Sean and I caught our first Seahawks game in two years this past Sunday at Qwest Field. What made it a great time was that we hung out with Mat Siltala and his wife, Holly, who flew into Seattle from Arizona. And also making it great was seeing the Seahawks win!
We were up in the cheap seats — cheap being a relative term at $90 per ticket — and I took about 10-15 photos. Here’s the slideshow.
As a Notre Dame and Seattle Seahawks fan, I would’ve loved to see Jimmy Clausen playing at Qwest Field for the home team next year. But when the Hawks traded for Charlie Whitehurst, that pretty much killed any chance they would also draft a quarterback in the early rounds.
Who will be better? I have no clue, of course, but ESPN has posted what amounts to a fairly ringing endorsement of Whitehurst’s chances for success. All based on the fact that he’s been learning on the bench for a few years.
Of the 128 quarterbacks drafted since 2000, 43 got their first start in their first season in the NFL. This data — courtesy of ESPN Stats & Information — shows that among this large group, the longer a QB waits to start, the better he performs once he does. In fact, completion percentage, TD/INT ratio and yards per attempt all rise over the course of his career the longer a QB sits to begin it.
Drafted QBs who didn’t get to start until their third or even fourth years have TD/INT rates nearly 50 percent better, and complete passes at a rate a full five percent better than rookie starters. But that’s not just in the first season; that’s for their careers.
(emphasis mine)
Let’s hope those stats prove true in Seattle when Whitehurst takes over in 2011.
If this NFL draft is so deep — and all the “experts” say it is — I wouldn’t mind seeing the Seahawks try to turn a couple of their high picks into several 2nd-4th round picks.
If memory serves, Seattle has three picks in the top 40. They could, in theory, trade at least two of those picks for extra picks and land 4-5 quality players. And the Seahawks need all the quality bodies they can find right now.
I was pretty sad earlier this week when I read what Jim Mora said about the Seahawks neon green jerseys: They’ve been retired.
Gasp! Shock! Quelle horreur!
I know most of the free world hated those things, but I kinda liked them at first, and then started to love them the more I saw highlights of them, and even when I saw them in stores. I think Sean liked them, too.
Well, on the bright side, there’s this: Our Playstation 3 recently told us we needed to download an updated version of Madden 10 before we could play again, but it didn’t tell us what the update included. Lo and behold, when I went to play my next Seahawks game, look what one of the new uniform options was:
How awesome is that??!!! By the way, Mora said he’s retiring the green jerseys because “we didn’t win in them.” Well, coach … I’m undefeated in them. Take that.
As I sit here watching another unwatchable Seahawks game, I’ve been doing some research to see if my suspicions about head coach Jim Mora Jr. are correct. My suspicion? That he’s not a very good head coach. Turns out, I think I’m right.
It seems to me that a head coach (and his coordinators) has two main jobs when it comes to what happens on the field every week:
So, in order to measure #1 above, I decided to look at how many games this season the Seahawks have led after the first quarter. If you prepare well during the week, it should translate into a good start, right? If you’re unprepared, it should translate into a lot of first quarter deficits.
Games Seahawks led after 1st quarter
Week 3: 10-0 lead over Chicago; lost 25-19
Week 5: 3-0 lead over Jacksonville; won 41-0
Week 10: 7-0 lead over Arizona; lost 31-20
After 10 weeks of football, the Seahawks have only led three times after the first quarter. (And they ended up losing two of those.)
FACT: Only once all season have the Seahawks led after the first quarter and won the game.
There were seven games the Seahawks started poorly — including the two terrible first quarters when the Cardinals and Lions totally outplayed them. The Seahawks weren’t prepared in either of those games.
So what about in-game adjustments? Good coaches do that and help their teams come from behind to win, or help their team hold on when they have leads.
Games Seahawks had halftime lead and lost
Week 3: 13-7 lead over Chicago; lost 25-19
Week 10: 17-10 lead over Arizona; lost 31-20
The Hawks have had the lead at halftime four times this season. They beat the Rams and Jaguars, but lost to the Bears and Cardinals. Seems to me that when you have a halftime lead, you need to win a lot more than 50% of the time.
Games Seahawks trailed at halftime and won
Week 9: trailed Detroit 17-13; won 32-20
The Seahawks have trailed at halftime six times, and only came back to win one of those games — this one against the lowly Lions.
Seems to me that the Seahawks are rarely prepared and able to get out to a good start, and rarely able to make the adjustments to win after they get behind.
Mora’s history in Atlanta
In 2004, Mora’s first season as Falcons’ coach, they went to the NFC Championship. In the next two seasons, they got off to good starts and then fell apart. The Falcons went a combined 4-13 during the final two months of those seasons and missed the playoffs both times. The general consensus is that those teams were talented but had underachieved.
Under Mora, the Falcons were 0-17 when entering the fourth quarter with a deficit. Not a single fourth-quarter comeback.
My vote? The Seahawks need to find a new coach.
(They also need better, younger players, but I think change has to start with the coach.)
“Follower” counts on Twitter are highly overrated. There’s limited value in having tons of followers that you don’t know and don’t converse with. I consider myself blessed to have as many followers as I do (see right), but the truth is that I don’t know most of them, don’t speak with most of them … and, frankly, don’t have a clue why so many people follow me.
But numbers are numbers, and this post is all about numbers because, for now, I’m more popular on Twitter than a bunch of Seattle Seahawks! Like, for example, Walter Jones and Nate Burleson:
I have more followers than both of them combined! I’m also ahead of the two TJ’s — Houshmandzadeh and Duckett.
I’m even more popular than 1st-round draft pick Aaron Curry, whose Twitter account was listed in the latest ESPN The Magazine.
But my glory comes to an end there, sadly. For I am nowhere near as popular as Matt Hasselbeck.
Still, five out of six ain’t bad, right? (Not that I’m bragging or anything.) Let’s hope the Seahawks do better on the field than they’re doing on Twitter. Just sayin’….