Slow Start on Offense Could Be Pete Carroll's Issue

[Seahawk Sailor]

I'm fine with him using the first half of the game for information gathering purposes. Can we get him to score touchdowns instead of field goals while he's gathering that information? That's really what most people are asking, I think.

 

[theincrediblesok]

This is interesting.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/FieldGulls/status/648971883023470592[/tweet]

Carroll basically admits he uses the first half of games for information gathering purposes.

Wow nice, when I made this post I had a hunch that there is something with the slow start and all of sudden being very good in the 2nd half. I wasn't even sure if my theory of Pete using the 1st half to use as a information gathering would be correct, but it makes total sense.

I didn't like the fact that Wilson was getting blamed for something that's been happening before he was drafted but some people just like to pile on blames for whatever reasons.

Like some have mention it is like boxing. Even Tom Cable kind of mention some things about it for our running game. Marshawn gives the opposing defenses body shots, everytime he hits those defenders, they are feeling every shot. When Russell takes off they are huffing and puffing with their arms on their hips. Doing this in the first half would cause those defense to tired out even if they go for their half time break. Then when they come back in the 2nd half, all of a sudden the plays that the opposing defense were able to stop is now being used against them and like someone mentioned that they won't have time to adjust.

This is brilliant on Pete's part.

Baldwin did mention that there were mental mistakes in the 1st half and everyone shares the blame, from Wilson's passing, Graham's blocking, to some of the O-line mistakes, and some drops by the receivers. Points were left off the board, but in the end they will be fine, the more this teams plays with each other the more that I believe that offense will be taking off.

The conservative playcalling in the 1st half is pretty much to throw off the opposing defense for the 2nd half. Get that team daze and confuse and hit em up with the uppercuts.

 

[bmorepunk]

Yes he misses open receivers, yes he under-throws/over-throw, but is he the only QB to do that?

We're not paying him $87 million to be just like other QBs.

He wanted elite money, he got elite money, so the expectation is an elite performance.

I do get all the arguments presented in this thread - he's generally accurate (which misses the unnecessary sacks he takes and the times he runs the ball because he didn't see the open receiver). Even with slow starts we're rarely very far behind at halftime (#1 defense does have a tendency to keep you in games), and of course the thrilling game-winning drives (although we would not need them without digging a hole early).

I'm using a higher standard because Wilson insisted he was worth a top-tier pay grade with all the cap consequences that come with it. He needs to perform to that level for all this to work.

We really don't have games to give. Green Bay doesn't look like losing many games, and we already showed we couldn't win at Lambeau.

We have the opportunity to win the 50th anniversary Super Bowl on the home field of one of our greatest rivals, and I will not see it excused away because "other QBs do it too".

If other guys do it to, we could have one of those guys and use the extra money for an offensive line. We're paying our guy NOT to be average.

Wilson is getting paid what he's getting paid because the probability of replacing him successfully is low. There are few QBs that could do as well as he has, and none of them were going to be available. They're also locked up for a lot of money.

All of the "have to play elite because of elite money" talk is completely subjective. The only thing driving this is that the QB market is a bitch.

 

[KiwiHawk]

It's not the play calling; it's the execution. Not converting 3rd downs. Needless sacks. Holding penalties. False starts.

It's throwing 4 INT's and relying on a miracle to beat Green Bay last season. That only happened because the defense prevented Green bay from getting touchdowns when we turned the ball over deep in our half.

With our stars getting into their big money contracts, we don't have the funds to keep everyone and maintain depth. We can't rely on the defense to smother the other team long enough for our offense to pull their heads out and stop making stupid errors.

On the one hand you can blame a defense for giving up a late score, but on the other if the offense just did its job in the first half, we wouldn't be in position for a late score to beat us. If they stayed on the field longer in the first half, the defense would be better rested for the second half.

We had the #1 defense in the league and possibly of all time. We always knew we couldn't keep everyone, and we haven't. Now it's maybe not as good as it was, but as we gather more and more weapons on offense, that is supposed to make up the difference. I'm just not seeing that progress. We throw big contracts at it, trade first-round picks, get big-name free agents, but where's the increased production? One TD in 10 possessions against a weak bears team - is that it?

