The old "Does Pre-Season Matter"?

[hawknation2018]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/gbellseattle/status/1031222847304294401[/tweet]

 

[TwistedHusky]

Preseason #s, in aggregate, do not matter a whole lot.

What other teams do is not relevant at all though.

Under Pete's watch, the progress of the 1s vs the 1s, almost exactly mirrors the results throughout the season later.

Based on that, the first few possessions, on both sides, of the preseason are indicators of the type of team we are going to get for the season.

 

[hawksincebirth]

Austin Davis is a terrible QB. You want proof Kap is getting blackballed? Guys like him playing in the NFL is your evidence. Kind of hard to win preseason games when they have guys like him playing 20 minutes.

Not to derail this thread or get political, but Austin Davis is competing for a backup QB spot at $880k. Do you have information to suggest that Kap is looking to play for a cheap backup contract? Publicly available information indicates that he is not.

Do you have any info that he wouldn’t ?

 

[Gametime]

No game planning. Vanilla everything. Hard to REALLY know but the first team offense moved the ball. Dickson can be a huge asset. Not puckered every time we kick a field goal. And aside from Ifedi, the line does look a bit better. Carson is proving he can run the ball. I, like most of you, wanted to see more but two new coordinators and loads of new faces means a lot of feeling things out.

I'm not worried. Yet.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

It doesn't matter even sort of. Getting worked up about glorified practice games is hilarious.

 

[olyfan63]

The last few seasons, I've felt our preseason winning record was mostly due to having a stronger front-to-back roster than most teams we played. Our 3rd string has been better than the opponent's 3rd string. When our 2nd string is also clearly better than our opponents, we've won by a bigger margin.

On Saturday, the Chargers' 2nd string outplayed our 2nd string. Our 3rd string couldn't close the gap. Not exactly time to declare the sky is falling.

Do preseason results matter? NO.
Does the preseason PROCESS matter? HECK YEAH.
Coaches use it to get enough data to make separate players and make roster decisions.
Which guys are coachable?
Which guys just flat get outmanned against NFL athletes and need a year of development and strength work on PS before they can compete at an NFL level?
Which guys show they have the mental and physical speed to compete?

Let's take the QB position. Russell looks like he is on board with Schotty's offense well enough so far. Probably in part because Schotty has already tailored the offense to match Russell's skill set. Meantime, in the competition for backup QB, so far, Austin Davis has struggled to adjust to the new offense, and generally sucked. Does this mean Austin Davis simply sucks, or does it simply mean it's a different offensive concept from Bevell and Fisher, and he has to unlearn prior offenses enough to get the reads right on this one? Once he "gets" this offense, will he be a serviceable NFL backup? The coaches by now have a pretty good idea about this.

Then McGough goes out and sucks in game 1 vs. Colts. Coaches see the rook is overwhelmed with the offense, and pare it down for him, for game 2. McGough does a credible job in game 2, and looks more capable than Davis. Does this mean McGough is already better than Davis? Unlikely. I'd guess that Davis, as a veteran, is expected to learn and master the ENTIRE offense, no rookie pare-down for him. So I think Davis sucking so far only means: 1) Davis does not have Russell Wilson's skill set (really, Captain Obvious?), 2) Davis has not yet internalized the reads of the offense, to make them at NFL speed, 3) So far, the team emphasis has been on getting Russell and the O-Line up to speed with the offense.

The Chargers' offense was ahead of our defense for the most part. Not a huge surprise, given the impact players we've lost on D, the less experienced players replacing them, and the effect that has on the cohesiveness and chemistry of the D. I'm not too worried; Pete has a history of getting the D playing well.

So far, our overall D-Line rotation has impressed, especially the young guys. Naz Jones, Rasheem Green, Jarran Reed, Quinton Jefferson, all have made plays. We know Frank Clark will bring it.

We got enough data to know that Michael Dickson is our punter for the next decade-plus. We've seen nice plays at WR from Jaron Brown, David Moore, BMarshall, and others. We've seen that TE is still an open question, and it's unclear if Vannett is the answer.

So far all we've really seen is that the 'Hawks are on track to play about .500 ball against NFL-level competition. And that the preseason games are successfully asking questions of the front office and the coaching staff. They are working on answering those questions.

