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Hawks Playbook Podcast Episode 36 – Seattle Seahawks Their Own Worst Enemy 

Open: Welcome to another addition of the Hawks Playbook Podcast, your primary source for Seattle Seahawks information and smart football talk.  In today’s show, Bill Alvstad and Keith Myers go over the extremely frustrating loss to the Washington Redskins this past Sunday. Seattle could not overcome 16 penalties (10 on Offense), 3 missed Blair Walsh field goals and a breakdown in the defensive secondary in the final two minutes of the game. And that really only tells part of the story.

In a very short week, we have to throw out this game as quickly as possible and Bill and Keith help you do that by our look forward to a road game vs the Arizona Cardinals on Thursday Night Football.

Featured Segment One: 16 Penalties and 3 missed FG’s help sink Seahawks

The Seahawks problems in this game went well beyond the three missed field goal attempts by Blair Walsh, all wide left. While it is easy to pin this loss on him after losing by 3 points on Sunday, there were many other contributing fractures that contributed.  Look no further that the 16 flags the team was penalized. 10 of those came against an offense that was struggling all game, and just when it looked like we could build on something positive, a false start, or holding penalty would set us back. They were simply drive killers in this game.

And while the defense did make things difficult for the Redskins offense, at the end, with just over a minute to play in the game, the defense failed badly, allowing two big throws and a run in from the one-yard line to give away this game. For 59 minutes, they held Washington to 10 points and 154 yards. But two bombs of 39 and 38 yards against our vaunted secondary took away another legendary 4th quarter comeback from Russell Wilson, who had found Doug Baldwin for a 30-yard TD catch just one minute before, to take the lead.

  • Wilson attempted 13 deep throws, the most of any QB in the NFL this season. He completed two of them. Washington had 11 batted/deflected passes.
  • Duane Brown gave up one hit and three hurries in pass protection on 54 such snaps. To be fair, that’s a lot of pass blocking snaps.
  • Doug Baldwin (seven catches, 108 yards, one touchdown) caught a pass against five different Washington defenders.
  • Bobby Wagner had one sack, one hurry, two run stops, one pass breakup, and allowed three catches for seven yards. He’s a legit DPOY candidate.
  • Jarran Reed had four pressures and was stout against the run.
  • Seattle has 41 penalties in its last three games, and penalized an average of 10.2 times per game (highest in NFL) Carolina lowest at 4.3 times per game.
  • The Seahawks have given away a league-worst 672 yards from flags.
  • SEA had 148 yards rushing, WAS had 51

      Featured Segment Two: Seattle vs Arizona on the Road Thursday Night

The Seattle Seahawks face off against division foe the Arizona Cardinals on Thursday Night Football.  This short week is probably the best medicine for a team that just lost in its worst performance of the season.  They will need a quick turn around to beat a 4 and 4 team on the road right now.  The Cardinals are obviously without Carson Palmer at Quarter Back. But the Seahawks will still face a prideful bunch, as we just saw first hand in the Redskins.

The Cardinals are just coming off a 20-10 victory on the road vs the 49ers. Drew Stanton is their quarterback, and the resurgent Adrian Peterson is taking handoffs. In typical fashion, the Seahawks objective in this game is to take away the ability of the Cardinals running game and force them to put the ball in Stanton’s hands to beat you.

Seattle should be a focused, yet angry team heading to the desert this week. I look for the entire team to bounce back this week. Wilson should get back on track, the defense should be able to hold Peterson down, and cause Drew Stanton to be……well, Drew Stanton.  Winning isn’t easy in the NFL and on the road against a division rival is always harder than it should be. But look for the Seahawks to respond to adversity in a positive way and take it to the Cardinals on the road.

Prediction:  Seahawks 28  Cardinals 13  There’s no way we’re losing this game.

Close: Thanks so much for listening to the show. Please remember that all of our shows are available for download and can be found on www.seahawksplaybook.com or on ITunes and BlogTalkRadio.  We will see you back here at this same spot next week!