 

[marko358]

This is interesting.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/FieldGulls/status/648971883023470592[/tweet]

Carroll basically admits he uses the first half of games for information gathering purposes.

I could have made it easier for him this past week and gave him a head's up that the Bears are terrible. What information was there to be gathered?

 

[idahohawk]

So in a way, the 2nd and G in XLIX was the ultimate "transition" from Marshawn's offense, to RW's offense, and it derailed big time because Bevell got too cute. All they had to do is roll RW out on play action boot or a combination of the two. 2 SB wins, RW gets the torch, and we are off into the RW era, nanobubbles and all.

But instead they decide to throw a slant to our #5 WR. So here we are, in limbo. Marshawn's body may indeed be failing him, RW can't sit in the pocket because our OL is average at best, and we have a marquee TE who can't play inline and/or block.

Add a holdout Kam, a still decimated LOB (More fallout from last year, NFCCG & XLIX) and you get a struggling 1-2 team, sitting at the bottom of the NFC West, and hoping to get hot and make the playoffs to buck the odds.

We all we got.

I'm thinking, like they said, the run setups everything. If a run doesn't work well on certain plays, they go to a pass play in the 2nd half or pass it to Lynch to get the ball in his hands. They also give Wilson better designed plays in the 2nd half that allows him to do more, this is why he gets labeled as being good only in the 3rd and 4th quarter.

Tell me why Bevell had Percy for many years and was able to use him down field with the vikings, but once he gets to the Seahawks, Bevell didn't know how to use him all of a sudden?

Percy even said that they didn't want to use him that way, and I have my theory of why and it has to do with his injury and problematic issues in the locker room, it was better to trade him and get something then let him go when he does get injured and get nothing. The only way to keep him healthy was to used him in jetsweeps and bubble screens (less injury) in the early season of 2013 where they were showcasing him.

This offense is built for the run game and it's Beast's offense. This is not Wilson's offense. Wilson is the caretaker of the ball for Lynch and that's it. All the Receivers block for Marshawn and that is a requirement. Bevell might be restricted on what he can do with Wilson because of these reasons, and why the playcalling has been less than stellar for the last 3 years.

Before 2014 we had legitimate deep threat in Tate and Rice, and no Kearse is not a deep threat, even though we use him as one. I will keep saying it again and again, we need a deep threat and Lockett/Richardson is the guy. The FO doesn't have a good history of knowing how good the guy is until an injury appears and the backup plays very well, for example, Richard Sherman, Jeremy Lane, Byron Maxwell, Golden Tate (All these guys had more playing time when they replaced the starters to injury). Until Kearse is back on being our 3rd Receiver, injured, or gone next season we won't see Lockett line outside as a starter.

So we get a deep threat in the draft in Paul Richardson and mostly used him in the short passing game, it's like the FO tries to outsmart themselves. Let's get Zach Miller who was a leading receiver (TE) for the Raiders and use him mostly as a blocking TE. Let's get one of the best TE in Jimmy Graham and get him to block. I could go on and on.

 

[Sports Hernia]

Anyone who is telling themselves that our slow starts are beneficial is fooling themselves.

You don't have to run bad plays to get info on the other team's formations and schemes.

You dont have to sacrifice the first half to have a good 2nd half.

The Hawks would win more games if we didn't suck in the 1st half.

Take away our bad first halves and we mightve gone 16-0 two seasons in a row.

It is absolutely advantageous to play well both halves instead of just the 2nd half.

THIS!

 

[theincrediblesok]

It's not the play calling; it's the execution. Not converting 3rd downs. Needless sacks. Holding penalties. False starts.

It's throwing 4 INT's and relying on a miracle to beat Green Bay last season. That only happened because the defense prevented Green bay from getting touchdowns when we turned the ball over deep in our half.

With our stars getting into their big money contracts, we don't have the funds to keep everyone and maintain depth. We can't rely on the defense to smother the other team long enough for our offense to pull their heads out and stop making stupid errors.

On the one hand you can blame a defense for giving up a late score, but on the other if the offense just did its job in the first half, we wouldn't be in position for a late score to beat us. If they stayed on the field longer in the first half, the defense would be better rested for the second half.

