Game Of The Year?

Okay that's hyperbole on my part but you have to admit, this next game against the Rams is HUGE. Suddenly, the Rams are a thing. They started out 3-1 last year only to implode. This year feels different. New young coach that the team is buying into. Goff has settled in to a legitimate threat. Gurley is having a great start. We all know how their defensive front gives us fits.

If we beat the Rams - which I am leaning towards a loss prediction fyi - we are tied with them at 3-2 for first place, and things are looking up. If we lose, the Rams are 4-1 and we are a very ugly 2-3. Suddenly the thought of the division being handed to us is laughable.

So yeah, this is a MUST WIN game. What say ye?

yes they need to son the rams to assert dominance , nothing would blow the wind out of the rams sails like losing to the seahawks right now.

Aros":2239fy1m said:

Okay that's hyperbole on my part but you have to admit, this next game against the Rams is HUGE. Suddenly, the Rams are a thing. They started out 3-1 last year only to implode. This year feels different. New young coach that the team is buying into. Goff has settled in to a legitimate threat. Gurley is having a great start. We all know how their defensive front gives us fits.

If we beat the Rams - which I am leaning towards a loss prediction fyi - we are tied with them at 3-2 for first place, and things are looking up. If we lose, the Rams are 4-1 and we are a very ugly 2-3. Suddenly the thought of the division being handed to us is laughable.

So yeah, this is a MUST WIN game. What say ye?

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With the trouble the Rams have presented the last few years, I wonder how much of it was Fisher? In past years they couldn't beat anyone consistently but regularly got up for and played Seattle tough. I think Fisher considered it a successful year if his team beat the Seahawks. Now I'm not disputing anything they have done this year. In fact, I have looked for them to be pretty good the last couple of years with the talent they have. It looks like they might finally have put it all together and have the right coach to do so. That being said, do they still have the mindset of completely getting up for the Seahawks game or is this just another game this week. I believe we have the better team top to bottom. Fisher had a very unique way of out coaching Pete every damn game. How many of those losses the past few years came down to gimmick plays? I think this will be a win as the offense looks to be able to score some points now and maybe the defense has figured out their issues. Time to start the 2nd quarter of the season firing on all cylinders.

I'll go along with "game of the year pre-bye".

A couple reasons I would advise a Hawks win:

The Rams beat up a Colts team to start the year who were playing with a baby NFL QB who was also had been with the team for what? A couple weeks? Maybe a month? We posted a nearly identical victory when that QB had been able to work with the offense for a couple weeks and was coming off a victory.

Then week 2 they lost to the Skins. They needed a classic johnny hekker fake punt pass to keep the final scoring drive alive. They gave up 229 yards on the ground that day and had 3 fumbles and a pick.

Week 3 they gave up 39 points to San Francisco. I don't even feel the need to say anything else. The 49ers put up 39.

Week 4, the supposed coming out party win kinda falls flat when you consider two important elements: Injuries and timing. The cowboys were without Sean Lee, nolan carroll, and Awuzie. Dallas was missing key cogs to the defense and oh by the way, they just played an intense road game on Monday night football, whereas the Rams were coming off a Thursday night game. 3-4 days rest (depending on how you measure it) more than your opponent is going to have its effects.

To summarize, don't expect to see anything different. The Rams are still the Rams. They didn't find magic beans this off season. Their "maturity" will be canceled out by our experience. Book the W!

And my game of the year is Atlanta. It's a Monday night coming off a previous week TNF. Atlanta comes off a late afternoon game with Dallas, so they'll be plenty tested. Our Thursday game we should beat Arizona, and following Atlanta we got San Fran (W), Philly in prime time (you ever bet against SEA in prime time at home?), and JAX. In other words, a win at Arizona which I'm betting on heavily leads to the big game which could be a link in the chain of 5 straight W's. Considering we already have 2 now, a run like that could almost single handedly give us a playoff berth considering we'd only need 3 more wins from any of these games to be looking good at 10: LA next week, NYG, Houston, Washington, LA, Dallas, Arizona. To go 3/7 in these contests would be my measuring stick for this team. Outperform 3/7 and we're contending for a seriously good seed. Underperform and we're barely determining our own fate. Underperform AND not get the big MNF game on lock, and we could easily be on the outside looking in.

I was thinking about this even before the game against the Colts. We have two road games with a bye in between, then the Texans and Redskins both in our house. We really need to win 3 of 4 here to keep ourselves in it. 4 of 4 would be ideal, but 3 of 4 keeps us alive. Obviously the tiebreaker is huge with the Rams, so that makes that game even more important than the others.

