One thing I remember when Holmgren was the coach of the Hawks was how few penalties the team was assessed. This year alone we have 3 players that rank in the top 9 in the league (okung 2, giacomini 4, Wilson 9). Pete has got to get this team under control if we are going to make a run. Too many times this year penalties have cost us and if it continues it will eventually cost us the season. A good first step was when he sat Giacomini. This kind of punishment needs to continue to right the ship. Anyone else feel this too?

There has to be a balance. Holmgren's teams had very few penalties, but along with that came the "soft" label. Because the Seahawks weren't getting in guy's faces and punching them in the mouth.

If guys are being more intimidating physically, then there will be more penalties. It is just unavoidable. But we are past the line of what is acceptable and it needs to be reigned in a bit.

There has to be a balance.

HawkFan72 wrote:There has to be a balance. Holmgren's teams had very few penalties, but along with that came the "soft" label. Because the Seahawks weren't getting in guy's faces and punching them in the mouth.

If guys are being more intimidating physically, then there will be more penalties. It is just unavoidable. But we are past the line of what is acceptable and it needs to be reigned in a bit.

There has to be a balance.

Good post. Concur 100%.

HawkFan72 wrote:There has to be a balance. Holmgren's teams had very few penalties, but along with that came the "soft" label. Because the Seahawks weren't getting in guy's faces and punching them in the mouth.

If guys are being more intimidating physically, then there will be more penalties. It is just unavoidable. But we are past the line of what is acceptable and it needs to be reigned in a bit.

There has to be a balance.

Absolutely this. To paraphrase an old racing adage; there's a fine line between fast and out of control. To use an old skiing adage; if you don't wipe out now and then, you aren't trying hard enough.

We play a very hard nosed, smash mouth style nowdays so penalties are going to be an unfortunate byproduct of that sometimes as we push the envelope. The key is to keep guys like Breno playing mean and just on the edge of out of control, but within the rules. Because if we let him continue carrying on like he has been, he could easily turn into another Richie Incognito (and that doesn't help anyone).

Holmgren could have never drafted/acquired these players either.

It's definitely a mirror of coaching style and player acquisition.

Holmgren was a rigid discipline fist kind of coach that liked to play more finesse on both sides of the ball, so that's how his team played. Carroll wanted a nasty physical defense, and a nasty physical offensive line. Carroll also runs a loose practice, so we're seeing the result of all these things.

With me, I can forgive the defense picking up a personal foul penalty for being too aggressive, because they've backed it up by being the #1 defense in the league. You can't say the same for the same stupid offensive penalties. This offense is not good enough to overcome personal foul penalties yet.

HawkFan72 wrote:There has to be a balance. Holmgren's teams had very few penalties, but along with that came the "soft" label.

Nobody was complaining about that in 2005.

MontanaHawk05 wrote:

HawkFan72 wrote:There has to be a balance. Holmgren's teams had very few penalties, but along with that came the "soft" label.

Nobody was complaining about that in 2005.

Nope, nobody here anyway. But it was said during that season regardless, and we saw the truth in it during the years before and after.

We frequently had talked about wanting a more aggressive defense and about having a team that would punch you in the mouth. I remember several threads that came up about how we were perceived as the choir boys of the NFL and that you could kick our ass and we would take it and ask forgiveness on Monday for your soul.

Several times old farts would lament the days of Easley and our defense.

We could have whole multi page threads about Alexander and how he would fall down before contact etc and not show any tough running unless it was a touchdown inside the 10 yard line.

Man I miss Easley. Ha ha ... He said farts.

"Soft" or not, Holmgren got them to a Super Bowl - of which they should have probably won.

I love the attitude of our defense, but the stupid penalties have got to stop.

VHawk wrote:Holmgren could have never drafted/acquired these players either.

Probably not.. but in 2005, we were 1st in offense and 7th on defense.

Compare that now to 28th on offense and 2nd on defense.

I'd say Holmgren did ok.

Hasselbeck wrote:

VHawk wrote:Holmgren could have never drafted/acquired these players either.

Probably not.. but in 2005, we were 1st in offense and 7th on defense.

Compare that now to 28th on offense and 2nd on defense.

I'd say Holmgren did ok.

Who cares. That is in the past and we have a young offense, we are improving weekly and who is to say where we will end up this year?

