VegasSeaHawk":25huq5kt said:
Did anyone else notice we didn't use our tight ends at all during the SB?
Did Russell even throw a single pass their way?
Why didn't we use out tight ends in the Super Bowl? You want the truth? Because our tight ends are not very good and it was trivial for Belichick to neutralize them.
Zach Miller, who should be back next season (he is signed with a cap hit of $4 million), has the necessary talent -- far, far better than Luke Willson -- but the Seahawks have been so conservative in passing that they haven't targeted him as much as they should have. Miller was the tight end at Arizona State just before Gronkowski and probably had a slightly better college career than Gronk. Miller was drafted at #38 and Gronk at #42.
Miller had a good three seasons (2008-2010) at Oakland, leading the run-first team in receiving every year, making the Pro Bowl the third year before signing with Seattle, where his pass catching skills have been under-utilized. Gronkowski, on the other had, was fortunate to land on a team with a coach who knew how to utilize tight ends and flourished in the passing game becoming one of the best pass catching tight ends ever.
The New England offense is light years beyond ours in sophistication and player acquisition and development. Pete Carroll knows defense but because he knows very little about offense has resorted to a very basic, unsophisticated offense that he can understand. He claims it is our "identity", but that is a lame excuse for inhibiting the offense. Every time he says the running game is out identity, I interpret it to mean that he is too Luckily, we have Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch, who have made a very basic offense pretty good, but the Seahawks are still not playing to their potential offensively.
Who knows how Miller would have done if he had gone to New England?
Bill Belichick, who like Pete Carroll came up as a defensive secondary coach, but who unlike Carroll, was open-minded enough to learn and take on dynamic offenses that maximized yards and scoring. Because he has worked at it, Belichick's understanding of offenses, particularly the passing game is light years beyond Darrell Bevell and Pete Carroll. Bevell thought he was running a sophisticated play at the end of the Super Bowl, but it was trivial to Belichick who had it completely covered and had practiced it before the Super Bowl. When it comes to offense, Belichick is on the cutting edge and the Seahawks are in the stone ages.
Pete Carroll is a great coach, who has built a great, very successful organization, system and defense, but because he does not know offenses, he is too conservative and has not maximized the potential of an offense with Russell Wilson, Marshawn Lynch (who is a great receiver for a running back), Zach Miller, Jermaine Kearse, Baldwin, etc. With the system and defense Carroll has built, we would be unbeatable if he became more open-minded and unleashed the offense.
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