Patience, Seattle

One year later, I can now hear "Bittersweet Symphony" without becoming anxious or cranky. Certainly not at the Seahawks. The fact that they're a bunch of tough, crazy misfits who enter a stadium to orchestral music instead of 1980s metal makes me smile every time I think about it. No, I'd get cranky at the maddening circumstances surrounding Superbowl 49.

At this point it is bittersweet, though.

This past season ended up being pretty great even though it wasn't supposed to be (there wouldn't have been anything to forgive if they had not made it to the playoffs), but the coming season is going to be awesome. 

If I'm right, this season was never intended to be a full-throttle year. Sure, Wilson and everyone else wanted to win because that is part of what makes them great. They'll never take the easy way in favor of the better way. They want to do the best they can for the fans that love them. Sure they want prove that the loss to the Patriots was not definitive. That isn't even a question.

Remember the way Carroll treats Marshawn Lynch? He gives superhuman effort, then gets to rest on the sidelines for a bit. Also, we've all noticed Russell Wilson's "baseball slide" and his penchant for self-protection. He is one of those rare individuals who somehow manages to give 110% even though that's statistically impossible... it is what they mean when they say he "makes something out of nothing"... but he is very careful not to put himself at risk. This isn't just Wilson's idea. He and Pete Carroll have had conversations about it.

All effort is not created equal. There is a clear boundary for Carroll and his Seahawks between constructive vs destructive effort.

In order to get the best out of people, Carroll pushes them to be better but doesn't burn them out. Everything in nature has periods of rest, which is important because during these periods the plants, animals etc. go through processes they can't perform while fully active. For example, you can force plants to bloom out of season in a hothouse but it isn't good for them because they're not gathering the nutrients and recuperating the way plants should be allowed to do.

People who grow commercial hothouse flowers don't care about that, though, because they just want a big bright bloom. Similarly, most coaches would force their players to "bloom" all the time, which uses them up quickly. Remember the brilliant but woefully short blooming of RG3?

Carroll isn't like that. Lynch is a microcosm but the same principle applies to the team as a whole. We all want to see our boys return to the Superbowl and would love to see them win. It will come. Patience, Seattle. 

I'll bet you I'm right about this as an intention. Oh, sure, I have a couple of concerns about the mechanics of how it will work-- keeping different players, their roles evolving and so on--  but we can discuss those another time.

The Pragmatic Pete Carroll

Coach Carroll jumped onto the lockers after the game, inorder to address his players. As he explained, his reasons for this had a practical element. Pete Carroll's philosophy is more supportive than that of any other NFL team I've heard of but also he has a pragmatic streak to him.

It turns out that running back Thomas Rawls has a broken ankle. Marshawn Lynch is still out after his surgery. 

I was less than impressed with Harris (other running back) and Pete Carroll apparently wasn't either. Harris was held to a mere 42 yards on 18 carries and turned the ball over in the red zone. So they let Harris go and have signed a guy named Bryce Brown instead. Carroll is usually willing to give people second chances but at this point in the season he can't afford to fool around. Also, Harris has probably been around the practice field and locker room for a while: if he had that sparkle of potential, I trust Carroll to have seen it and kept him despite one bad game. So if he let Harris go then it needed to happen.

At this point I cannot say whether or not I approve of Brown, mostly because it is one thing to view the stats of an individual and quite another to watch him mesh (or not) with a team that is supposed to play for each other and not just as individuals.

The improved pass game came at a great time but the Seahawks need to patch up the running game too because if other teams aren't intimidated or "know" we won't run the ball, they'll redouble their efforts to stop the receivers, or to crash into Wilson before he can throw.

Without Jimmy Graham, the Seahawks already need their fullback in more often in order to provide some muscle on offense. This would explain why we see Tukuafu out there a lot this season. It also explains why he's gotten the ball more than once. We also have Derrick Coleman, another fullback who isn't as intimidating as Tukuafu (no one is as intimidating as Tukuafu) but is light and relatively speedy for a fullback and could maybe do as a running back if he had to.