I'm very much enjoying watching the preseason games. I hope everyone else is also. OK, so I haven't been enjoying the parts with Austin Davis at QB. But at least we get to watch Michael Dickson punt after all Davis's 3 and outs.

 

[olyfan63]

I get why the Seahawks released Kasen Williams last year. He’s a fringe player, who was not great at blocking or special teams. But the Colts reportedly love Kasen Williams. He’s been making a lot of catches for them in training camp and had three catches for 46 yards against the Seahawks last week.

The Colts can have Kasen Williams. He wouldn't make our team this year either.

 

[Seahawkfan80]

The last few seasons, I've felt our preseason winning record was mostly due to having a stronger front-to-back roster than most teams we played. Our 3rd string has been better than the opponent's 3rd string. When our 2nd string is also clearly better than our opponents, we've won by a bigger margin.

On Saturday, the Chargers' 2nd string outplayed our 2nd string. Our 3rd string couldn't close the gap. Not exactly time to declare the sky is falling.

Do preseason results matter? NO.
Does the preseason PROCESS matter? HECK YEAH.
Coaches use it to get enough data to make separate players and make roster decisions.
Which guys are coachable?
Which guys just flat get outmanned against NFL athletes and need a year of development and strength work on PS before they can compete at an NFL level?
Which guys show they have the mental and physical speed to compete?

Let's take the QB position. Russell looks like he is on board with Schotty's offense well enough so far. Probably in part because Schotty has already tailored the offense to match Russell's skill set. Meantime, in the competition for backup QB, so far, Austin Davis has struggled to adjust to the new offense, and generally sucked. Does this mean Austin Davis simply sucks, or does it simply mean it's a different offensive concept from Bevell and Fisher, and he has to unlearn prior offenses enough to get the reads right on this one? Once he "gets" this offense, will he be a serviceable NFL backup? The coaches by now have a pretty good idea about this.

Then McGough goes out and sucks in game 1 vs. Colts. Coaches see the rook is overwhelmed with the offense, and pare it down for him, for game 2. McGough does a credible job in game 2, and looks more capable than Davis. Does this mean McGough is already better than Davis? Unlikely. I'd guess that Davis, as a veteran, is expected to learn and master the ENTIRE offense, no rookie pare-down for him. So I think Davis sucking so far only means: 1) Davis does not have Russell Wilson's skill set (really, Captain Obvious?), 2) Davis has not yet internalized the reads of the offense, to make them at NFL speed, 3) So far, the team emphasis has been on getting Russell and the O-Line up to speed with the offense.

The Chargers' offense was ahead of our defense for the most part. Not a huge surprise, given the impact players we've lost on D, the less experienced players replacing them, and the effect that has on the cohesiveness and chemistry of the D. I'm not too worried; Pete has a history of getting the D playing well.

So far, our overall D-Line rotation has impressed, especially the young guys. Naz Jones, Rasheem Green, Jarran Reed, Quinton Jefferson, all have made plays. We know Frank Clark will bring it.

We got enough data to know that Michael Dickson is our punter for the next decade-plus. We've seen nice plays at WR from Jaron Brown, David Moore, BMarshall, and others. We've seen that TE is still an open question, and it's unclear if Vannett is the answer.

So far all we've really seen is that the 'Hawks are on track to play about .500 ball against NFL-level competition. And that the preseason games are successfully asking questions of the front office and the coaching staff. They are working on answering those questions.

I'm very much enjoying watching the preseason games. I hope everyone else is also. OK, so I haven't been enjoying the parts with Austin Davis at QB. But at least we get to watch Michael Dickson punt after all Davis's 3 and outs.

I like this post. It is after all what you said early....paring down what players we can have trained and those that dont get it. It really does not matter what round they are drafted in nor does it matter they are UDFA types too. Just that they can perform as the coaching and coaching scheme work. Under non training camp conditions, usually vanilla offense and defense, and a different team with different philosophies, competition is more difficult. That is what they need to do in preseason....train under non standard training camp conditions. Chess matches constant with differing pieces playing differing positions. Get the people in that can cohesively compete.