Monday, January 30, 2006

Super Bowl Preview Part 1: "We Want the Ball and We're Gonna Score!"

Funny how the words I once thought were destined to live as part of that curse, that cloud, that indefinable hazy fog that has hung over this franchise almost since its first day don't sting nearly as much as they once did.

I never faulted Hasselbeck for his impromptu remark after the overtime coin toss in Green Bay (and I'm still uncertain whether Alex Bannister was supposed to break off his route on the play). Looking back on it now (after-the-fact rationalization though this may be) it seems like that moment was necessary for Hasselbeck and the team to grow.

Nothing teaches you about the perils of taking things for granted like being humbled in front of everyone. But gaining the maturity to fight back and finally play to your potential; that's what ultimately breaks the curse (or lifts the fog in Seattle's case). Fighting through the Green Bay disappointment, the three gut-punch losses to St. Louis and Mike Holmgren's almost sanctimonious declaration that "one day this team is going to win one of these games," Seattle has managed to do just that.

Along the way they learned the most valuable lesson of all.

The difference between winning and "almost winning" is not all about doing something great. It's about being great at what you do; executing each assignment as well as it can be executed.

Note how Seattle's receivers are now making the routine catch, and how as a consequence Seattle leads the NFL in long drives. Scroll down in this very blog to the still shots of Walter Jones's "Escalade" block on Mike Rucker in the NFC title game. (Jones pushed the all-pro end down the field like he used to push his Escalade during the offseasons he spent holding out. But it was Ryan Hannem, the backup tight end rather than the all-universe left tackle, who turned in the first playoff Escalade block on Mack Strong's 32-yard skamper a week earlier in the divisional round.)

The Seahawks will have few plays make any top-10 lists this season (Alexander's 88 yard run vs. Arizona made Chris Berman's list on ESPN). Yet the Seahawks have been great this year because everyone has made the plays they are supposed to make. Now they are one step away from reaching the pinnacle of the football world.

So how can they take the final step?

When Seattle has the ball it will take not only a great game plan but the right mix of bravado and humility to move the ball and score; because in case you were unaware gentle reader, this Pittsburgh defense is pretty damn good. As always, it starts with the front seven (and oftentimes eight).

Though many analysts begin discussion of Pittsburgh's defense with its blitz happy linebackers and safety the key to it all is its round mound of shut-down nosetackle, Casey Hampton. His main tasks are to shut down the inside run and keep offensive lineman away from Messrs. James Farrior and Larry Foote, the inside linebackers. He excels at both.

To wit, according to defensive line rankings at Football Outsiders.com the Steelers are fourth in defensive adjusted line yards (ALY) for the regular season (ALY is average yards yielded on running plays attributable to the defensive line, adjusted for a number of factors). Further, the Steelers are particularly stingy with rushing yards between the tackles…

But wait! There's more!

The Steelers are even tougher on the run in the guard/center gaps. Well, that thar's Casey Hampton territory folks. In fact, for all the talk of Pittsburgh's sideline to sideline speed they were decidedly middle-of-the-pack in defending runs around either edge during the season. You may be thinking, like I was, that this may be because they give up an occasional average-inflating big play on an end around, or got caught with an off-tackle run in a blitz. Well, you'd be as wrong as I was.

The Steelers were good in all facets of run defense, but best (5th) at preventing long runs (10+ yards). Incidentally, they were 6th at shutting down short yardage/goal line runs, and 6th> at stuffing the run on first and second down. So the Steelers are very good in all facets of run defense; all except on runs aimed at the edges. That appears to be a legitimate weakness. My suspicion is that Pittsburgh's outstanding tandem of outside linebackers, Clark Hagans and Joey Porter, are asked to do a lot, and taking on tackles at the line of scrimmage is the one part of their game that is less than outstanding.

So how can the Seahawks take the ball and score in this game?

Well, in many ways the Dallas game is instructive but not as the cautionary tale it's been portrayed to be in the press. Against Dallas, knowing that Hasselbeck simply could not be in synch on blitz reads without starters Darryl Jackson and Bobby Engram, Holmgren kept his offensive game plan plain vanilla, in a cup, no sprinkles, no swirl. Yet he managed to maintain real balance in his play calling. What I mean by balance here goes beyond simple run-pass ratios. It's more akin to a pitcher in baseball who knows he doesn't have his best stuff that day but who is still willing to throw any pitch on any count to keep the batter offstride.