We shall see. 

Football terms

In this video, Richard Sherman shows how smart and sneaky he can be and cheerfully explains how he does it. I love when he smiles and says quietly, "I am showing them an illusion of sorts." The guy has a mouth on him to rival Muhammad Ali, but also has a meticulous, analytical brain and he isn't shy about saying that he values that over his athleticism even within the game. He seems to have an almost precognitive quickness sometimes... because his brain has broken his opponents down to their gears and cogs. 

Here is the pointof this particular article, though. 

The phrase "Hiding in the tall grass" delighted me when I first saw that game because of the mental image. There was something true about it, even though I didn't know quite what at the time. This is such an evocative way to quickly nail what Sherm is explaining in this video.

Obviously the turf is the same height all over the field and a player can't actually hide, but that is not what this means. It means that someone-- in this case the predatory cornerback-- has manufactured tall grass within the opposing quarterback's brain. It isn't quite a blind spot. As Sherm went to some effort to explain, he has created an illusion. He wants the opposing quarterback to think he is to the situation. They want so badly for the play to work that if he sketches in certain movements, they'll believe it is working... right until he jumps out of the tall grass to pick the ball.

There are many other phrases like this in football and many of them are so common that announcers don’t feel the need to explain them. Hence many fans don’t know what they mean or where they came from. Here are some of them. We'll start with some easy phrases and work up to the more technical ones.

"Pick" means interception of course. "Pick-six" means an interception followed by a run to the end zone for six points.

“Move the chains.” Get a first down so the officials will move the chains attached to the big orange markers on the sidelines that tell people where the next first down is. "Stay ahead of the chains" is essentially the same thing. It means your offense doesn't meander around in the same area until the fourth down. 

“Man coverage.” It does not refer to the uniforms. It refers to a player who is assigned to deal with one other specific player and so covers that one man. Then you have “zone coverage” which is of course when a player is assigned a general area to keep track of instead of one guy.

“Run a flat.” This sounds like the guy was running and was flattened by Kam Chancellor...

...or was dealing with a ball deflated by Tom Brady… 

...but no. It just means a man isn’t running toward the end zone. Instead he runs “flat” along the yard lines, not across them, usually to fool a corner or safety.

“Running game / pass game.” Exactly what it sounds like. Hand the ball to Marshawn Lynch or Thomas Rawls so they can run it. Or, pass it to Kearse, Baldwin or Willson. The “game” part of it refers to how well it works out in general for the team. E.g. “The Vikings are built around their running game.” Or “I wish the Niners would stop putting half their defense in the backfield so Wilson can try his pass game. Oh well, if they’re not going to respect Lynch, we’ll stay with the running game.”

“Throw over the top.” Um, doesn’t the ball always go over the top? This term doesn’t refer to the heads and grabby hands of the players. It refers to whether the quarterback throws in front of the main line of the defense or past it, away up the field to where the deep receivers are running around. So if Wilson completes one of those beautiful arcing passes for a 47 yard gain, that’s “over the top.” “Underneath” means that he threw to a man relatively nearby for a 5 or 10 yard gain.

“Sluggo.” Is it the comic book character?

 Nope. To explain this, we also have to explain another term, “slant and fade.” “Running a slant” means that the player runs diagonally, like a bishop in chess. However, if they’re in the red zone and don’t have much room, this becomes a “slant and fade.” That means they “fade away” into the corner of the end zone and the quarterback throws the ball high over the defensive back. The trick there is that the receiver really doesn’t have much room and so has to work to keep their feet in bounds when they come down with the ball. “Slant and fade” is also known as “slant and go.” Mumble that repeatedly and quickly when the clock is ticking and it becomes “sluggo.” FYI, Sherman’s famous “tip”off of Crabtree was an attempted sluggo by Kaepernick.

“Sell the slant.” A fake-out. The quarterback is counting on the defense watching him carefully and so raises his arm, giving an awkward twitch that looks to a defensive player like the QB going to go ahead and pass, so they jump onto where they think the ball is headed. This, in the hope that the receiver will use that momentary hesitation by the defense to accelerate, get some space, and be relatively isolated by the time the ball does get to him ‘way back in the corner. E.g. "The Superbowl-winning Manning - Burness pass was a sluggo in which Manning sold the slant." 

