth in this post.

Though I think Schotty is following coaches orders. That first drive was a thing of beauty with a fantastic blend of playcalling, Then it devolved into Pete ball after Pete turtle'd on the 2nd possession 4th and 1 from the AZ 33. It became predictable runs into loaded boxes, and deep shots into defenses playing coverage. The first drive was nothing like that.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

The season is over. Pete is out of his depth on gamedays, they are too beat up to make a playoff run, and they likely cost themselves a bye week with this loss even if they win against SF next week. They will likely be the #3 seed if they manage a victory over the 49ers, and will be too injured to defeat a rested #1 or #2 seed coming off of their bye. Just enjoy a single playoff victory if they can even manage that. This sucks.

LOL, love your posts in general but even you have to admit you could have waited 24 hours or so to post your analysis. Your sleeves are revealing your emotions all too well.

11-4. We can still win the division next Sunday night. And as crappy as they looked tonight, if you really think that is the same team that will show up next Sunday night against the 49ers I would suggest you have forgotten how this team tends to work. Chin up 12! This garbage game will NOT be any indicator for next Sunday night.

You have my word.

Sorry I agree with Fade 100%. Pete/Schotty simply are lost without a run game and we won't have one. This from someone who has not once this season posted a critical word about Pete. This game however was an utter and complete abomination. Be happy to eat crow if you're right.

 

[mistaowen]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/bcondotta/status/1208925276647804930[/tweet]

Russ has to be tired of this insanely conservative approach at this point in his career right? Any short yardage situation Pete treats it like he has the best defense of the decade still with a defensive coordinator who knows what he is doing.

 

[Seanhawk]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/bcondotta/status/1208925276647804930[/tweet]

Russ has to be tired of this insanely conservative approach at this point in his career right? Any short yardage situation Pete treats it like he has the best defense of the decade still with a defensive coordinator who knows what he is doing.

That's as close as you're ever going to get to Wilson calling out the coaching staff, or anyone for that matter.

 

[Fade]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/bcondotta/status/1208925276647804930[/tweet]

Russ has to be tired of this insanely conservative approach at this point in his career right? Any short yardage situation Pete treats it like he has the best defense of the decade still with a defensive coordinator who knows what he is doing.

I was about to post this tweet. Pete Carroll has lost it.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/bcondotta/status/1208925276647804930[/tweet]

Russ has to be tired of this insanely conservative approach at this point in his career right? Any short yardage situation Pete treats it like he has the best defense of the decade still with a defensive coordinator who knows what he is doing.

That's as close as you're ever going to get to Wilson calling out the coaching staff, or anyone for that matter.

That's what it was though albeit in a subtle manner

 

[QuahHawk]

Duane Brown was missed and is the #1 factor we lost. Our OL was a sive and we could never get in rythm.

Clowney, Griffin, and Diggs missing meant our D was not going to get any big plays because those 3 have been the ones to do it all year for us.

John Schneider should not have kept Procise. This guy has been a waste of a roster spot. I'm done with his injuries, when you need your backupRB to come in he is not the guy.

Pete needs to let Russ have more freedom. Roll him out more, make him run a few times a game to keep teams honest. Stop the crappy time management and playing conservative has won you many games it has allowed other teams to stay in games to the end.

 

[olyfan63]

DK had a bad drop, probably the worst drop I’ve seen him make all year. But how the heck did he show he was still a rookie when Russ won’t let go of the damn ball. He had 1 target. He had way too much talent for 1 target in a game.

He IS a rookie, what's the big deal about that? He's made some nice plays this year and had a few disappointing drops. Rookie. It typically takes a couple years for WRs to really "get it" at the NFL level. Case in point: Golden Tate. Now DK has seen the standard, and seen guys like Larry Fitzgerald and Michael Thomas close up. Can't recall if Julio played in our Atlanta game. DK could, should be a bigger and bigger weapon, going forward.

No answer why so few targets, or why we're not scheming better to get the ball to him. Slants like we threw to Gordon?
Heck, not even a WR screen today. As others have noted, this was Schotty's brain meltdown playcalling day today.

 

[kf3339]

All I will say is that I'm not ready to concede the game next Sunday evening. Anything can happen in a game and it's at our house. We have a major challenge now with the injuries and momentum clearly not on our side. This will be a major job for PC to somehow awaken both the offense and defense to some really creative schemes and play calling, because that is the only way we go much farther.

It will be a very big tell which way things go next week and the playoff. Hard to say what to expect now.

 

[SanDiego49er]

I know how you guys feel. Like when we lost the Falcons game at home. A trap game against a bad team that you look past to see the future weeks big match up. It's a terrible feeling losing the trap game you didn't expect. Trust me I know. I still think you guys have a real good team. Russell Wilson is awesome and Pete Carroll is an excellent coach. I still think your team can do things in the playoffs.