How the Seahawks covered Jimmy Graham

[jdblack]

Thanks Scott! I've shared this around work, spurred an hour and a half conversation about our scheme & personnel.

 

[Puddinhead]

Graham tore the plantar fascia in his foot early in that New England game, and has been playing through the pain of the tear since that point. Teams have been more successful the latter half of the season by bodying up on Graham, but I'm not sure how much of that is from his only being able to plant and push off of one foot right now. Ditto with his being able to run away from anyone through the second half of the season. He's had to play since that point a lot like Tony Gonzalez has played for some years...find a soft spot and just try to box out the defender away from the ball.

 

[Puddinhead]

Incidently, and not the topic of this thread, but Keenan Lewis practiced and has tweeted that he'll be good to go come Saturday. Not always sure the injured player is the right one to always listen to in cases like this...but he did practice.

 

[Scottemojo]

Awesome work as always, Scott.

Did you notice if the Hawks changed up their defense on the TD drive? Was there a difference in the coverage or pressure packages?

I would have to look again. there were a couple of blitzes, but those only resulted in short gains.

I would have to assume Seattle would be happy to have the Saints relay on a dink and dunk game, that would be a lot of chances to hit guys.

Bucky Brooks did a masterful writeup on this matchup on NFL.com.