"Pump-fake.” Nothing to do with illusory high heels. 

It is a more generic term than “sell the slant” for acting like you’re going to pass to one guy and then going for another, sometimes a guy who has run a flat or sometimes a guy who has run further away down the field. E.g. "Wow, we sure know how to use Tyler Lockett's speed to capitalize on the pump-fake." Or, we hear this all the time, “Wilson pump-fakes left, draws the blitz…”

"Hunh? What’s drawing the blitz?” It means you bait the defensive guys and get them to rush up close to the line in an attempt to quickly sack you, so there are fewer guys in the back of the field. Then if you want you can throw “over the top” for a long pass. 

"Trips" does not refer to when the turf grabs someone’s shoe the wrong way. It is an offensive formation with three wide receivers on one side of the field all near each other. That means you either don't have a tight end or a fullback. Remember, you can only have eleven guys on the field so if you have a triplet of wide receivers, you have to take away from somewhere.

Meanwhile, "Jumbo" is when you have three tight ends (tight end can be an offensive lineman or maybe work as a wide receiver but they’re heftier than a typical receiver) stacked up instead of a lot of wide receivers. "Jumbo" formation started with the Giants’ coach, Parcells, and was named after one of his players. Coach was basically saying, "Our guys are bigger and stronger than yours. We will broadcast that we are going to run the ball. Even though you know it, you can't stop us.” See, the Giants were known for brawn and it was practically a given that their big ol' tight ends weren’t going to accelerate down the field for a pass. Instead they'd help the Giants trundle through the defenders. The Seahawks are different in that Willson and Helfet, our tight ends, are on the lighter, faster end of people able to play that position. Oh, they're not as fast as our wide receivers, Baldwin, Kearse and Lockett, but our “jumbo” would still look more like “trips,” which is why we typically don’t do this.

“Mesh” refers to the middle of the defensive line. You know, the place with all the huge guys that looks like pots and pans banging around if you don’t know any better. E.g. “Tukuafu plows into the mesh.”

“Pinching the D-line.” This sounds like a complaint a lady would make about a bra that doesn’t fit, but it just means to gather all the defensive guys together in the middle in order to jam things up there. E.g. “It’s first and goal. The Steelers are pinching the D-line so they can try to stop Marshawn Lynch.”

"Spread" (on offense) is when you have no tight end and no fullback (or possibly no halfback) and you have four wide receivers all spread out. Quadruple wide receivers. All this switching players in and out will hopefully help to clarify why the Seahawks get so many penalties for having too many players on the field.

“Shotgun formation” (e.g. “Wilson in the shotgun…”) No, he isn’t about to be launched out of a cannon. It refers to how long a "barrel" the quarterback is looking down. Shotgun means he is six feet back from the line of scrimmage and is looking down a long barrel. “Shotgun with an empty backfield” means the running back isn’t out there. “Shotgun single back” or “Shotgun with Lynch in the backfield” means just that. Lynch the running back is there with Wilson. “Shotgun double back” or “two running backs” means that Lynch and another RB, let’s say Rawls, are both there. They can help protect Wilson while he sets up a long pass “over the top.” Or they can run a few yards for a short pass “underneath.” This is the kind of versatile formation that the Seahawks love to do. It gives us many options.

“Pistol formation.” The quarterback is only three or four yards back from the line of scrimmage. So he’s looking down a short barrel. The pistol formation will never have an empty backfield. There would be no point in doing that. A pistol with an empty backfield would put the quarterback closer to the guys who want to clobber him, without offering the advantage of being able to hand the ball to the running back. So he’d have to pass from close up, which makes no sense. It'd do less than no good for anyone, but especially not for a short quarterback who has to work to see over the linemen.

