D Gives Up 17 play TD Drive to Preview Season

[Jazzhawk]

But did you guys see? Jalen Carter ran by a guard who didn't move! he is obviously awesome

Which is more than you can say about Witherspoon, because he's not even practicing.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

A defense featuring many starters (Nwosu, JReed, Mafe, Michael Jackson, and Devin Bush along with rotational players looked eerily similar to what they looked like last season, while getting carved up by a Dallas squad who played no starters.

If you're not concerned about this after recent history, I don't know what to tell you.

 

[had2bhawk]

I think the run D this season will surprise a lot of people mostly because of the new personnel on the d-line AND the new scheme, IT IS changing but I don't think we will see much of it during the preseason because I'm pretty sure Pete isn't looking to give away tape on it and two, they aren't looking to win games they are looking to assess players potential in making this roster.

This will continue till they assess who is physically capable, then the mental aspect will be applied to work with others. You will see improvement next game. By season opener hopefully the stage of starters will be pretty close to being set. I'm sure there will be a few more adjustments made. IMO Pete has some Hard Decisions to make for 53 man roster.

 

[Yxes1122]

This D will need time to gel. The starting DL is entirely new. Our Week 1 starting ILBs will likely be an old Bobby and Bush (new to team.) Our starting CBs will likely be a rookie with no preseason reps and a 2nd year player (that is coming off injury and still learning the position.) One of our 2 starting safeties will either be coming off a terrible injury or be on his first season with the team.

That is a huge amount of changeover and it will take time to click, if it does at all.

But, when the Seattle Overload guys say: “Seattles ‘23 preseason scheme is already more dynamic than anything they saw in the ‘22 regular season.” I think there’s reason for optimism.

I’ve seen enough to believe scheme was the biggest problem in ‘22. When ‘23 is showing us changes to scheme, then we can at least take heart in the fact that it’s not just repeating old mistakes. Let’s give it more than 2 preseason drives before we ring the alarm bells.

 

[bileever]

The defensive personnel is cause for excitement and concern. Watching the last two games, you can't help but be excited about Derick Hall and Boye Mafe playing on the edge with Nwosu and Taylor. And we have some nice pieces in the secondary. But the interior d-line and the linebacking corps definitely make you uneasy.

In the NFL, you can be a good defense through personnel or through scheme. Our defensive roster is not elite by any means and our confidence in Hurtt's scheme has been shaken by experience, to say the least. But if we are hoping for average to above-average (instead of 30th in the league), I think we have a shot at that.

 

[Welshers2]

Same old Fade, two games into the preseason and complaining after a win! Some things never change brother. It's early. This team is young with a ton of talent. Have some optimism!

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Just waiting for the standard Fade take of...........Fire Pete.
Yep, winning sucks!!!!!!

 

[pittpnthrs]

This D will need time to gel.

This has been the battle cry for the last 4 years and its getting old. I understand Fades point as it seems like the same old thing once again. Taking a half a season to get things sorted out to be pedestrian on the defensive side of the ball at best. Its way past due to solidify the roster and scheme. And as somebody has already said - I have zero confidence in Hurtt. Hope he proves me wrong.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

The difference is that you will very like actually admit it if you're wrong. Negative or not, I know that much about you.

 

[keasley45]

I'm hoping that if Geno holds to form, our offense will be potent enough that the defense won't need to be anything more than average.

And if we are able to possess the ball 31 minutes per game, I think that's within reach.

 

[Chawker]

Its called sake'in off the rust, that 17 play drive was the rust coming off.

Cheers

 

[morgulon1]

This D will need time to gel. The starting DL is entirely new. Our Week 1 starting ILBs will likely be an old Bobby and Bush (new to team.) Our starting CBs will likely be a rookie with no preseason reps and a 2nd year player (that is coming off injury and still learning the position.) One of our 2 starting safeties will either be coming off a terrible injury or be on his first season with the team.

That is a huge amount of changeover and it will take time to click, if it does at all.