And one thing that's happening is that the Hawks are picking up the label of "penalty-prone" and it's beginning to stick. The natural result is that refs will look just a little bit closer at whatever the Hawks do. Giacomini has already felt the effects of this and maybe Okung has as well. Once they're looking at you harder than they're looking at the other guy, they WILL find stuff.

Most of Okung's stuff was false starts playing against Arizona where he banged his knee a bit and was trying to over compensate and jumped.... a lot....

MontanaHawk05 wrote:

HawkFan72 wrote:There has to be a balance. Holmgren's teams had very few penalties, but along with that came the "soft" label.

Nobody was complaining about that in 2005.

The Stealers were'nt considered "Soft" they were perceived the better team because they were smashmouth on BOTH sides of the ball, and more than once, they were bestowed the Lombardi because of it
Our Defense is getting a lot fewer penalties than last Year, and now the Offense is sporting a Rook that will get better, and Cable will fine tune the O-line to strike that ballance we need to take us to the next level.
The 49rs Defense kept their Offense in contention, and we will get there when Wilson gets in sync,,,Smith didn't get IT for several years, let's just hope that Wilson finds his groove this Season.

VivaEfrenHerrera wrote:And one thing that's happening is that the Hawks are picking up the label of "penalty-prone" and it's beginning to stick. The natural result is that refs will look just a little bit closer at whatever the Hawks do. Giacomini has already felt the effects of this and maybe Okung has as well. Once they're looking at you harder than they're looking at the other guy, they WILL find stuff.

I'm actually worried about the defensive penalties on Sunday. It's no secret that the league's golden child is Brady, and any hit that's even close to late is going to be called. That goes for holding his precious receivers.

It's gonna be a long day for us if the refs call a bunch of borderline defensive penalties on us that extend drives for the Pats.

Hasselbeck wrote:

VHawk wrote:Holmgren could have never drafted/acquired these players either.

Probably not.. but in 2005, we were 1st in offense and 7th on defense.

Compare that now to 28th on offense and 2nd on defense.

I'd say Holmgren did ok.

1st in Offense, but not JUST because of Hasselbeck, Mack Strong, Alexanders 1,880 yards, O-linemen including future HOF Walter Jones+ Steve Hutchinson, Rob Tobeck, Grey and considered the ONLY weak link Locklear had a big hand in getting us that label.
Having the # 1 Offense didn't get us the Lombardi either,,The Stealers were considered the better Defense ,and as we've all parroted over the years, "Defense Wins Championships"

scutterhawk wrote:

Hasselbeck wrote:

VHawk wrote:Holmgren could have never drafted/acquired these players either.

Probably not.. but in 2005, we were 1st in offense and 7th on defense.

Compare that now to 28th on offense and 2nd on defense.

I'd say Holmgren did ok.

1st in Offense, but not JUST because of Hasselbeck, Mack Strong, Alexanders 1,880 yards, O-linemen including future HOF Walter Jones+ Steve Hutchinson, Rob Tobeck, Grey and considered the ONLY weak link Locklear had a big hand in getting us that label.
Having the # 1 Offense didn't get us the Lombardi either,,The Stealers were considered the better Defense ,and as we've all parroted over the years, "Defense Wins Championships"

I don't think that 05 defense gets enough credit for what they did that year, but they also had the tremendous bennefit of having an offense that ate clock and kept their opponents offenses off the field (and you can't put up stats if you can't get in the game after all).

That's what is really impressive about our current #1 ranked defense; it feels like the O kicks out a half dozen 3 & outs a game, yet the D STILL puts up the numbers they do. That's super impressive.

Yep, the penalties are frustrating. I don't mind seeing aggressive penalties from time to time, but the stupid, mindless penalties are another thing.

When the play is on the other side, just be disciplined and don't bring it back on something stupid. Russell Wilson has just got to get to the point where there are no Delay of Game calls. I hate Delay of Game. If it's the coaches not getting the call in quick enough, it should be addressed. It should only take a week to fix it. Watching a 3rd and 1 turn into a 3rd and 6 due to Delay of Game is frustrating.

I agree with experience Russell Wilson will get past that. I didn't realize he had so many penalties, goodness!!

I honestly don't care about the stuff on Okung. He seems to have settled in. It also seems that they give certain D-Lineman and linebackers (DWare especially) a chance to get a jump. When you are playing a fast guy, that's got to get your internal clock twitching a little bit...