“Read option.” A short way to say “Wilson runs the ball.” If none of the receivers are open and the quarterback reads that defensive end (guy defending the end of the opposing line) is distracted by something else, the quarterback will happily run around the line.

That concludes this article on football terms, but if you have questions about other terms that have become part of the scenery and you suddenly realize you don’t know what they mean, let OsQ know. 

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?

Seahawks vs Cardinals - we must stop beating ourselves with penalties

This was the kind of game that separates the true 12s from mere fair-weather fans.

The first half was a disaster. The offensive line was such an uncoordinated mess that Wilson had to be more concerned with self-preservation than making plays. First down penalties from the receivers and linemen were singularly unhelpful in that they backed the Seahawks up from "manageable" to "long."

Marshawn Lynch was so annoyed with the line issues that he gathered the offense together at the sidelines and gave them a talking-to. It looked like a cross between a pep-talk and a reverend thundering at his congregation. This was quite a thing coming from Lynch, who usually spends his off-time gazing calmly at the horizon.

It must have worked.

Inside the two minute warning Wilson mounted a ferocious drive, using Lynch to pound through for a first down, running it himself for another, then completing a 40-yard pass to Jimmy Graham that might as well have been shot from a cannon. This put them in the Red Zone. 

Wilson tried a pass that didn't pan out. Then, just when everyone thought he'd hand it to Marshawn Lynch, Wilson craftily put it into Will Tukuafu's giant paws instead. Tukuafu is a big, relatively slow guy but all he had to do was chug one yard into the end zone before the Cardinals realized what was happening.

The score at the end of the first half was 22 - 7 Cardinals. Seven points may not sound like much, but it mattered a lot to the fans and the team. The momentum carried over to the third quarter.

The Seahawks had two scoring drives to start the second half: first one ended in a field goal, second was a touchdown. Wilson scored on a 30-yard "sluggo" play.

The Cardinals head coach, Bruce Arians, was grumpy all night. He challenged so many calls that he ran out of challenges and mouthed off to a referee such that he got an Unsportsmanlike called against his team.

In the third, KJ Wright nabbed a forced-fumble ball and took off running. He was brought down at the three yard line but Shawn brought it home on the next play. He was patient, too. He didn't charge forward immediately or try to force his way through where it wouldn't count. No no. He chose his opening and followed it.

25 - 23 Cardinals.

Bobby Wagner forced another fumble for a pick-six. This put us in the lead.

25 - 29 Seahawks.

More penalties against the Seahawks led to what would have been an abortive Cardinals drive ending in a touchdown. 

32 - 29 Cardinals.

Late in the fourth, we needed the defense to hold it together in time for Wilson to make another drive: a touchdown to win or at least a field goal. But the defense, who had been doing well and even made some great plays, made a critical error. They expected a throw and a Cardinals runner escaped to make a touchdown.

39 - 29 Cardinals.

Wilson did not give up. He drove into field goal range and was prepared to go further. Then Pete Carroll told him to let Hauscka kick a field goal. The plan was to get an onside kick and tie it. Unfortunately while the field goal worked, the onside kick was caught by the Cardinals.

The final score was 39 - 32 Cardinals.

I have to give our guys credit for not giving up even after that terrible first half. The Cardinals, who must have felt like they were going to stomp all over us, instead had to fight to the bitter end.

The Good News:

The road to the Playoffs just got rockier but it has not disappeared. 

The Bad News:

The Cardinals are a great football team but let's face it, those penalties were the deciding factor. Doesn't matter who they play, the Hawks can't afford to beat themselves.

The Question:

Can the Seahawks bounce back from this loss at home in time to get back on the rocky road to the Playoffs?

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

 Seattle, 2010.

John Schneider’s usual television-star smile is absent as he sits in the coffee shop of the highest building in Seattle. He is grumbling to himself over his latte. 

"Over the years, the Seahawks have developed one of the worst win-loss records in the NFL. We’ve only been in the playoffs a couple times. There was a twenty-year stretch when we couldn’t even win a playoffs game. We managed one or two good years but now… ugh.”

Raindrops streak the big glass windows that offer a panoramic view of the city. 

