ivotuk":3kxjng7y said:
"Seattle at New Orleans
The Seahawks are playing consecutive road games, which is tough. They didn't look good at all on offense at Arizona last week. But that defense is special. And I think they will control the tempo, slowing Drew Brees. The Seahawks will get out with a victory.
Pick: Seahawks 21, Saints 14"
I have to agree with him on the AZ defense. They are ranked high in almost every category.
Passing: #3 193.0 YPG [Seattle #9 226 YPG]
Rushing: #13 96.6 YPG [Seattle #5 84.2 YPG]
Points: #5 15.7 PPG [Seattle TIED #1 14.0 PPG]
I concur, the Seahawks defense is arguably the best Dline in all of the NFL and will go down historically as such as well I think. With that said I think many of you are being a little hard on the Seahawk's offense. I've read post after post using the Arizona game as their basis for the conclusion that Seattle's Oline is a subpar offense, which I will argue based on the same thing as many are, the game against the Arizona Cardinals.
If you have read some of my other post, I will likely sound like a broken record. I have gone back and watched film footage from that game several times since it ended.
I subscribed to NFL Game Pass a few years ago, so my family of Seahawk junkies could catch a game if they happened to be away from the television at game time. I have since, myself, began using it to review Seahawk games, looking for contributions I might be able to offer by praise or by criticism to the defense, the offense and the special teams. .
It's my humble opinion that the Seahawks Oline has improved dramatically and the numbers are starting to reflect that. Consider for a moment that if you were to remove the excessive offensive holding penalty yards assessed to them in every possession they had in Sundays game with the Cardinals.
I probably would make a better case for my argument if I were to go dig up the actual number of offensive holding penalties were charged to the Seattle Seahawks Oline and how many actual yards were tossed in their way as an unsurmountable obstacle in trying to convert 3rd downs.
I don't think any other quarterback in the NFL today could have overcome the crippling obstacles that the officials threw there way by way of offensive holding penalties. As most NFL analyst will tell you, the OH penalty is almost always, marginal at best and subjective to the interpretation of the official calling it.
In most games most officials don't call many offensive holding penalties, unless they are grossly obvious. Otherwise they let the players fight it out, unless of course they are trying to exact a certain outcome. No matter the motivation for calling such an excessive number of penalties on the Seahawks Oline, while almost completely ignoring identical type offenses on the Cardinals Oline's side of the ball, is speculative I suppose, one would have to at least ask themselves why that might be.
For Russell Wilson and his Oline To have hung in there and come within scoring and winning distance on as many times as they did Sunday night, with only a fraction of time in possession as the Cardinals had and with only a fraction of the yards of play and time in possession that they had to work with, speaks volumes, not only about Russell Wilson, but about his absolutely outstanding cast of characters that make up his Oline.
I think to say that the Seattle Seahawks Offensive Line has not evolved into maybe one of the best offensive lines in the NFL right now, is being pretty nearsighted. In order to do so, you would need to be willing to naively ignore the crippling efforts of the officials against the Seahawk Oline, by way of their most potent weapon for accomplishing that outcome, the Offensive Holding penalty.
To ignore everything that Russell and his Oline were able to achieve in spite of it all, to recognize that on more that one occasion over the course of this game that they were able to put themselves in a position to win, with as many penalty yards, as little time in possession and as few yards of play that they were allowed, less the penalties, to achieve what they did, against what is arguably one of the highest ranked defenses in the NFL at present, and to overcome what appeared to be the best laid efforts of the officiating crew, to exact a completely different outcome, is simply an insult to Pete Carol, Darrell Bevell, Russell Wilson and his incredible assembly of offensive players.
Opinions are like Aholes, we all have one, and this is mine.
Go Hawks!