Everybody likes having the smash mouth team, but I'm in the "let's not crap all over Holmgren" camp. The Holmgren era brought this team to relevance out of the dark ages, and he had a lot to do with that. I can't say a lot of good things about him as a GM but I liked this team when he was the coach.

Holmgren's anal tendency was most visible when he traded Ahman Green to Green Bay for Fred Vinson because the guy fumbled too much.

Fred Vinson, wow, blast from the past.

Just as patience was a virtue for Holmgren's offense, patience is a virtue for getting a young, NFL Pete Carroll team to learn the line between physicality and dumb. In year 3, Holmgren still had ALOT of explaining to do for his offense. More explaining than Pete has to do with his penalties, IMO.

The UR penalty against Breno was legal by the rulebook. It's the same block Browner got called for agaisnt the Bengals last year on a punt return. Breno will figure it out, just like Browner seemingly has.

Also, I dont think its something that'll ever go away completly. That's the cost of having a team which can just beat the isht out of someone.

bmorepunk wrote:Everybody likes having the smash mouth team, but I'm in the "let's not crap all over Holmgren" camp. The Holmgren era brought this team to relevance out of the dark ages, and he had a lot to do with that. I can't say a lot of good things about him as a GM but I liked this team when he was the coach.

Holmgren's anal tendency was most visible when he traded Ahman Green to Green Bay for Fred Vinson because the guy fumbled too much.

I'm not diss'n Holmgren, but he did have an O-line, RB, FB that was off the charts to work his mojo with while Carroll has to try'n get SB results with guys that have a lot of gumtion, but are nowhere near the potential at this juncture.
Let's just hope the Seahawks are lucky enough to have that lightning strike twice in the same place.
Pete's already got the RB & FB to get there, it's just a bit early to expect the O-line to get all their ducks in a row, and Wilson?, he's got all the tools, just needs a bit more Seasoning, because without sitting on the sidelines to learn some aspects of the NFL speed of play, he literaly has to learn on the run.
He's a smart kid with an uncanny aptitude for the game, just hopeing the lights come on sooner, rather than later.

Sgt. Largent wrote:With me, I can forgive the defense picking up a personal foul penalty for being too aggressive, because they've backed it up by being the #1 defense in the league. You can't say the same for the same stupid offensive penalties. This offense is not good enough to overcome personal foul penalties yet.

Well said and spot on. We're getting closer but in the meantime, with so little room for error, we can't be shooting ourselves in the foot.

The 2005 Seahawks were a smash-mouth offense. We could run the ball on ANYONE. The Stealers fans were all shocked that we ran on them so well. Mostly I recall that in 2005 defense went from sucking to average, and gelled near the end of the season to a little above average, courtesy of nice rookie pickups like Lofa Tatupu and Leroy Hill. With a top 5 offense, and an average defense, we were finally good enough to reach the Super Bowl. Remember the couple years before that, the Seahawks offense was so good we could move the ball on ANYONE consistently, and score, but our smallish defense consistently got bullied and beaten up by smash-mouth teams with large OL's.

I've honestly never seen labels like "soft" or "smashmouth" as having the final word on a team's quality. We were a finesse team from 2003-2007, but we still won because we executed. That's what it's about to me: execution.

Holmgren's team may not have had a "thuggish" reputation, but he was so fixated on execution and so demanding in practices that the team got it down to a science. Opponents knew exactly what we were going to do, stacked up against it, and it didn't make a lick of difference, because we executed. We didn't lose XL because the Steelers were the better team, we lost because we didn't execute, kept dropping crucial passes (and got rooked by the refs). And our team's decline didn't come because of some "soft" identity that was sitting on the back-burner waiting for its chance to bite us in the ass, it lost because our running attack collapsed from old age/injury/free agency, and got replaced by guys who didn't execute right away.

Similarly, I don't even think we're winning now purely because of our "smashmouth" identity. Our running game is getting a lot of traction because of the tenacity and strength of our O-line, yeah, I'll give y'all that. But on defense, it's not about the big hits or the sacks, it's technique. Our defense has terrific technique, awareness, tackling, and discipline all across the board. You can hit people hard all day, but if you blow an assignment the next play or allow leverage to a WR, there's no point. Our defense executes.

Same thing in Dallas. I suppose I can't disprove the idea that we had an undefinable psychological edge in that game, but we didn't win just because of that. We won because we executed better than Dallas, cut down on our penalties and made timely plays while Jason Witten and Dez Bryant kept dropping passes.