“Bring in the next guy in for the coaching job,” Schneider tells his assistant. “Not that it will make any difference."

A man with a narrow face and white hair walks into the coffee shop. He is sixty years old but moves like a man thirty years younger as he grabs his chair.

Seattleites on their lunch break barely glance at the two men. They are more interested in the view out the big windows and in acquiring an afternoon coffee to shake off the lethargy of the rainy afternoon. Most of them are only vaguely aware that their city has a football team.  

After Schneider goes over Pete Carroll’s resume, he announces, "You’ve played in the NFL before. You’ve won some games in your coaching career, especially lately, at USC. The job is yours. You’ll want the computers with all our data, since all the teams are using match-ups and statistics.”

Carroll nods polite thanks but looks Schneider in the eye. "I am going to take the Seahawks back to a very old tradition. Sure, I’ll look at the numbers, but in my mind football is not really about match-ups and statistics because it is not played by individuals. Football is a team sport."

"That's… nice," Schneider looks dubious.

"The thing is, the match-up coaches and the statistics coaches lack a philosophy. They just keep talking about 'adjustments' from week to week."

"That's their job, isn't it?"

"No.” Carroll leans forward across the table and gestures with his hands as he explains, “A coach's job is to set up a system that stays the same and that accomplishes things a certain way. Once I get the guys who can work in my system, and once they get good at it, they will win games."

“Then people will know your tendencies and they will find match-ups." Schneider mimics Carroll’s tone.

"They will try. Meanwhile, I use my system to remove match-ups altogether, and I use my system to stress the opponent's system. Since the other team doesn't have a system, or doesn't understand their system as well as we do, they will break down first. Hopefully before the game is over," Carroll says with a wry grin.

"Again, that sounds very nice but I don't get it."

"Think it through. The other team wants a match-up. Let’s pretend they have Lawrence Taylor on their team. They want to match him against our left tackle, who is a slow guy. L.T. is the greatest of all time. He'd always get the better of our left tackle in a match-up but if we use my system, the match-up won’t be there. Our left tackle is going to let him go and do something else." 

"It’ll be mayhem." Schneider looks nervous even thinking about this. "Lawrence Taylor will put our quarterback in the hospital."

But Carroll’s eyes are twinkling. "They’ll think so too. But he won’t, because we run an option. We make a play that forces their L.T. to make an instant choice. He can make a good choice if he knows exactly where his teammates are and what they are supposed to be doing, who they’re covering, and he can trust that they’ll handle that. But he doesn't know for sure where they are, since his team changes everything from week to week and even quarter to quarter as they search for match-ups. L.T. can’t possibly keep track of all that and he knows it. So he’ll just go where his momentum takes him. Or maybe he’ll hesitate. Either way he’ll make the wrong choice often.”

“Often enough to win games?”

“Yes sir. The truth is that in an increasingly complex game that has twenty-two players running around on the field, the most valuable thing is teamwork. My players don’t have to keep a lot of numbers and adjustments in their heads. All they have to do is know where their teammates will be at every second of a play.”

Carroll pauses significantly, as if to underline his statement: “And by the way, we don't match up one man against another. We accomplish tasks in groups, by zones."

"Even blocking?"

"Especially blocking. If I have guys who build up experience in my system, we can beat a team of players that is better than we are at every position. We can move four blockers into a zone where only two defenders are. Their L.T. might be great but he and his buddy will be hard pressed to hold off four of our guys who know just how to work together. Our players learn how to accomplish these tasks by drawing on the wisdom and experience that we have built up with each other within our system. Yes, in time it won’t be my system, but theirs as well.”

"So you won't make adjustments?” Schneider is nonplussed. “At halftime all great coaches make adjustments. The more you can change and adjust at halftime, the better coach you are. I mean, Bill Belichick makes big adjustments all game long. At halftime he practically reinvents his team if he is losing."

