i definitely agree 100% with this. playcalling was terrible. seattle was just the beneficiary of a historically pathetic performance of tackling and coverage

there were buses to Manhattan, yes. I know people who took it, they aren't reporting the same nightmares as the train. normally you would think train >>>bus but I guess not in this case.

why the bleacher report is the pinnacle of sports journalism

No

More specifically, he was replaced by the manager that beat them in the World Series. And it turned out to be the end of the Yankees dynasty so it was a pretty terrible career move by the Cardinals guy.

Nope that won't happen and it shouldn't. Pete Carroll has more or less stated that he is responsible for the overall style of how the offense was run IE type of plays called, number of running plays, number of pass plays, types of plays, etc. Bevell calls the plays but he gets his direction from Carroll. I think Bevell did an excellent job with the Hawks this year. So does Carroll from what I can tell.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/6...-seahawks-pick

indeed

He won't get fired. Elway hired him and Elway comments in his season ending press conference indicated that he has no intention of firing him. I look for Elway to try and improve the OL and put Manning under center more emphasizing the running game a lot more. Denver lost Von Miller during the year as he is far and away their best defensive player. Denver has some issues on defense. Manning is a sitting duck and the Super Bowl matchup was terrible for Denver. Seattle had no worries about Elway extending plays and running so they could play a lot more to man to man with a great secondary.

as if 1 isnt bad enough. criticizing the tannehill & alshon picks takes it to another level

Denver’s out-of-conference games for this upcoming season: Seattle, San Francisco, Arizona, St. Louis, Cincinnati, New York Jets... and i think they face NE next year

so SD twice, KC twice and those 7... thats 11 tough games (ok 10 lol jets), 2 gimmees (lol raiders) and possibly at least 1 more tough game

take under on season win total when it comes out...

This game reminded me of the 80's through the mid 90's Super Bowls where the NFC team would usually just skull **** the helpless AFC squad. Back then it was a lot more obvious generally that the AFC team was screwed before the game even began.

~20 minutes in, enjoying this so far

OT, but I just read that Malcolm Smith played only 49% of defensive snaps for the Seahawks. Is that the first time an MVP has ever played less than half the team's snaps?

Without knowing how to quickly look it up, Desmond Howard for the Packers against New England seems likely since he had no catches in the game.

Saw somewhere that if they played on Sunday the new line would open Seattle -3.5.

FREE MONEY

It was obvious .. to some.

i was hoping for denver to win but thought seattle was going to win. made me sick. i also thought the nfc was by far the power conference and the afc, had sadly, become a joke due to all the injuries to key players and the fact that teams had just gotten older. denver lost 3 key players. NE lost what 10 or so players that mattered. Cincy lost atkins and have red rocket. Indy lost wayne. KC had a few injuries on D and Houston/Pitt/Baltimore had there own big issues.

You do realize that he's been a head coach for longer than the 2 seasons that he's had Peyton Manning, right? He got the job based on a resume at Carolina where he NEVER had a franchise QB. He took over a 1-15 team and had them in the Super Bowl two years later. His starting QB his first year where they went 7-9 was a 36 year old Rodney Peete. In year two they went to the Super Bowl with 28 year old journeyman Jake Delhomme who up to that point had 2 starts in the NFL and that was 4 years prior. His first season with Denver he had Orton and Tebow and he still managed to lead them to an 8-8 record which was a miracle in itself and won a playoff game in the wildcard round. If anything he's produced results better than expectation with less than franchise quarterbacks and he's been right around expectation with a GOATish QB.

LOB is followed by a riot!

Is it really Hindsight Bias when many of the smartest people who wager actual money unloaded on Seattle? It's more like foresight confirmation.

his first season in Denver he had a horse shoe, -81 PD and a couple of miracle wins in Denver. He ran like god that year with some Tebow miracle 4Q comebacks.

in carolina he did a decent job. he is still a moron. he had a couple of seasons he ran well to get to the playoffs despite pretty mediocre PDs. he never had real talent though so you are definitely right.

They play next year. That line might be available somewhere.

Finished watching this, enjoyed the breakdown. It reminded me how nervous I was when Kam left the field with a minor injury. It was obvious that Shead just wasn't the same type of player that Kam is, either pre-snap (Earl was constantly lining him up) or after the snap (ldo).

Question on the one negative play you pointed out when Thurmond ran into Kam after Kam failed to blitz when his man engaged at the LOS: Wouldn't the blitz-engage tactic be vulnerable to a TE engaging for a second and then releasing up the seam? Maybe this would be too slow-developing to worry about, but I wonder if Kam was playing it cautious for that reason.

Glad you pointed that play out though, I would have assumed Thurmond was responsible for the long completion without your insight.

That's a very good question.

Blitzing there does have an inherent risk. Typically the belief is if the TE/RB does bail on his block the guy blitzing should not be covered by one of the linemen so he will be running free so at worst you will get a pass disruption due to the pressure. Now in the NFL, and even moreso Peyton Manning, can punish these better than most. With that said, it's still more likely than not you will get a hit on Manning.

But say the Hawks did want to be cautious and not have Kam run in there like a bat out of hell. The one thing he can't do is just stand still. In the case of not blitzing he should have dropped to the middle zone of the field. That way he is still a factor on the play and is in motion so could potentially either cover or get out of the way of a Corner covering.

When you watch the play you can see the gears grinding in his head. It seems he just got caught in a moment of "oh crap...ummm, what do I do here?" He unfortunately did the worst thing he could and it caused a sizeable gain. I think you could put it on that man to man coverage, especially over a TE, might just not be something worked on a ton and even if it is, it is not something we see the Seahawks do a lot in games. So the instinct just wasn't there. But I think they do just fine without having to run that type of coverage very much.

I enjoyed your breakdown, too, Needle. Really interesting stuff.

I felt horrible after this, because my first impulse was "He might be slightly concussed and I hope he talks his way back onto the field because Superbowl" and then instantly hated that idea.