But, when the Seattle Overload guys say: “Seattles ‘23 preseason scheme is already more dynamic than anything they saw in the ‘22 regular season.” I think there’s reason for optimism.

I’ve seen enough to believe scheme was the biggest problem in ‘22. When ‘23 is showing us changes to scheme, then we can at least take heart in the fact that it’s not just repeating old mistakes. Let’s give it more than 2 preseason drives before we ring the alarm bells.

I'm with ya man. I'll give them Three drives.

 

[Yxes1122]

This has been the battle cry for the last 4 years and its getting old. I understand Fades point as it seems like the same old thing once again. Taking a half a season to get things sorted out to be pedestrian on the defensive side of the ball at best. Its way past due to solidify the roster and scheme. And as somebody has already said - I have zero confidence in Hurtt. Hope he proves me wrong.

Totally understand. But this is the first time since maybe 2012 that we had a plethora of corner stone players under club control for 2-3 years.

The only position group that isn’t like that on Defense is ILB and IDL. But CB, Safety, EDGE are all deep and rostered for at least 2 years.

We’re not holding onto a bunch of aging vets and filling out the entirety of our Defensive roster with JAG FAs on 1 year deals. It also feels like we don’t have any upcoming “Hold ins” or camp distractions of significance coming in the next year or two… which has been the first time since 2014 that we didn’t have some kind of camp drama.

More than anything, the defense feels energized with youth in a way it hasn’t in a long time.

I understand the excuse making from previous years but I think the outlook is different since the Russ trade.

 

[scutterhawk]

^^ Yup, and another big change I've noticed since the "Russ trade'', more & more players from the 2012 era have been dropping by and offering up some enthusiastic advice to some of the newbies.

 

[keasley45]

This has been the battle cry for the last 4 years and its getting old. I understand Fades point as it seems like the same old thing once again. Taking a half a season to get things sorted out to be pedestrian on the defensive side of the ball at best. Its way past due to solidify the roster and scheme. And as somebody has already said - I have zero confidence in Hurtt. Hope he proves me wrong.

Except it's not the same old thing. If you wanna boil it down to 'we are great' or 'we suck', well you can look at the last several years on offense (last year aside) and defense and say 'we suck'. But it's not that simple, nor is the cause for failure the same year over year. In 2020 and 2021, we had a suspect pass defense and solid enough run defense. In 2022, we were solid through the air on defense but bad against the run.
Two different problems, different coordinators over that span with drastically different results, run v pass, and entirely different personnel.
Prior to that, and up until the dismantling of thr LOB, we became a middle of the pack overall.
So if you wanna have a substantive conversation about the evolving or devolving unit that has been our defense, at least tie it to fact.
Post LOB we tried to substitute out parts but with low round draft picks and without players that brought the necessary attitude, so we went from great and revolutionary, to watered down and less talented.
The first aspect of our D to suffer post LOB was our short to middle pass defense. Offenses figured us out and we were slow to react. Our pass D rankings plummeted and reached their worse point in 2020. Our run D was solid, and overall, we were top 10 in scoring defense, or just outside of it.
We were slow to adapt thereafter and looked to the addition of a Swiss army knife type of talent in Jamal to help our D regain a schematic advantage by making us less predictable, while still adhering to the core philosophy that brought us success.
Then, in 2021 we shifted our approach and went wholesale into a schematic shift that saw (frustratingly) a defense using players that looked to be out of position ( adams playing deep, Dunlap dropping off the line) in what was the first step toward what we were supposed to see in 2022.
Then, in 2022, the player the defense was built around went down in week 1 and for that reason and others that have been documented, the defense spent 17 games trying to adapt, then revert, then adapt again without key players to lead the effort.
This year, the FO was tasked with filling the voids in a leaky unit. When they didn't see the value or personnel they wanted on the interior Dline, they got the best talent available in other spots with the goal of building dominance on special teams, the running game, passing game, and pass defense, to cover for whatever inadequacies they might have at the one position they couldn't fortify in the way they wanted.
But its not as tbough they've not addressed the run defense. In their estimation and has been reasonably supported, much of the failure last year had nothing to do with not having a J Carter type on the D line, but rather with not playing sound gap responsible defense in the run game. So they brought Bobby back to run things on the field, brought Reed back to provide stout play and penitratiom inside, added Cameron Young and a slew of young and veteran talent on the edges, and look to be going back to the approach they likely were hoping to settle into when they first brought Adams onboard. So less front play that we saw in 2022 and more of what we've been used to. 3-4 looks with 1 gap play and penetratiom on the interior.
None of that is what we saw last year. None of it is a continuation of anything in any way.