Pete Carroll smiles and shakes his head. “If I did that it would throw off my whole system. Those things are a distraction for the players.  Imagine a team that keeps changing what they do every week, alright? Imagine them trying to beat our guys who draw upon the accumulated wisdom of using a system for a year. While their guys start over and over each game with constant adjustments, my guys are learning to play for each other."

“So,” Schneider says slowly, “At halftime we will remind our

players of what they already know. We remind them of how certain aspects of the system flow to accomplish what they need to do. If you’re right, then after a year of playing together they could practically win games without us there.” Schneider chuckles. His television-star smile is back. “So Pete, what kind of quarterback do you want?”

Yes, now Pete Carroll must choose a quarterback for his new iteration of the Seattle Seahawks. A sleepy-eyed young man with a great throwing arm catches his eye. The problem? This Wilson kid is under six feet tall and just over 200 pounds with all his gear on. He can throw, he is fast, he is athletic… but what does the new coach say when he's trying to justify why he wants this kid, who has been passed over by virtually everybody else, to the point that other teams draft punters before they pick him? Why this kid? Why not someone else with similar statistics?

"I watched him interact with the players on my team. Russell had only been there one afternoon, but everybody wanted to listen to him. He brought out the best in them and they accepted him as a leader. That was when I knew he was the one." (While the rest of our conversation was fictitious, that last is a real quote from a Pete Carroll interview.)

 *******

Sure, Carroll looks for ratings and stats. He definitely looks for talent. However, he is also looking for a “fit” more than most coaches in the current era of the NFL. Fans can reel off countless instances of Carroll picking up players who did not do well on other teams, but transplanting them into his system and encouraging them to flourish. Marshawn Lynch is probably the most spectacular example.

There is a reason why the match-ups that the announcers talk about very rarely go the way they are “supposed” to against Seattle. For example, during the Playoffs last year, Green Bay could not take advantage of a match-up against Sherman after he was injured and essentially playing with one arm. Seattle plays zone so often and in such a way that the match-ups either aren’t there or are so blurry as to be useless. The offense does not know where Sherman will go. He usually does not follow one guy around or even go to the same place on the field.

A notable exception, of course, was the man-to-man coverage against Dez Bryant in the Cowboys game. Bryant is good enough to warrant full time man-coverage by Sherman, but usually Sherm is such a terror because he is “flying around.” His teammates know the system and know where he will be at any given time. However, to outsiders, the Seattle defense often looks like swirling chaos. It helps that they switch men in and out of the zones fairly often, too. The Legion of Boom all know where their players are, but the offense is often baffled and caught off guard.

All of this organic changing and swirling may be part of the reason why Seattle gets caught with twelve men on the field so often it is becoming a running joke, though.

Anyway, the same system holds true for the Seahawks on blocking. Someone watching the game can never be never sure who the Seattle linemen will block. If you watch the replays, you will see that the linemen are usually not aiming at a particular person. No, they are headed to an area. They trade off opponents as needed so it is difficult to pick on one of them. This is, of course, 'zone blocking' and takes a long time to learn because it is absolutely critical for one lineman to know where his teammates are and what they are capable of.

Zone blocking is terrible when there is miscommunication, the way we saw earlier this season. When it works, though, it is beautiful to behold.

Now we look at our fictitious Pete Carroll. What we left out of our portrayal is that "the system" is not merely a variety of plays. Carroll has taken a lifetime of coaching and reflection and then he created a concept or philosophy. Next he had to figure out what aspects of play worked with his concept and which ones did not. I'm sure there were some great ideas that he had to pare away because they did not work with the concept (every editor knows how that feels). So a system emerges.  

Now, it isn't like Carroll doesn’t study the other teams or look at tendencies. Certainly, he has work to do each week in that area, but he does not switch up the entire style of play from week to week.

Then he had to flesh out his system with personnel. This too must have been a difficult process because his idea runs against the "common sense" of the NFL. Carroll passed up guys who looked slightly better on match-ups in order to draft people who fit the system. Then he had to teach the players how the system works. Then he had to get in their heads and make them believe in it, which was one reason he absolutely had to find a quarterback who had a firm belief in the system and could inspire it in others. 

Win Forever.

