At first glance, 4-8 San Francisco might seem like a bad team.
However, since their disastrous 0-5 start, they are 4-3 overall and 3-1 at home.
Seattle started 4-2. Since then, we are 2-4 overall. Our season road record is also a poor 2-4.
In their three home victories, the 49ers vanquished teams that beat the Seahawks this season: Oakland, Denver and St. Louis.
And that’s why we’re 5-point underdogs today.
Which version of the Seahawks will show up today? The road warriors who surprised Chicago and manhandled Arizona? The scrappy squad who competed in New Orleans, but fell short? Or the sad sacks who laid down for Denver, St. Louis, and Oakland?
Last week, both teams played a single solid half of football.
Seattle let the worst team in the league dominate them at home throughout the first half, and then rallied to defeat the Panthers.
San Francisco’s experience was a mirror image of Seattle’s—identical, but reversed. Playing in Green Bay, the 49ers stayed even with one of the league’s best teams for the first half. Coach Singletary’s squad looked so good (and the rest of the NFC West looks so bad) that starry-eyed Fox analysts began to bill the game as a preview of a possible playoff matchup. But after halftime, San Francisco stopped playing hard to get and simply submitted to the Packers.
Fortunately, the recipe for beating San Francisco resembles the formula that ultimately yielded victory over Carolina.
Like the Panthers, the 49ers have a good running game, but bad quarterbacks. Frank Gore is out for the season with a broken hip, but Brian Westbrook was once one of the league’s best backs. If he can manage a return to Philadelphia form and fly like an Eagle again, we could be in trouble. In any case, Seahawks diehards know that the run game is more about the front five than it is about the guy lugging the rock, and San Francisco has a pretty good O-Line.
So, Seattle needs to stack the box, stuff the run, and dare their quarterback to throw.
Fortunately, the hulking Colin Cole returns today to bolster our reeling run defense.
Forcing San Francisco to throw the ball is particularly attractive today, because Coach Singletary made a momentous decision this week that is mysterious to 49er fans, courteous to Seattle, and tantamount to career suicide: he has decided to give the start to Alex Smith, whom the Seahawks sacked, intercepted, pressured and punished in Week One. Smith is 1-5 as a starter this year. Thank you, Coach Singletary.
Seattle proved last week that we can move the ball through the air, even without our starting wideouts. We may have to do so again today, as neither Mike Williams nor Ben Obomanu are locks to return from injury. Hasselbeck’s challenge is to stop throwing picks.
If our offensive line can pick up where it left off last week, we might manage to run the ball successfully. For the first time this season, we will field the same front five for a third consecutive game, so chemistry seems possible.
Much depends on offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates, who seems to struggle with playcalling early in games. Can he break out of the predictable calls that make it so easy for defenses to shut down our first several drives of every game? (Is anyone else nostalgic for how Holmgren used to script the first twentysome offensive plays? I miss the creative mix of well-rehearsed plays, executed with tempo and precision. I also miss scoring in the first quarter.)
When you’ve painted yourself into a corner the way Seattle has this year, every divisional game is a must-win. Although our records are identical, St. Louis owns the lead in the NFC West by virtue of their victory over us in September. We could pull even in head-to-head competition by beating the Rams at home in our last regular season game.
But if we hope to be playing for the division crown in Week 17, we need to win this one. We must keep pace with the Rams’ overall record, and this game is far more winnable than our next two contests against NFC South heavyweights Atlanta and Tampa Bay.
So, the season is on the line. Again.
Go, Seahawks!
I see there is no post-game analysis yet. Perhaps you are (as am I) too disgusted or disgruntled to bother to write yet another, "wow do we suck or what?" post.
ReplyDeleteThere is no excuse for making Alex Smith look like a superstar. Yes, yes, Matthew had a horrendous game. But every time we had the Niners in a 3rd and 10 and them let them pass for 60 yards I wanted take take Kelly Jennings ad bitch-slap him silly.
Um...that's just me, though.
; )
I share your frustration with our secondary.
ReplyDeleteI sure miss Josh Wilson.
Watching him win one for Baltimore with a pick six in overtime reminded me how special that kid is.
I can't help but think that if we'd kept him, we'd have one or two more wins.
And, given our shorthandedness at the wide receiver position, I continue to regret losing Burleson to free agency and cutting Housh. Things have become so bad that I even regret trading Branch, but just a little.
Our struggles on the O-Line make me wonder why Rob Sims and Mansfield Wrotto are good enough to start for Detroit and Buffalo, but not good enough to start for us. Our lack of depth on the D-Line makes me regret letting the Lions have Lawrence Jackson.
It seems that for every good personnel decision Carroll and Schneider have made, there have been two bad ones.