Again, you can call it ' continued ' sucking if you want, but based on what? A preseason game?. that carries about as much water as the arguments that said Geno would suck here prior to last year because he sucked before, pointing to statistical evidence as proof and cherrypicking every error in his preseason performance to use as basis for predicting failure.

We may well not turn into a top 5 to 10 defense this year. We may only be 15 to 20 against the run. But if we are that, it won't be because we don't know what we are doing. It will be because some other aspect of the improved areas of the team weren't as effective, or that communication of responsibilities and execution was poor.

But it would have to be woefully poor to warrant the doom and gloom by the OP of this thread.

Basic knowledge of thr game and evaluation of the choices we've made make it pretty obvious that the 2023 TEAMWIDE strategy to win games involves controlling the ball, stopping teams from throwing against us via pressure and coverage, and limiting oppositions run effectiveness by making it illogical for them to run in the first place (getting a lead and holding the ball and making running a losing strategy against us) . Teams won't want to kean in the run if they are behind. And it will be easier for us to defend the run if we put the opposing teams passing game under pressure and make it predictable.

For us to fail to the magnitude the OP predicts we'd have to fail completely as a team. And that's just not likely given the changes we've made.

 

[morgulon1]

I'm hoping that if Geno holds to form, our offense will be potent enough that the defense won't need to be anything more than average.

And if we are able to possess the ball 31 minutes per game, I think that's within reach.

I just had a similar thought.

With the way this offense is set up, the Seahawks aren't under the pressure of replicating the Legion. I think as a fan, that's my unrealistic expectation. If Geno Smith takes steps forward like I think he will, the Seahawks don't HAVE to be top 3 on defense (although it would be fun).

IMHO, a top 10 offense with a top 10ish defense could get a team pretty far.

 

[hawks85]

A defense featuring many starters (Nwosu, JReed, Mafe, Michael Jackson, and Devin Bush along with rotational players looked eerily similar to what they looked like last season, while getting carved up by a Dallas squad who played no starters.

If you're not concerned about this after recent history, I don't know what to tell you.

Even with that 17 yard play they still kept the cow patties under 100 yards total for the game, chill out bro, Jesus.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

No way man. 17 play drive, in a practice game, with several starters not even playing..............THEY SUCK!! FIRE ALL THE PEOPLE!

 

[keasley45]

I just had a similar thought.

With the way this offense is set up, the Seahawks aren't under the pressure of replicating the Legion. I think as a fan, that's my unrealistic expectation. If Geno Smith takes steps forward like I think he will, the Seahawks don't HAVE to be top 3 on defense (although it would be fun).

IMHO, a top 10 offense with a top 10ish defense could get a team pretty far.

Yup.

And what's missing in all the ' Pete sucks, Hurtt sucks' ... 'we should have drafted Carter ' talk, is that the team is setup perfectly to go into next offseason with few weaknesses. We'll need dline help and a killer at LB. The rest? Sure, there's the typical cap juggling that needs to happen, but in terms of talent v cap space and contract cycle , we are poised in a way few other teams in the league are. Whatever we achieve this year, we will be better again next year for certain.

But sure, let's predict the unavoidable failure of a unit based on this preseason.

Funny how we go from supposedly having little talent outside of DK and being quarterbackless and rutterless in 2022, to being one of the most talented and balanced rosters in the league a year later and on the verge of championship contention.

Somebody's kool-aid has been tainted.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Clearly, Pete has NOTHING to do with the success of this team