We had the #1 defense in the league and possibly of all time. We always knew we couldn't keep everyone, and we haven't. Now it's maybe not as good as it was, but as we gather more and more weapons on offense, that is supposed to make up the difference. I'm just not seeing that progress. We throw big contracts at it, trade first-round picks, get big-name free agents, but where's the increased production? One TD in 10 possessions against a weak bears team - is that it?

Your right that 4 INT in the Greenbay game shouldn't have happened but as you can see even with all that we were lucky to get into the Superbowl. While a team like the Colts couldn't overcome and would give up.

I wish too the offense would come out scoring like nothing and every single pass is perfect, but that's not how this team rolls until I believe that the offense fully becomes Russell's. Right not it's starting to transition away from Marshawn.

If you are saying as a team that we are pretty bad at converting 3rd downs then I will agree, but FYI Wilson has converted at least 60% of his 3rd downs for his whole career. After 3 games he is still in the 60% so that means the running game have been stopped on 3rd down most of the time. This is because teams know we might just be running instead to get the conversion. People say that Wilson shouldn't look to run too much, and I'm the total opposite, I want him to establish himself as a threat early, this puts defenses in check, do that and they start to respect the run a bit, which opens up more space and time for him to work with.

 

[Recon_Hawk]

Anyone who is telling themselves that our slow starts are beneficial is fooling themselves.

You don't have to run bad plays to get info on the other team's formations and schemes.

You dont have to sacrifice the first half to have a good 2nd half.

The Hawks would win more games if we didn't suck in the 1st half.

Take away our bad first halves and we mightve gone 16-0 two seasons in a row.

It is absolutely advantageous to play well both halves instead of just the 2nd half.

I don't think anyone's really saying slow starts are beneficial, only that there is some reasoning for it in addition to poor execution.

Bad play calling deserves its fair share of blame, but what if some of those bad play calls actually serve a purpose we only see in the 2nd half?

I mean, as a baseball pitcher, you can set up a batter by throwing a bad pitch, right? A high and inside fastball for a ball that almost hits the batter's head might seem like a poor pitch, but if I follow that up with a curve ball that starts at the batters face but bends over the plate for an out, that bad pitch played a role.

Now, I'm not saying every bad call has a purpose or actually sets up anything but I think there's some attempt to do that from the coaches and that's one reason we do see some improved play in the 2nd half of games.

The rest of what your saying is true, but come on doesn't every fan say that about their team in some way? It's either "if we played like we did in the 3rd series" or "if we played in the 2nd half like the 1st half".

The opposing team gets paid to make plays, too. Sometimes good pitches get hit by good hitters.

 

[themunn]

I'm fine with him using the first half of the game for information gathering purposes. Can we get him to score touchdowns instead of field goals while he's gathering that information? That's really what most people are asking, I think.

I'm sure missing three straight conversions on goal to go at the end of the first half wasn't in the "information gathering purposes" gameplan.

Actually, I wondered whether Chicago intentionally gave up that free play just beforehand to get us within the 5 yard line, it feels like to me that we are better at converting RZ opportunities from between the 10 and 20 into TDs than we are when we get within 5 yards.
I wonder if there are stats around for that anywhere - it was definitely odd that Chicago basically gave us that free play beforehand, I wonder if they thought we'd be easier to defend if we only had the endzone to pass into rather than effectively 20 yards of open space.

 

[KiwiHawk]

Consistency was the word of the day for Baldwin, who emphasized the Seattle offense was not as efficient as it needs to be in Sunday's win over the Bears, when the team scored one offensive touchdown on a 30-yard pass from quarterback Russell Wilson to tight end Jimmy Graham, but saw four other drives end in field goals.
"We’re not moving the ball consistently," Baldwin said. "We have a lot of mental errors and mental mistakes that we need to correct.”
Part of the problem, Baldwin said, was the team's lack of conversions on third down, where the Seahawks went 0-for-6 in the first half before finding a bit of a rhythm in the second half to finish the game 5-of-16 (31 percent).
“We’re last in the league in third-and-three-to-six right now, and we didn’t do too well," Baldwin said. "We had two mistakes on third-and-short this week that we should’ve gotten.”