Bill Parcells tried like heck to entice Holmgren to abandon his balanced approach, daring him to force the ball deep by stacking nine in the box. Yet Holmgren stayed balanced, stuck with the run and the short/intermediate passing game, and eventually wore the Cowboys defense down. That's when he attacked them deep, marching down the field for the game tying score.

Now that Jackson and Engram are healthy Holmgren must avoid the same enticement to abandon his balance, taking shot after shot downfield--in short, he must avoid the Peyton Manning Fallacy. That may involve taking some three and outs. Taking a sack but avoiding the costly mistake. That's the humility part. Now for the bravado.

Many have focused on the Monday night matchup in Indianapolis as a case study in beating Dick LeBeau's defense. I disagree. That game, to use a basketball analogy, was mostly a case of Indy just getting hot from 3pt range early. Indy actually did little damage after their first quarter outburst. Rather, the most instructive games for scoring on Pittsburgh's defense were its regular season matchups against the Bengals.

In both games the Bengals moved the ball and were able to consistently put together long drives. In the first game Pittsburgh forced turnovers. The Steelers intercepted Carson Palmer in consecutive 2nd half possessions, and turned those into points, in what was Palmer's worst game of the year. Yet despite dominating 2nd half time of possession (the world's most misused "stat") Pittsburgh outgained Cincinnati by a mere two net yards (304 to 302) and both teams had an identical 20 first downs.

In the second game it was Pittsburgh committing rather than forcing the drive killing turnovers, though otherwise their offense was scary good. Still, Cincinnati's offensive output was remarkably consistent with the first game (324 net yards, 21 first downs). Their second half long scoring drives included nine plays for 51 yards (FG) and six plays for 49 yards (TD), with another short TD following a long kickoff return. They stayed balanced and they stretched Pittsburgh's defense up, down, and across the field. No Bengals player had more than 5 catches and only Houshmenzadeh had an especially long reception (43 yards). Rudi Johnson had 98 yards on 21 carries, many of which were accumulated in the fourth quarter.

Interestingly, in an early season loss to New England the same pattern was evident. The Patriots were exceptionally balanced, moving the ball at will almost. It was three turnovers (a pick and two fumbles as I recall) that kept Pittsburgh in the game.

The drive stats at Football Outsiders make it pretty clear that putting together successful drives (i.e., percent of series with first downs and/or touchdowns) is Seattle's specialty; they were second only to Indy while Cincinnati was a close third. Pittsburgh's defense is very good—but not fantastic as shutting down drives. Pittsburgh is exceptional at keeping offenses out of the end zone (5th) and at forcing fumbles (9th). But, Cincinnati and New England showed that a team with balance can move the ball on Pittsburgh consistently and score if they can avoid the killer turnover.

Those teams, unlike Indy on that Monday night, did it largely with balance, patience, and without the superhuman highlight play. The key appears to be making Pittsburgh defend the entire field.

Up next: Seattle's defense and special teams

15 comments:

  1. DC - I did some emergency surgery on this post to keep those garbage characters from appearing.

    You gotta remember that if you're cutting and pasting from Word or some newspaper sites, they commas, quotes, apostropes and stuff come through as "special charctrers" that the Blogger font does not recognize.

    Sometimes it's as easy as pasting into Notepad, saving the file, retreiving it and then copying and pasting into Blogger. Sometimes you have to do a find and replace on these special characters.

    Don't worry, you're not the only one this happens to, so I'm providing this tip as a public service to all contributors. 

    Posted by alba

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  2. Thank you, Dr. A!

    But what is funny about the line spacing in some of the paragraphs? 

    Posted by Bluefoot

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  3. thanks man. 

    Posted by dave crockett

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  4. There, I fixded the line spacing.

    Great article. I've always thought that the "we want the ball and we're gonna score" was a good thing, win or lose. Matt provides just the right type of 'screw the world and the dog you rode in on' leadership that this team needed. He is just brash enough to not listen to people that disrespect the Seahawks, and mature enough to not care what they think.

