Seahawks vs 49ers - Aaand he's safe!

The Seahawks had a handy victory over the 49ers this weekend. I liked most of what I saw from the boys. Here are some notable highlights.

Marshawn Lynch was out with an abdominal injury but Thomas Rawls had one of the best games of his rookie career. I've said before that Marshawn Lynch isn't just physical, he is also patient. He can afford to be: he isn't just strong, he isn't just fast, but he can also accelerate from Zero to Beast Mode in almost a single step. Not many people can do that. Lynch has also been working with the linemen for a long time and can read them well, so he can begin to accelerate almost before the opening comes up because he knows where they'll be and when. 

Marshawn was on the sidelines, keeping a close eye on Rawls. During the defense's turn on the field, he'd collect Rawls and talk to him. This is of course a departure from the usual for Lynch but he appeared to be enjoying himself. Rawls certainly was.

I like that Lynch is not threatened by the new, young running back. Many star athletes would feel threatened. Not Lynch. I did not see one ounce of jealousy or pettiness in his eyes all game, just fondness and respect. Almost relief. "Man, I'm glad we found this guy." 

You see, Lynch is smart enough to know that if he goes into Beast Mode, he has got to be able to rest afterward. There needs to be a RB to take over in the meantime. It can't just be any old RB either. The guy has to have a style of play similar to Lynch so that the rest of the offense doesn't have to waste mental effort switching their style of play every time the RBs switch out. He has to be a physical threat, so the opposing defense doesn't try to get cute. He has to be a mental threat too, so he can draw fire away from Wilson.

The better Rawls is, the better the rest of the team, including Lynch, can be. It makes sense that Shawn is pleased. It's just that people usually aren't so sensible.

In a post-game interview Rawls said some things that made me smile. He said that he hadn't felt this happy and excited about playing the game since he was in high school. He also said that in the past several weeks he'd come to regard the linemen and the rest of the offense as brothers and mentioned that now Shawn was working with him on pacing.

In other words, I think Lynch was teaching him the Pete Carroll Way: trust first, technical stuff second.

Tyler Lockett was everywhere. He returned kicks to put the Seahawks in good position, he caught passes, he even caught one that he ran in for a touchdown. Lockett looked thrilled beyond belief, like he was a kid pretending to be an NFL player in the back yard. "And then the quarterback will be in trouble and he'll throw it to me, and I'll catch the pass. Oh no, here comes one guy but whoosh, I dodge him. Then here come two more guys, they try to tackle me but I power through one more yard for a touchdown...!"

Then he realizes he isn't pretending, he actually just did that. Anyway, that's how he looks.

Lockett too had interesting things to say post-game. "It's all about trust, all about knowing where the others will be at all times. That's the only thing we have to remember."

There are psych studies that bear this out. It is a well-known fact that that humans only have so many "slots" in their working memory to remember what they're supposed to do. Human brains do a lot better if everything doesn't keep changing rapidly, because if there are too many rapid changes they burn up all their brainpower tracking that instead of working on the problem at hand. Not only do they remember better in a stable environment, but more "slots" are freed up to concentrate and solve problems. Also, people have only so much willpower to put toward a task at any given time. The Seahawks run on heart and willpower so this is important for them. You might not think this applies to small changes in the environment but it absolutely does.

In one well-known experiment, two sets of people were both shown to a waiting room with a bowl of radishes and a bowl of delicious cookies. Group 1 were offered cookies. Group 2 were just offered radishes. 

Then both groups were given a difficult geometry problem to solve. Guess which group persevered longer and had more success? Group 1, the group that did not have to burn up mental and emotional energy dealing with forbidden cookies.

That's not exactly the same thing as Carroll Mode vs match-

ups... and I don't know what would have happened if it had been skittles... but it does illustrate my point about constant changes in the environment and giving your players many complicated things to worry about, taking a toll on their ability to persevere in the face of challenges.