This will only be a big game if they lose it. I don't see us as a championship caliber team, so to me this is just another game to see if we make any progress.

Seymour":32ng4ec8 said:

This will only be a big game if they lose it. I don't see us as a championship caliber team, so to me this is just another game to see if we make any progress.

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The Seahawks are a championship-caliber team. Regardless of record and slow starts, top to bottom, there's not a lot of teams in the NFL better than the Seattle Seahawks. Now if they play up to their potential will remain to be seen, but yes they are most definitely a championship-caliber team.

Aros":3u5gscei said:

Seymour":3u5gscei said:

This will only be a big game if they lose it. I don't see us as a championship caliber team, so to me this is just another game to see if we make any progress.

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The Seahawks are a championship-caliber team. Regardless of record and slow starts, top to bottom, there's not a lot of teams in the NFL better than the Seattle Seahawks. Now if they play up to their potential will remain to be seen, but yes they are most definitely a championship-caliber team.

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I won't debate that. Self preservation is just one motive for me to downgrade them. Please don't confuse that with giving up, I haven't. Other "contending" teams flaws creeping in helps keep the flame going, I agree. :2thumbs:

It's certainly going to be a measuring stick of a game for both teams and it's looking like even more of a flip-of-the-coin game than previous years.

Rams under Fisher had a great defense and an awful offense. This year the Rams are by far the highest scoring team in the league through 4 weeks and their defense has looked abysmal under Wade Philips as DC -- totally opposite of what pretty much everybody thought was going to happen this year.

Rams are good. They have had the talent the last couple years, but their coaching was TERRIBLE. This year, that seems to be fixed and the coaching is helping the immense talent live up to its potential. The NFC West is theirs for the taking.

This game is huge, and I agree that this could be the game of the year for the Seahawks. They have not won an away game against the Rams in a while...and that was before they were good.

If the Seahawks can somehow pull off a win, that would be a pretty big statement.

I may have to predict with my heart this week and not my brain for the mojo factor alone. This is a huge game, make no mistake about it.

Seymour":3p0ltmjy said:

This will only be a big game if they lose it. I don't see us as a championship caliber team, so to me this is just another game to see if we make any progress.

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Agreed.

First must-win game of the season? I think so if they want to win the division.

Big game for sure. Losing Avril and Carson was huge, and maybe Lane as well.

The Rams are 2-0 on the road for the first time in what feels like forever..

Seattle has the best home field advantage in football, but I'm not as worried about playing in Seattle as I used to be.

Given that, I think this game is more important for the Hawks than the Rams. If the Rams go to 4-1 and 2-0 in the division, seems like the odds would be in our favor to win the West (can't believe I just typed that..)

For the first time ever, this game will feature strength versus strength and weakness versus weakness - with both our weaknesses, at times, strengths (ironic that the two best players in this game belong on the weakness sides..). We're not going to play a better defense, so seeing the offense will be fun this week. And defensively...no offense, but if there's an OL you want to play when your defense is underperforming, it's Seattle's.

I mean, obviously to date this is probably the most important game of our season. Would not say it's must win in Week 5 though. That's kind of over the top. But a big road win (which has sadly become rare again the last few years) against a team with a lot of confidence right now to get a share of 1st place heading into the bye would be great.

We need to win this game for two reasons: divisional win, and upcoming opposition.

I really can't call this game. I get that the Fisher vibe is gone from them, and their defense is showing it. I don't think it will be a defensive throttling like they used to give us. The problem is that no matter what the scheme, their DL is still legit and will give us problems. The other problem is that we're getting knicked up a bit. No Avril, no Carson, 3rd LT of the season....

If we lose to the Rams, it could get ugly. Before the season, most Seattle fans were looking at Washington and Houston and thinking "easy win!". Both Washington and Houston are better teams than the Rams, with good DL's and defenses that are playing better than LA's. Pencilling in automatic victories here is short sighted and homeristic.

If we drop the Rams game, and one of either the Redskins or Texans games, we're looking at 9-7. The way this team has played so far, can we expect us to honestly play better vs. Arizona, a team we've barely squeaked by or straight up lost to the last two years ?

Can we just expect a road win in SF when we barely beat them up here ?

I'm not being pessimistic, these are honest questions that looking at how our roster has played, I just can't answer.

I believe this is the game that kicks start the season for us. I'm not saying it will be easy, but I believe that it will be a tough dog fight (similar to a few years back with San Francisco) that will come down to the wire. Imo.

Statement game for both teams IMO. Seahawks finally showing some life going into LA to beat a team who traditionally gives them problems. Rams wanting to prove their record isn't a fluke and can hang with the big dogs.