    Also, I have a feeling that Jackson is going to have a good game. He's one of those guys that steps up in the big, tough games.

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  5. Did someone paste Hasselbeck's face onto a picture of Brett Favre? What's going on? 

    Posted by I'm just saying

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  6. "we want the ball and we're gonna score"  I don't care if we lost, thats still my favorite Seahawks moment. It was the coming of age of Matt Hasselbeck and the Seahawks team it just took an extra year. I loved it then and love it now

    DC: this was a good piece to read. I think if we don't turn the ball over we won't have to much of a problem of moving the ball. Washington and Carolina both had good defenses and we moved the ball on them. ( I think Pittsburgh's is better). Lets just not become one dimensional. Stick with the run even if it doesn't seem to work at first.  

    Posted by meezy

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  7. I agree on D-jack. He's the #2 receiver in the playoffs, behind only Smith, who broke the NFL record for post-season receptions and is supposedly unstoppable and a god come to earth, and who incidently has an extra game on Jackson (so far).

    While I don't think Jackson will get the 12 cathes he needs to pass Smith, he may well get the 8 he needs to get 23 catches in the post season, which is the record that god-man Smith broke. Of course, for some reason the fact that D-jack was on pace after two games to beat the record Smith broke in three has not once been mentioned in my hearing. The fact that he has FIFTEEN catches in his two playoff games this season hasn't been mentioned at all that I've heard.

    But I did hear that one of the Steelers is from Detroit. And did you know this is only Ben Roethlisotlerberers second year?  

    Posted by Highwatermark

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  8. Really, HIH20MK? Dang. We don't stand a chance! I surprised the national media hasn't got a hold of that yet. That's a great storyline.

    Great stories like that make the tale of the league MVP and the rise of a fabled but forgotten franchise look BORING in comparison.

     

    Posted by Bluefoot

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  9. dc,
    awesome article. you should be writing for page two instead of skip "please dont call me bob" witless. you are right about time of possession, announcers on tv seem to think that is such a huge stat. your insights on where teams attack the runs and gain the most yards are what teams like the hawks will be paying attention to. have you contacted holmy to make sure he has the same information you do? 

    Posted by rev seahawk

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  10. I've said it once, I'll say it again. I think that if the Seahawks score more points than the Steelers, they'll win this game.

    Here is something that bugs me, when they put up Ben Rothelis-whatever's game win/loss stats it's always 26-4 (or whatever) including the post season . Why does this guy get "including the post season" appended to his stats? Nobody else does. Records and stats are always broken up into regular and post season. They aren't combined! I think its a conspiracy. Pittsburg plays in Pittsburg, yet have a player originally from Detroit? Amazing.

    Looking forward to the future installments Dave. 

    Posted by JoSCh

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  11. This is a pretty good analysis of the Steelers.  

    Posted by Steve

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  12. Great work, DC. I loved the guts it took for Hass to make that kind of declaration in Lambeau -- and if you look at the way the offenses were playing in that game, it seemed like a pretty good prediction.

    Back to the analysis: spot-on. I think this is going to be as close as a game can be, and the team that makes the costly turnover(s), giving up a short field, will lose. Which, as an emotionally scarred yet hopeful fan, terrifies and excites me.

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  13. This was a terrific read Dave, well done, I just LOVE good analysis.

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  14. thanks for the feedback. (special thanks to alba and bluefoot for cleaning up the post.)

    i'm aiming for a friday post of defense/special teams analysis and prediction.

    dave 

    Posted by dave crockett

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  15. When is SOMEBODY going to make the observation that Seattle will be able to deal with Blitzburgh because their linemen RARELY need to double-team anyone.

    Pittsburgh creates holes for the linebackers because linemen either a) miss an assignment or b) choose to double-team a guy leaving another guy free.

    Our line rarely misses and assignment, and Big Walt, Hutch Sgt. Hulka, Graybeard and the Anti-Heather DO NOT NEED HELP BLOCKING ANYONE!

    Add to that Mack Strong's ability to pick up blitzers, and Shaun's improved blocking skills, and to quote my esteemed colleague from SC...I ain't sk'eered! 

    Posted by alba

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