Two things that shouldn't be overlooked

[HawksSoc]

As a follow up to my initial post.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/kennetharthurs/status/512328142103384064[/tweet]

Ugh. That's more then a little yuck.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

I think our most recent history shows we own most TE's. julius thomas, jimmy graham, Vernon davis, Jason whitten haven't had much success in games against us. That's why I was stunned at how easily Gates was able to dominate the game. I think Cam is a little rusty from not having much preseason under him.

Have to regroup as Julius Thomas will be coming to town next.

I don't think Kam has had much impact so far this season. I believe that will need that to change if we're going to see a Seattle win this Sunday.

 

[GoHawks]

As a follow up to my initial post.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/kennetharthurs/status/512328142103384064[/tweet]

Check out the Fieldgulls review of the 1st half - a lot of ugly pursuit and missed tackles from KJ and Malc

http://www.fieldgulls.com/2014/9/16...rs-game-notebook-philip-rivers-russell-wilson

 

[drdiags]

Pete mentioned this earlier in the week. Last year there were around 5 games that could have gone either way. The Seahawks won them. Doesn't make them invincible. They have had issues in the past on defense. Texans and Colts did well. The Tampa Bay Bucs had them at home. The talk of 16-0 can go die and now just play some football.

Rivers was unstoppable, just like Stafford in 2012. Tannehill beat them in 2012. Panthers played them tough to open last season. It goes on and on. Yet they lose to the Chargers, who could ill afford to lose and go 0-2 so all hands were on deck. Too bad weather is being used to explain away the loss.

This is a new season. Smoke blown up the rears of players hopefully will dissipate and the team can go about stacking wins together to try to get back into the playoffs and beyond.

Bobby Wagner and Kam both were limited during training camp and don't have the luxury of trying to play themselves back into football sharpness but they were exposed last week. Same with Malcolm Smith rehabbing all summer. The only LB that was available all TC and OTAs was Wright. It is going to take a minute for them to gel.

Hopefully other parts of the team can pull their weight and bail out the defense until they get their groove down. Julius Thomas could have a big game as it seems right now the secondary is not as aggressive as I feel they will play once they get a feel for the new guys and the point of emphasis calls by the refs.

 

[kearly]

Now of course, the Gates targets DO count and I'm not trying to deny Rivers credit for making some amazing throws. Just trying to illustrate how big a difference Gates made. That adjusted line looks awfully familiar by the way. Where have I seen that before? Lets compare those adjusted numbers to a mystery QB:

21/30, 188 yards, 0 TDs, 0 INTs. 70.0% completion rate. 6.26 YPA. 85.5 rating.
23/33, 189 yards, 0 TDs, 1 INTs. 69.7% completion rate. 5.73 YPA. 81.5 rating.

To me the takeaway is that even if you takeaway 100 yards and 3 TDs from Rivers, across two games the Hawks have given up a 70% completion percentage. That's against two great QBs, but it's tied for third worst in the league compared to them being tied for 8th best in the league last year (they're also below average in average yards per completion so far this year, compared to be the best team in the league last year).

This is no doubt gonna change as they're not going to play the whole season against guys like Rodgers and Rivers, but IMO it's much more noteworthy than eliminating Gates' big performance from the stats.

Manning had a line like that in the SB. Brees had a line like that when he struggled twice against Seattle last year. Completion rate is all well and good, but when you are around a 6 YPA it's hard to break 20 points. Sam Bradford and Ryan Fitzpatrick have high completion rates and low YPAs.

The reason it's hard to score with a game plan like that is because it requires converting an insane number of 3rd downs to manage any kind of offense. When Rivers needed a 3rd down, Gates was there. When Rivers needed to close the deal in the redzone, Gates was there. That's the difference between Rivers and the other elite QBs who wilted against Seattle.

Gates was directly responsible for 21 points, (or 12 points, if you subtract field goals). He also extended numerous other drives with catches on 3rd and long. More than half of Rivers' 3rd down conversions went to Gates.

Rivers had a great game, but he did nothing different than Brees, Manning, or Rodgers had done. The difference is that he had a massive mismatch he could exploit, and boy did he ever. It's a lot like what Brandon Marshall just did to your 49ers. You think Cutler beats you if Marshall misses that game?

 

[hawk45]

I think our most recent history shows we own most TE's. julius thomas, jimmy graham, Vernon davis, Jason whitten haven't had much success in games against us. That's why I was stunned at how easily Gates was able to dominate the game. I think Cam is a little rusty from not having much preseason under him.

Have to regroup as Julius Thomas will be coming to town next.

I don't think Kam has had much impact so far this season. I believe that will need that to change if we're going to see a Seattle win this Sunday.

Kam was one of the biggest factors in the Superbowl so I could not agree more. I kept waiting last week for kam or anyone to light someone up over the middle and the longer i waited the more we got abused over the middle.

We lose on Sunday if that happens again unless our offense picks us up and we win the turnover battle to counterbalance. Regular season Peyton manning is perfectly capable of putting it on us on our house with clady back protecting him if we do not pulverize the middle of the field.

 

[themunn]

At the end of the day we allowed 3 TDs in total, and 2 of those came directly from unusual events (Percy fumbling deep in Seattle territory and Irvin putting them back on the field after they failed to convert on 3rd down). Add on the 3 points we gifted San Diego at the end of the match because we turned the ball over on downs, and that's 14 points we unusually gifted them.

Looking back to their first TD as well, remember that San Diego had an 8 minute drive ending in a field goal, we possessed the ball for less than 90 seconds before Harvin scored and the D had to go back onto the field when they were obviously gassed.

And amongst all of this, San Diego played one of the best games they'll have all season on offense. It was simply a perfect storm of events that helped them win, and one that I can't see any team easily replicating.