Ouch

Yesterday’s loss hurt so much that I needed to take some time before I could write about it.

Getting blown out on the road felt eerily familiar. It seemed like just last year, because it *was* just like last year. Like when we followed a Week Four fortyburger blowout of Jacksonville with a steaming pile of futility in the form of a 27-3 home loss to the Cards.

Before the game, though, I flashed even farther back. Seeing the hideous grin of John Elway on the field evoked vivid and visceral memories of how intensely we once hated the Broncos. I wish Joe Nash had been on hand to maul him, for old time’s sake.

As for the game itself, it confirmed a few of my previous doom and gloom prophecies regarding personnel.

Josh Wilson sure would have come in handy yesterday. Kyle Orton relentlessly attacked our secondary on a brutally hot day (over 100 degrees on the field) at Denver’s famously mile-high elevation. If nothing else, Wilson could have spelled our fatigued starting cornerbacks: Denver scored one of their easier touchdowns when Kelly Jennings simply fell down, perhaps due to exhaustion.

On the whole, the offensive line played remarkably well, given the whiplash of recent personnel and coaching changes. Seattle established a respectable running game early on, and they protected Hasselbeck reasonably well. Stacy Andrews, our new right guard, is a gargantuan beast. Unfortunately, being new, he still struggles with our snap count, and was responsible for two false start penalties. Sean Locklear reminded us of Super Bowl XL by getting a holding penalty that nullified a touchdown and prompted Hasselbeck to throw an interception.

Of course, the game made me miss Housh and Burleson. Yesterday, facing Denver’s excellent secondary, our receivers struggled to get open, forcing Hasselbeck to force far too many balls. Some of those throws were clearly ill-advised; others were close enough and should have been caught by skilled professional receivers.

Mike Williams, despite being on the field on almost every offensive snap, caught only one ball. He is far too big a man to disappear so completely during a big game. Despite his impressive size and decent speed, Williams has simply not shown himself to be a clutch possession receiver like Housh. Moreover, none of our wideouts has displayed the chemistry with Hasselbeck that Burleson managed to develop over the last few years.

Coaching miscues exacerbated our personnel problems. When Denver jumped to a sizable early lead, our coaches apparently panicked. Sometime in the second quarter, we abandoned the run and put the entire game on Hasselbeck’s shoulders. While that worked well last week at home against the 49ers, it proved a foolish gamble against Denver’s formidable defensive backfield. Hasselbeck could have played better, but no team can expect any quarterback to carry their offense singlehandedly every week.

By eschewing the ground game, Carroll helped Denver’s defense shut down our offense. Coaching 101: If the other team knows what you’re going to do, it’s easier for them to stop you. Unless your personnel is much better than theirs. And our receivers are nowhere near as good as the Bronco secondary.

Had Seattle stuck to the run, we likely could have sustained more drives, scored more points, and kept our defense off the field.

Instead, we threw on almost every down. Sitting on a fat lead, Denver’s DBs smothered our receivers, waited for the nigh-inevitable interceptions, and repeatedly forced us to punt. Unable to get traction on offense, we let the Broncos hog time of possession by a two to one margin. The only surprise was that our enervated defense did not surrender even more points.

Worse, Carroll left points on the field: Down by 17 points late in the second quarter, our offense went for it on 4^th and 2, rather than letting Olindo Mare nail an easy field goal and narrow our deficit to two scores.

After making several big plays last week, our defense couldn’t come up with any in Denver. (When will Aaron Curry learn to watch the ball and stay out of the neutral zone?)

On offense, some play calls were simply incomprehensible:

Why let rookie Walter Thurmond field his first NFL punt in a regular season game deep in our own territory? (He muffed the ball; Denver recovered.)

Then, on that 4^th and 2 play, we tried a deep pass to Deion Branch in the end zone. According to Carroll, this was an improvisation: the original call was a screen pass to Julius Jones. You read that right: our coaches felt that our best bet for a first down on 4^th and short was putting the pigskin in the hands of Julius Jones, the perennial underachiever who took a pay cut to avoid a roster cut. And the checkdown was a deep pass to a diminutive, marginal receiver covered by All-Pro cornerback Champ Bailey.

Coaching 102: It’s OK to take a low-percentage shot on 2^nd and short or 3^rd and short, because you can always go for the first down on the next play. But if you roll the dice on 4^th and short, you’re probably not going to score any points.

If Carroll had wanted to be constructively daring, he could have run a play at the end of the first half, instead of having Hasselbeck take a knee. (Yes, I know, Dallas lost in Week One doing just that. But imagine the potential for surprising a defense with a trick play out of the “take a knee” formation, a la Dan Marino.)

Fortunately, Golden Tate’s performance offered something in the way of a silver lining.

Life won’t get any easier next week when the San Diego Chargers invade Seahawks Stadium. Seattle will need all of Tate’s talents, plus saner coaching, stronger defense, better play from Hasselbeck, and a pro-level performance by Mike Williams and the rest of our receiving corps.