___

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

Seahawks vs 49ers - zone defense and Lynch's authority

By now you've probably heard that the Hawks won over the 49ers 20 - 3. Before the game, Pete Carroll said that his players were eager to get back on the field and prove themselves after the loss to the Panthers last week. 

Referees appeared to overlook a few holds that kept our defensive from getting into place and turned a blind eye to the 49ers roughhousing our players. However, they typically held the Seahawks to more exacting standards both with penalties and first-down rulings. 

This was not a bad thing. For years I have watched the Seahawks deal with questionable (or just irritating) penalties by renewing their efforts tenfold on the next play. Far from discouraging them, they seem to feed off of it. They do best when feel like they are out to get some respect. 

It should absolutely be said, though, that the referees did not ignore 49ers player Antoine Bethea twisting Doug Baldwin's helmet halfway around. The refs gave the 49ers an appropriate 15 yard penalty.

I was encouraged when I heard the players saying things like "We had so much fun," and "we were flying around." This sounds more like the regular mode of operation for the Swirling Zone Defense of Doom. Earl Thomas reported that the defense told Sherman to just go do his thing in his zone and make Kaepernick second-guess himself. That might not sound important, but it required Sherman to trust that the others would cover wherever he did not. 

To his credit, Colin Kaepernick has learned some things. 

He cut down his attempts to throw at Sherman, with the result that Sherman did not intercept the ball. However, in my opinion that caution contributed to Kaepernick's inability to mount offensive drives. He hesitated long enough on pass-plays to get sacked six times. Certainly Wright, Mebane and Bennett deserve praise for getting there to make the sacks but Sherman's roaming presence was an invisible factor that helped to shush Kap's pass game.

The defense kept the lead that Wilson and his offense gave them. Wilson connected with Graham, made some big passes to Baldwin and Kearse, then threw a beautiful 43 yarder to Tyler Lockett for a touchdown. 

You might hear that Wilson "didn't slide right" on one of his read option plays. At any rate, Simms the announcer remarked that "You'd think a former baseball player would know how to slide better." Wilson's ability to slide was not the problem in this particular case. The turf in Levi's Stadium has issues. It was a story before the game, even before this year. Game footage clearly showed Wilson's shoe sticking in the mushy turf, which rolled his slide.  I mention it because at this point the turf is unsafe for players and could easily have turned into an injury for our nimble quarterback. 

The rookie running back Thomas Rawls seemed impatient with his blockers. He often rushed forward too soon. The kid is still young. He'll learn. Beast Mode is not just about charging forward as soon as possible. Beast Mode is also about timing. That aspect of it is subtle, but we saw it show up tonight, as Lynch struck an excellent balance between keeping forward momentum and watching for space to open up on the field.

Marshawn Lynch reminded San Francisco to respect his authority. He rushed for 100+ yards. On the sidelines he followed his typical routine of gazing toward the horizon with a serene if somewhat spacey smile. Then he went back out and pounded the ball past a wall of defenders. He even went past their defensive line for a touchdown. Unlike Rawls, he hung back just long enough for their defensive linemen to fall in a heap of our offensive linemen, then Lynch flung himself over everyone to hit the end zone. 

Lynch terrified the defense so badly that they swarmed to him en masse if he was on the field. Even the 49ers defensive end was drawn in, allowing Wilson to pick up an important first down. 

This was an interesting game for many reasons. The Seahawks always try to play "one game at a time" but I do hope this week's lessons in defensive playing carry over to next week. This was a big step in the right direction.

The Good News:

The Seahawks won an important NFC West game and seemed to be playing for one another and trusting each other in zone defense.

The Bad News:

As much fun as it is to watch Russell Wilson "make something out of nothing," even Wilson cannot escape each and every time the offensive line washes away like a sand castle at high tide. He freely owned up to two interceptions, as he should. However, if he is routinely forced to rush then his chance of an interception will rise. 

The Question:

Can the offensive line protect our quarterback consistently? Or will Russell Wilson be forced into becoming more intimate with various kinds of turf?