September 28, 2009

Facing Stupid Reality Again UPDATED

First of all, I call bullshit on Mora's anti-Mare rant. Frankly it was lazy and classless of him to single out one player for yesterday's loss, but it's a long-standing trope of football: When all else fails, blame the "idiot kicker."

If it was just an emotional rant, so be it. Maybe it will kick Mare in the ass a bit (you really can't be missing 34-yarders in the league, bro), and it shows the team that their coach has some fire in his belly. If he actually cuts Mare? That's just DUMB. He's too good at kickoffs to fire him after a day where he made 4 of 6 field goal attempts. UPDATE: Mora retracted his post-game comments and said no changes at kicker this week...

It's also worth pointing out that if the offense had displayed better execution, and the coaches called better plays, we would have been scoring TDs instead of trying FGs.

Enough with yesterday: What does the future hold for this team? First of all, if you are writing off next Sunday as a loss already, you're not welcome around here. There's farrrr too many Seahawks "fans" who immediately fall into fatalistic, negative, defeatist thinking at the first sign of trouble. Kindly fuck off so we are not infected with your poison. The Seahawks CAN win at Indianapolis. UPDATE: Unconfirmed reports that Dwight Freeney is OUT for Sunday's game... stay tuned.

The longer view is this: I still believe a 9-7 record will win the NFC West, which means the Seahawks need to go 8-5 over the remaining 13 games. Specifically, two things MUST happen:

A) The Seahawks MUST win their last 4 divisional games. A 5-1 mark in the division means a split with SF, giving the Niners, at best, a 5-1 mark in the division as well. I think the Niners can and will finish 9-7, but Seattle has to win the RIGHT nine games to be in a position to beat them out on tiebreakers for the division title. This means a sweep of Arizona, who so far looks vulnerable.

B) The Seahawks MUST win their six remaining home games. Jacksonville. Arizona. Detroit. San Fransisco. Tampa Bay. Tennessee. The combined record of these teams right now? 5-13. Things will evolve as the season progresses, but that is a SOFT remaining home schedule. 7-1 at home, plus two road wins = 9-7.

These things aren't crazy impossibilities. Seattle has the talent to get this done, and if we reach the bye at 3-3, we should all be pretty happy with that. Beat Indy? We could be 4-2 and in much better shape. As my 2004 Red Sox used to say: "Why Not Us?"

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

THIS is why you run the greatest blog out there. Too many Seahawk fans are lame, calling wolf, when they should be focusing on the positives. Hawthorne? Burleson? Julius "The Juice Man" Jones?

Our defense can stop Indy. We will need to play the best football possible, but I still believe it can be done.

GO HAWKS! AND GO DKSB!

Toftie said...

Good summary and extremely helpful. I was thinking, if only I could geek out enough to figure out the rest of the season and how it must play out, but there you go, doing it for me. :) Thanks!

Coach Owens said...

I wouldn't totally blame the coaches for bad play-calling, especially on the offensive side of the ball. One of the responsibilities of the quarterback is to recognize the type of defense and, if needed, audible to counter it. I only remember, at most, Senaca calling an audible three or four times. That's another reason we need Matt back. He's fantastic when it comes to reading the defense before the snap.

Zem said...

I'm still picking my battered soul off the floor from Sundays game, but I'll have recovered in time for the Colts.

I've spent the last two days bemoaning the many flaws of this team, to hell with it. Go out and beat the fucking Colts.