Richard Sherman did an excellent job. At one point he leaped up for a possible interception. Oh, he kept the ball from getting to the receiver. That wasn't a question. He just didn't quite get the pick. After coming to rest on his stomach with his arms outstretched to either side, he paused to give a theatrical sigh. You could see his ribs and shoulders and even arms puff up, then deflate. This was a full-body sigh. Then he planted his knuckles, swiftly pushed himself up and he strolled away nonchalantly. The whole thing reminded me of one of those slow-motion cat-jumps.  I mean, tell me Sherm doesn't look like a cat when he does his thing. The jump the cat does at the end, and the one Sherman did for his we're-going-to-the-Superbowl "tip" are practically mirror images, not just when he jumps up, but when he lands-- both he and the cat twist their body but keep their focus on what they are trying to swipe.

One of the announcers (I do not know his name yet but will find out), did something classy. The other guy tried to bring up Russell Wilson's personal life not once but twice, and this announcer gently but firmly deflected it.

Announcer 1: "He just signed a huge contract, he's got a superstar girlfriend, I'd be surprised if it doesn't gets in his head."

Announcer 2: "You know, Russell told me that when he comes to the field, he comes ready to play football. And that's what he's doing. Ah, here's a hand-off to Rawls."

A minute or so later the Announcer 1 tried again: "Well, with a celebrity girlfriend, he does open himself up to comments--"

He was once again boxed out: "He isn't the only quarterback to deal with that. They let their girlfriends worry about them during games, not the other way around. Look at that pass to Jimmy Graham. Was it good enough for a first down? I think Graham had it."

This was a classy thing to do, all the more so in an era of journalism that tries increasingly to mix sports with gossip and drama.

Graham did have the first down, by the way. SF challenged it but the tape showed that the big tight end planted his forearm elbow-to-wrist firmly in bounds before being rolled into the chalk. A smaller guy might have been pushed out before then, but Graham has some heft to him.

I felt sorry for the 49ers quarterback Blaine Gabbert. Basically Colin Kaepernick requested to be on the injured list. Apparently he'd needed a minor surgery for a while but elected to have it done right now in the middle of the season instead of waiting. The 49ers said "Fine" and put their backup, Gabbert, in the game instead. Gabbert tried very hard and even made a little start at a comeback in the late second / early third quarter. Unfortunately it was impossible to get everyone on the same page for a coordinated effort and the 49ers had unraveled by the middle of the third. After a particularly bone-rattling Cliff Avril sack (and the following Victory Boogie), the camera caught Gabbert venting to the new head coach Jim Tomsula, who didn't look happy either. Both of them appeared frustrated. As we both know, they inherited a mess. There is a lot wrong with that football team and firing their old head coach, Harbaugh, did not fix it.  This is sad because it's not a lack of effort and it's not a lack of talent. They have some great players but the unhappiness and uncertainty keeps them from clicking together well.

Russell Wilson played well. He scored on the majority of Seattle possessions. There were a couple of stupid penalties but not enough to throw him off stride. He didn't say so, but getting backed up to first and fifteen (the way he often was in the Cardinals game) throws off the rhythm of the whole set. Not this time though. There was a nice mix of hand-offs, short passes and long passes. He spread the ball around to Baldwin, Kearse, Graham and of course Lockett. He showed his wiliness more than once. There were times when the 49ers thought for sure they were about to grab him but he darted out of the way and took off running.  He happened to slide into a first down right near a guy who was trying to guard against that very thing. Wilson's outstretched, pointed foot went right between the guy's ankles and the rest of him was leaning back away from the guy. In this instance it was for self-preservation but in baseball you lean as far backward as possible to prevent getting tagged before your foot hits the base. 

Anyway this scene looked so much like a batter sliding into home plate that the announcer said, "Aaand he's safe!"

The Good News: 

Carroll Mode is starting to click with the rookies. This is crucial if the Seahawks are going to fly for the second part of the season.

The Bad News:

If the Seahawks are going to do this, they've got to do it soon. We're running out of runway here.

The Question:

Will the fledgling rookies fly?

The Way of It, Part Two: A Series of Fictitious Conversations Demonstrating the Evolution of Football Strategy

San Francisco, 1979.

Across the bay from Oakland, two men watch from the sidelines as players in red-and-gold practice uniforms charge around the field. 

"You want the coaching job?” Eddie DeBartolo demands. “Sure you do.”

“I do,” Bill Walsh agrees.

"You know I inherited a mess from the old owner. My 49ers are the joke of the NFL,” says DeBartolo. His thick, heavy brows descend over his eyes. “You know why?”

