Lack of picks

Some people are worried about it. I'm not.

Honestly, all I care about is that the defense isn't giving up points, not giving up a TD past 2 games is huge. I don't care which team is playing, that is really good.

What was it, the last 15+ opponent possessions I heard(they showed a graphic last night, but I can't remember off thet, outside of the FG last night? They've all resulted in punts. That is playing Seahawk football. As much as the defense prides itself in creating turnovers, that stat is worth so much more than any pick or sack the Hawks can get.

Hard to get INT's when the opposing QB's are mainly doing quick screen or crossing routes.

I am worried about the lack of TOs but they will come and when they come they will come in bunches.Its kind of flukey we havent got more as well as the D is playing.

When they come, they will come in bunches

Hawk_Nation":jw5z585h said:

Hard to get INT's when the opposing QB's are mainly doing quick screen or crossing routes.

Click to expand...

Yeah, said it in previous weeks. Teams just don't throw deep against us anymore. Rodgers only did when he had a free play. Stafford's one bomb to Calvin Johnson last night was pretty well covered and a poor throw. Everything is close to the LOS like the Patriots did in the SB with hopes of getting yards after the catch.

I think Dalton will take some shots this week, their team likes deep vertical passes, but again wouldn't be surprised if they check down constantly.

justafan":1vnfb3gf said:

I am worried about the lack of TOs but they will come and when they come they will come in bunches.Its kind of flukey we havent got more as well as the D is playing.

Click to expand...

I was worried about the same thing last night, until the fumble!

The way other teams are attacking us in their passing game, I doubt we'll have a ton of picks this season. I am more worried about our pass rush. We need to finish more often and get to the QB. We're near the bottom in the league in sacks. We get a couple more per game and we can end some drives earlier, keeping our guys fresh.

With all the hype around our DLine this preseason I was wondering if we'd break the team record in sacks. Not looking like it so far.

dumbrabbit":22lwc7q6 said:

Some people are worried about it. I'm not.

Honestly, all I care about is that the defense isn't giving up points, not giving up a TD past 2 games is huge. I don't care which team is playing, that is really good.

What was it, the last 15+ opponent possessions I heard(they showed a graphic last night, but I can't remember off thet, outside of the FG last night? They've all resulted in punts. That is playing Seahawk football. As much as the defense prides itself in creating turnovers, that stat is worth so much more than any pick or sack the Hawks can get.

Click to expand...

Turnovers--picks, fumbles recovered--are relatively rare per drive. And they only affect one aspect of one play (a bad throw, poorly run route, CB gamble, fluke, etc).

A drive ending in a punt, on the other hand, still turns the ball back over, and further casts a pall over an entire drive. A pick can be frustrating and no-doubt, game changing, but a lot of punts and failed drives demoralize a team.

I'll take "the latter done consistently" over "the former a bit more frequently without the latter." Of course, I'd love to have both.

It'll come.

It seems like we get a lot of pressure, but no sacks or even QB nock downs. Did we get a sack yesterday. When we hit the QB we tseem to open floodgates on picks. The last 3 weeks felt like a lot of pressure but not actually finishing.

CHeckling stats, no sacks yesterday and only 6 total in 4 games. Russell Got sacked that much last night. Not sure why we can't finish. More frank please.

dumbrabbit":x54e39s0 said:

Some people are worried about it. I'm not.

Honestly, all I care about is that the defense isn't giving up points, not giving up a TD past 2 games is huge. I don't care which team is playing, that is really good.

What was it, the last 15+ opponent possessions I heard(they showed a graphic last night, but I can't remember off thet, outside of the FG last night? They've all resulted in punts. That is playing Seahawk football. As much as the defense prides itself in creating turnovers, that stat is worth so much more than any pick or sack the Hawks can get.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'll take 3 and outs all day. As Pete said on Brock and Salk, the turnovers will come, and they'll come in bunches. Statistically speaking, these things have a way of working out.

It's a lot about how the D chooses to play against decent QBs. We seem to be trying to make them check down to short routes and rely on our tackling ability to prevent first downs. It worked very well against Stafford. Good QBs with servicible OLines will burn you for blitzing. Stafford rarely looked deep and got rid of the ball pretty quick. Not many chances for sacks or INTs there.

Judge the D on points surrendered and not "fantasy football" points.

I've been a bit frustrated with the lack of picks by our defense, but then, we're not given many opportunities for them with the way offenses have been playing dink-n-dunk, scaredy cat football against us. We've had a lot of stellar plays with batted balls that were pretty close to picks, and would have been with a better bounce. They'll come. Not as often as before when opposing offenses still thought they could pass on us, but we'll get a few. Sooner rather than later would be nice though.

We havnt played karpernick, luck or winston yet.

Hopefully the ginger throws a few to us on Sunday

we have build too many islands, Sherman island, Kam island, Earl island, Bobby all over and so on. We are in the process of building Williams island and Lane island, then we will be good.

There's several reasons for this. It was like this last year as well.

Part of it has to due with the defense we play and what we give the offense. We take away the deep ball and pretty much all sideline routes except the occasional comeback. At the LB layer, we also don't trail players much and basically bail to the numbers and play the flats and ask that when they do get the ball that everyone rally to the ball and tackle well. That allows a lot of underneath catches but few yards and very few opportunities for interceptions.

Also since we've been this vaunted defense, QB's have been scared to take chances on us which reduces our opportunities. The teams that have had success against us are just taking the short underneath stuff and they are working with quick smaller receivers in the slot for example. Hard to get interceptions when everything is within 10 yards of the LOS and a lot of them are option routes.

To me, this is largely irrelevant. Do I care if we're not getting picks? Perhaps if our defense wasn't playing as well as it is. We've allowed 3 offensive points in the past two games since Kam's return, 18/20 series have been forced punts. Who needs to take more risk or gamble when you're performing like that? Give them the underneath stuff, run to the ball and tackle well and force punts. Seems like a very viable and sustainable defensive model to me.

Andy Dalton is the perfect cure for this