hawknation2017":hbnxbw98 said:
The biggest problem with the running game has been the incredibly poor play of the running backs. Thomas Rawls and Eddie Lacy have been dreadful, making terrible reads and slamming head first into piles. When Mike Davis has gotten the ball, he has been relatively effective, which makes Rawls/Lacy look even worse.
The run blocking has improved since we replaced Rees Odhiambo (the worst starting lineman in the NFL) with Duane Brown. The two worst run blockers we have now are the guards: Ethan Pocic (poor leverage and not strong enough) and Luke Joeckel (who still looks non-explosive and probably hurt).
Alex Collins looked great in the preseason (so did Mike Davis), but Rawls, Lacy, and Prosise were automatically entered into the top of the depth chart without having to demonstrate any actual ability in the preseason. We are lucky that no one poached Davis from our practice squad.
We need a really good RB next year!
As is sometimes times the case, I beg to disagree with some of your take on things. Keeping in mind that I'm just one point of view and I'm sure that many others will side with you.
As I see it, by the time Mike Davis started getting the ball, we had gotten Duane Brown and Luke Joekel on the Oline, and with their influences individually and collectively, they have, along with help from other members of the Oline, started opening up some running lanes for our Running Backs, and as a result of their efforts, we are starting to see the resurgence of a running game in Seattle.
I don't completely agree with your synopsis and summary of the Seahawks Oline, as a dysfunctional, ineffective unit. I think that there has been steady, noticeable, and remarkable improvements across the board. Even Ifedi is drawing fewer penalties and doing a better job, notice I didn't say great, lol, although he will likely never really shine until Seattle plays him where he belongs on the line, and, of course, he learns to control his temper and not get frustrated so easily.
To blame Rawl's and Lacey, and some of the other RB's who tried their damnedest to make things happen for the Seahawks, doing what they could to make something out of nothing, and getting injured in the process, is a real misread I think. If your Oline doesn't open up a crease or gap of some sort, that is all a RB has left to do, is charge headstrong into a brick wall, until something gives, which, unfortunately has been their bones.
If you want to stick to that line of thought, you need to go ahead and clump Marshawn Lynch in there right along side of all of them, because in his last couple of seasons with the Seahawks, he ran into the same dead ends, they all did, and gotten tired of busting his ass up trying to make something out of nothing, and getting injured in the process as well, He said the hell with it and retired. Once back and running behind an Oline that could open things up, he's looking a lot more like the Beast, although he will never be what he once was for the Seahawks.
Rawls, given an opportunity to run with the present Seattle Oline looked good and did well this past Sunday against Dallas. I think that Mike Davis is a more durable RB than Rawls, and in the long term will hold up better. I can see Rawls putting up some serious numbers behind our emerging Oline, I could see Lacy doing the same. Although don't think Lacey has that internal drive that Rawls does, and that we see in Davis and Carson. Prosise is simply not a RB, he maybe should play a receiver position. He has good hands and can run but he can't take any abuse.
If I were the Seahawks and had to choose which ones to keep I'd keep Davis, and Carson. No Disrespect to Rawls or Lacey, I just think those two are more suited to deliver on Pete's type of offensive strategy or philosophy. I do wish that folks would quit saying that the Seahawks don't have a running game, it's simply not true, we only need a game or two like the Dallas game, to prove it, When your trailing by 30 points with one quarter left to pull out any chance of a win, there is no running game, it's a fail Mary extravaganza, and almost always a nightmare finish for the Seahawks.
I think facing all the adversity that the Seahawks have faced in this season, that they have done an incredible job of piecing back together a very competitive Offense and Defense, that may very well be enough to carry us through to another Superbowl bid if our cards fall into place. I can hear all the sighs and fuming already on that concept, but then that's the Seattle Seahawks, they have been shutting up critics for years and proving them wrong, I hope that they earn themselves an opportunity to do it again this season.
I know there are a number of you out there who are hoping the Seahawks loose or the Falcons win on Sunday, believing that under that scenario, that the Seahawks will fire and hire every coach, player and coordinator that gets the blame for whatever doesn't go right or whatever goes wrong more accurately. I for one won't be surprised, even if the season ended on Sunday, that any heads will roll, but then I'm not convinced that any need to lol. I'll leave all that to all their critics.
Go Seahawks !