There is a pause. Walsh watches the linemen re-enact blocking formations again and again. Their efforts are audible from the sidelines.  “It’s not a lack of effort,” he says.  “Or a lack of ability.”

“Yeah, not for the players, but I need a coach with the ability to spot match-ups. Madden’s strategy just won the Super Bowl for the second time. Now he is an announcer for crying out loud.” DeBartolo’s frustration is obvious as he runs his hand across his dark hair, which immediately springs back up again. “Match-ups! It’s all the rage now. We stink at finding match-ups. Whaddaya got, Walsh?"

Bill Walsh’s hair is as white as DeBartolo’s is dark. "The way I see it," Walsh replies, "The real match-up is between me and the other coach. I’ll keep track of what the other coaches do in different situations. Based on his tendencies from past games I can predict his moves in his game against me. Then can I design plays that take advantage of the most frequent tendencies of the opposing coach in those situations."

A wide receiver leaps up in an attempt to snatch the ball out of the air but he has mistimed his jump and the football sails between his hands.

"Convince me,” says Bartolo.

“We’ll need to hire some people to work on keeping track of every play that other coaches run in different situations. For example, I’ve noticed that coaches tend to revert to the same plays over and over again when they’re close to scoring. If you know what they tend to do, you can run a defensive play that will take advantage of whatever they usually do in that situation. the individual match-ups won’t matter as much because you’re concentrating on the bigger picture, you see?”

Eddie DeBartolo is beginning to look convinced. “You’d need to sort through a lot of situations to make that work, though.”

“Oh, yeah. First down on the twenty-yard line; first down on the goal line; second down and short to go on the goal line; second down and long to go.” But Walsh is far from discouraged. He watches the 49ers players but his mind is absorbed by his idea for how to give them an overall advantage. “We’ll keep track of other coaches’ tendencies in all the situations we can think of. Then I’ll divide the areas of the football field into zones, because their location on the field affects their decisions too. For example, what I call the 'Red Zone' is the twenty yards closest to the goal line. We compile the data across the NFL as a continuous trend and give more weight to recent games.”

“That… is going to take… forever.” DeBartolo shakes his head. “Just how the hell are we going to keep track of all those numbers in all those situations for all those zones, and for all the different teams?”

“Computers!” Walsh replies happily. “Those new gadgets can track all that stuff for us. With that information, I can beat anybody."

"Okay, you’ve got the job. So what kind of quarterback do you want? You want someone who can throw deep? I can get you somebody who can throw deep."

Walsh shakes his head. "No. I want someone who will follow my statistical advice. There’s a kid named Joe Montana who suits my plan…"

******

“The Way of It” sets up the evolution of thought in football. For a long time it was a game of systems or formation, which Madden called a ‘gimmick’ and which he claimed was only the surface of the real, ‘deeper’ game. Thus Madden came up with a new strategy, creating a game of individual match-ups. 

Walsh came along and expanded the picture to include overall tendencies of different teams, so instead of simply looking at this player-by-player and game-by-game, he viewed the statistics as ongoing trends and made plays accordingly. No one else had begun to think like Walsh yet, however, so his 49ers had a huge advantage in the NFL. For a while, it was as if he had caught a glimpse of another dimension that other teams could not see.

According to our fictitious Walsh, Joe Montana suited his plans because Walsh wanted to run what he called "percentage plays." These are plays that have the highest chance of gaining five yards or more with the least risk. Walsh did not need to risk everything on a forty-yard pass if five yards was a sure thing according to the statistics. He needed someone willing to be patient. At the time, most quarterbacks were not patient enough for that (and many still aren't) because there was (and still is) a long-standing snobbery in the NFL about what a quarterback "should" do. This mindset dictates that a brainy, talented quarterback should stand out by throwing long passes.

Walsh did not need or want that for his new iteration of the 49ers. He needed somebody who did not want to be a flashy quarterback as much as he wanted to win games. Joe Montana was happy to complete a lot of short passes and his patience was rewarded with the Super Bowl.

Next we will have a "conversation" with Pete Carroll and see how the Seahawks come into this discussion.

___

"The Way of It" is a collaborative effort between Ada Fetters and Michael Howard.