Pre-season "Dogs"

Last year we won all of our Preseason games. This year we've lost two and are "underdogs" to the Vikings . I'm getting worried about our ability to "snap out of it"!

It's pre-season. That's all.

As long as we win 1 game we can say it is "just pre-season".

This is among the biggest preseason games in Seattle history.

I don't know if you recall but there was like 3 or 4 years where the Colts lost all of there preseason games with Peyton Manning. Then they regular season came and they won 10-11 games every year.

Similarly you see teams go 4-0 in the preseason and go 1-3 in to start the regular season.

Preseason game 3 is always the most important because the team plays through the half with their 1's. Preseason game 4 is the most useless.

In the 1st 2 preseason games the #1's have looked pretty good. The offense is much better off than in years past.

I never put stock into the actual scores of pre season games. Teams are always trying players and plays in situations during the preseason that they'd never (or rarely) do in a regular season game. This has a huge impact on the final score. What's more important is how the individual players do at their positions.

There's not much to get out of preseason games.

If someone insists on getting something out of them:

*Games 1, 2, and 4 can be a decent indication of depth as long as you can force yourself to focus on nothing but one-on-one matchups.

*Game 3 can be a little peak into how your team might be trying to scheme against the offense and defense they happen to be playing that week.

At the end of the day though, what matters is avoiding injury. The final score is meaningless. It's just little stuff. By way of example, perhaps the biggest takeaway for me from the Hawks preseason game last week was the goal line plays, in which Schottenheimer went full heavy sets, whereas Bevell tended to try to spread things out at the goal line more.

Are those few plays Schottenheimer experimenting with something and seeing if he wants to play those situations that way, or is it him expressing how he'll play those situations in the regular season? This is where we reach the limits of the usefulness of pre-season, as we don't have any way of being able to answer that question, but through pre-season we know it's a decent enough question to try search for an answer for once the season actually kicks off (e.g. if I'm watching a Hawks game early in the season and they're at the one yard line, I'll probably make more note of the formation they come out in because of last week than I would have otherwise).

1s vs 1s has been a very good, if not perfect, predictor of regular season effectiveness.

I recall one year that I was tremendously concerned about the defense and then we were much better in the regular season.

Almost all of the rest, when we did well in the preseason with the starters at something - we excelled in that in the regular season. And for almost all the rest, when we struggled at something in preseason - we struggled the whole damn year in the regular season at that very thing.

There will be some shifts this year, because we have 2 new coordinators and 2 new systems. But the idea the preseason does not matter and isn't an indicator 'because it is just preseason' is just stupid. The preseason #s in aggregate don't matter, but the preseason #s for the starters matter significantly.

It probably does not matter because in a few weeks the real games will start and we will see the same problems and the same successes as we did with the starters in the regular season. So not much point in arguing.

The only thing that's worrying me about the preseason is the number of players being injured. Is it just me, or every time I read Seahawks news, I cringe just a little expecting to hear about the next player being out for an extended amount of time. I know next man up but still...

Well, 1s vs 1s in the Chargers game, hey held them to 7 points on offense. All while having WAY more passing yards, some decent runs etc. Also, they had a TD called back and an extremely rare fumble by Carson at the goal line.
Shoot, neither team seemed like they wanted to play D in that 1st half.
But hey, the Eagles, Falcons and Cowboys are all 0-2, they should pack it in too :lol:
As far as injuries go, it seems league wide, there are way too many. I just wish they would make pre-season 2 games only.

TwistedHusky":3vnlroda said:

The preseason #s in aggregate don't matter, but the preseason #s for the starters matter significantly.

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Not sure if I agree with this.

Through the preseason so far nobody is actually scheming against their opponents at all (with the exception of Mike Zimmer maybe, which preseason betters seem to believe is true), meaning that save for game 3 the preseason numbers for starters aren't actually indicative of what would happen in a real game -- it's just a base offense being pitted against a base defense for a few series with the entire chess match of football removed from the equation.

Within those confines you can still see how guys do in their one on one matchups (e.g. yep, Ifedi still sucks), but not much beyond that. It's basically like trying to figure out who the good chess players are by watching them play checkers.

Bigpumpkin":3c901tb5 said:

Last year we won all of our Preseason games. This year we've lost two and are "underdogs" to the Vikings . I'm getting worried about our ability to "snap out of it"!

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Yeah we won all our preseason games last year, went 9-7 and missed the playoffs. Should tell you all you need to know about how important winning preseason games are.

If you're looking for indicators, watch the first teams on offense, defense and special teams. So our takeaway so far isn't "we're underdogs to the Vikings in a preseason game," it should be "first team offense and special teams looks good, but first team defense has looked shaky."

I suppose that depends on how you measure 'effectiveness'.

Again, the real games will be starting soon. Not sure we will be too many surprises when the regular season starts. But I would love to be wrong.

What I do know is that weaknesses that pop up in the preseason have a nasty habit of following us all through the regular season. I was assured the scoring issues last year were 'just preseason', 'the offenses are vanilla, etc. Nope.

And when we were dominant through the regular season we were pretty much buzzsaws through the preseason too.

But again, in a few weeks the coin flips will count. I would love to be pleasantly surprised instead.

(When I say preseason, I mean 1s vs 1s - I don't count 2nd string, 3rd string or 983rd string matchups. I also look at drive effectiveness, not scores but I still think it is a very good predictor of regular season effectiveness if you evaluate it in context and with the starters.)

We went 4-0 in the 2009 preseason.

Detroit went 4-0, only to go 0-16 in the Regular Season

endzorn":2wuqpnex said:

This is among the biggest preseason games in Seattle history.

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Yep, the 1's will play most of the game against their 1's I believe. This will give me an idea of how our season could look like.

Against San Diego I saw mostly what I wanted to see from us:

Opening the game with play action and going deep while Wilson had adequate protection.
Wilson threw deep even into contested coverage.
Our receiver caught the ball in contested coverage.
Our defense got San Diego's first-string off the field.
Carson made aggressive and powerful runs.
Dickson flipped the field three times, and did so with only 1 total return yard.

Where pre-season wins come is from three places:
Game planning, which only the truly desperate do in pre-season in order to provide a glimmer of hope to the fans to sell tickets.
Individual brilliance or failure from a player busting his ass to make the team, or trying too hard and coming up short.
Depth.

We lost against San Diego primarily due to the punt return, which was a combination of very nice speed on the return team, and unfortunately Ryan trying a little to hard and out-kicking his coverage. The man's a true legend and competitor, but Dickson is possibly a generational talent, and kicking 50+ consistently with hang time is nearly impossible to beat.

However, even without that score we still lose that game, and I think that comes down to lack of depth. Injuries and starters sitting out contributes to that, but we are unfortunately shallow in many places. We'll need some luck to hit double-digit wins this year, but it's definitely doable if we catch a bit of health.

It's not about how many games you win in the pre-season, it's how many loses a team has. It is extremely rare for a team to make the playoffs going 0-4 in the pre-season.

SoulfishHawk":3lx2l41k said:

Well, 1s vs 1s in the Chargers game, hey held them to 7 points on offense

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Seven points on two drives. Philip stopped playing pretty early on.

seahawkfreak":1tevbb2e said:

It's not about how many games you win in the pre-season, it's how many loses a team has. It is extremely rare for a team to make the playoffs going 0-4 in the pre-season.

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Not sure playoffs is a realistic goal for this team. They will be competitive, but there are some glaring flaws and the division alone is going to be an absolute dog fight.