 

[brimsalabim]

I hope the offense spent a lot of time this week throwing those fades to Jimmy and Mathews. We need to dial that in.

 

[c_hawkbob]

A game is 60 minutes. The object it to have more points than the other guys at the end, not the middle.

Recon is basic, sound military strategy.

I got zero problem with how Pete uses his 60 minutes.

As an aside, I remember all of the exact same complaints about Holmgren's scripted plays, this is not a new concept.

 

[hawk45]

Georges St. Pierre used his offensive wrestling to control where the match took place. The Seahawks aren't Georges St. Pierre, if they were they would have good, sustained drives keeping opponents weapons off the field and building points, not out-of-sync three-and-outs that tire our own defense and give opponents chances to land blows.

The Seahawks are a fighter that does nothing but circle and deflect punches early. They won't take much damage in the early rounds, but their opponent, even a lesser opponent, has an opportunity to accumulate points such that the later rounds are a frenzy where they must put themselves at greater risk to eke out a win.

Recon is conducted prior to engagement. No, it is not sound military strategy to waste resources during engagement because your offensive plan sucked and rely on your defense to give you time to find your rear end.

But nobody really believes this is recon. I mean perhaps a few really reaching for an explanation to poor offensive starts, but this excuse is met with withering scorn anywhere but a Seahawk fan board.

It is by no means less risky or tactically sound to spot your opponent a half and let a bad team stay in the game. Pete pointing to teams falling apart at the end of games is fine, we can point to how our slow starts require miracle plays in the 4th quarter, a strategy that works because Russell, but that in reality places more pressure on your QB than less.

Despite some of the reasoning I've seen used around this topic or any topic that deals with a perceived team weakness, success doesn't mean all parts of your approach are good. It just means your strengths outnumber your weaknesses. We win because our defense plays for 4 quarters, not because our offense only plays for two.

 

[c_hawkbob]

Recon is conducted prior to engagement.

Yeah, they called that Spygate.

The only effective way to determine how your opponent is going to read and react to specific situation within the context of a given football game is to present them with that situation in that game, on that day, with those players and against those players after having put in that weeks practice. What the opponent did previously against other teams, even if under similar circumstances, is not nearly as specifically relevant.

But nobody really believes this is recon ...

You mean you don't. Don't make the mistake of assuming that what you see as obvious is what everybody sees as obvious.

I certainly believe it to be at least a good percentage recon. Certainly plays that the coaches think will be successful are the plays used to gather this information, but the gathering of this information is without doubt one of the primary objectives.

... this excuse is met with withering scorn anywhere but a Seahawk fan board

Hogwash. It's pretty universally accepted by most football folks. It's not as though Pete invented the idea, Holmgren did the same thing, as did Bill Walsh and Don Coryell before him. Again, you'r assuming everyone thinks as you do.

 

[hawk45]

Holmgren on KJR said he had to get up and walk around to cool off the offense was so below expectations in the first half v the Bears. Holmgren did not say "hey that's okay to burn a half conducting recon." This isn't some master plan it's poor execution and/or preparation.
That teams observe what works and doesn't is obvious. Where it turns into hand waving excuse is when fans accept that an entire half of poor performance is by design.

 

[c_hawkbob]

Holmgren on KJR said he had to get up and walk around to cool off the offense was so below expectations in the first half v the Bears. Holmgren did not say "hey that's okay to burn a half conducting recon." This isn't some master plan it's poor execution and/or preparation.
That teams observe what works and doesn't is obvious. Where it turns into hand waving excuse is when fans accept that an entire half of poor performance is by design.

You're arguing with things not actually said. No one ever said it was OK to burn a half doing recon, that's your exaggeration of what was said.

Your problem is in expecting absolutes. 100% this or 100% that. Sorry but it just doesn't work that way. The explanation for our poor first half wasn't 100% "hey that's okay to burn a half conducting recon" just as it wasn't 100% "poor execution and/or preparation".

Varying degrees, shades of gray, however you want to say it. Real answers don't fit into nice tidy boxes with a single label.