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My Favorite Quote from any article on Sunday
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FYI, here's the rest of the article...
The other upset-which-might-not-have-been-much-of-an-upset came in St. Louis, where the Rams beat the Seahawks for the second consecutive season, this time in a 34-31 overtime thriller. And while last year’s dramatic victory required two moments of stunning special-teams brilliance from Rams coordinator John Fassel, this year’s win was a back-and-forth slugfest that saw the Rams give away the lead and narrowly regain it before a pair of crucial overtime plays by the Seahawks.
Naturally, the big story coming out of the game for Seattle revolved around missing safety Kam Chancellor. The Seahawks defense gave up 27 points,3 but what was even more concerning was how they gave up those points. Last year, the Seahawks allowed just 39 plays of 20 yards or more, which was comfortably the lowest figure in the league. (Buffalo was second with 46, and the league average was 61.) On Sunday, the Chancellor-less defense allowed the Rams to hit eight plays of 20 yards or more, which is the most allowed by any team so far in Week 1.
The most notable of those big plays was the 37-yard bomb from Nick Foles to Lance Kendricks that tied the game with 59 seconds left, in part because of who Kendricks beat for the touchdown. That happened to be Dion Bailey, Chancellor’s replacement in the lineup, who was in coverage and slipped on the play. It seems difficult to blame a guy for slipping and suggest that the far-better-known player wouldn’t have slipped, but let’s say it’s fair to consider Bailey culpable for that mistake.
That’s one bad play. I ran through the other 20-plus-yard plays and don’t think there were any others really involving Bailey. Breaking down coverage without knowing the play call is always a dangerous game, but in most of the other cases, Bailey was on the other side of the field and couldn’t have had anything to do with the play. A seam route to Jared Cook over the middle went between two linebackers. A play-action pass to Stedman Bailey for 29 yards came while Dion Bailey was run-blitzing and near the line of scrimmage. A critical 21-yard fourth-quarter completion to Kenny Britt came with DeShawn Shead in coverage. Foles even fit a beautiful corner route between Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas.
The only exception I can find is a wheel route to Cook for 20 yards on the final play of the first quarter, where there appeared to be miscommunication. Bailey appeared to be standing over Cook like he was in man coverage before the snap, but when Cook went in motion, Bailey didn’t follow and gestured like he was passing him off to a defender on the other side of the formation. Cook ran free on the wheel route and was tackled by Cary Williams, who looked agitated after the play in the way that cornerbacks who have been witness to blown coverages look agitated.
It’s hard for me to say the play in question was Bailey’s fault. While I suppose Chancellor might have improved the defense on non-big plays or allowed it to play differently, I really don’t think he would have made much of a difference in terms of how Seattle handled those big plays outside of the touchdown pass to Kendricks.
The argument that Sunday’s game proved how Chancellor deserved a raise seems iffy to me. If anything, I think you can make a better case about how Sunday proved that Russell Wilson deserved what he was paid this offseason. If anyone ever tells you Wilson is a system quarterback or that he gets routinely carried to wins by his defense, show them this game against the Rams, where his offensive line was being ragdolled like they were boys against men for most of the game and Wilson had to run for his life and make guys miss on virtually every passing play to make anything happen.
When St. Louis pieced together its dominant defensive line, this was the sort of game it must have been dreaming about. Wilson has been sacked six or more times in a game on four occasions, and three of those days have come against the Rams. They sacked him six times Sunday, knocking him down a total of nine times, and it’s a miracle those figures aren’t higher. Aaron Donald was, bar none, the most impressive player I saw on any field in Week 1. St. Louis’s front seven appeared to be spending as much time in Seattle’s backfield as Wilson and Marshawn Lynch. It was a dominant performance and one that raises concerns about this Seattle offensive line going forward.
The defensive line also came up with the final play of the day. I’ll spare you the jokes about how Pete Carroll finally chose to run for it on short-yardage, but that game-ending stuff is a reminder that even the league’s best short-yardage back doesn’t get 1 yard when he needs to every time. Here, my suspicion is that the Seahawks had a genuine4 read-option play called, which the Rams snuffed out beautifully. Chris Long stayed at home on the edge to force Wilson to hand the ball off, and Michael Brockers — who is, remember, arguably this team’s fifth-best defensive lineman — shot through the gap between J.R. Sweezy and Garry Gilliam to meet Lynch in the backfield. The play never had any shot of succeeding, and it wasn’t because of a bad decision. It was because the Rams out-executed the Seahawks.
There was also a bizarre decision when it appeared Carroll chose to attempt an onside kick at the beginning of overtime, a move that was later revealed to be purely accidental when Steven Hauschka admitted that it was actually a failed squib kick. Carroll wasn’t trying the onside kick, but it’s actually a very reasonable gambit, given that you can recover an onside kick and promptly win in overtime by kicking a field goal without needing to give the ball back to the opposition (who, by rule, had a chance to possess the ball) and while sacrificing only about 30 yards of field position. Brian Burke, who now works for ESPN, wrote about this very topic in 2011. I don’t think it made sense for the Seahawks given that they were favored to win the game, but it’s a brilliant idea for a team with a good offense and/or a great kicker from distance.
Strangely, the player who stood out to me as emblematic of why Seattle might have lost this game was, entirely indirectly, Tyler Lockett. Lockett didn’t do anything wrong; in fact, he had a brilliant punt return5 for a touchdown and looks every bit the return genius he seemed during the preseason. When I wrote about the Lockett trade this May, I criticized the move, not out of any doubt that Lockett was a good player, but out of the opportunity cost Seattle spent in doing so.
It’s really hard to write about opportunity cost in terms of football because the cost is so difficult to see. The Seahawks gave up third-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-round picks to Washington to move up 26 slots and grab Lockett, basically valuing him as equivalent to the 27th pick of the first round. Most teams wouldn’t draft even a great return prospect that high — remember that Devin Hester was a late second-rounder and Dante Hall was a fifth-round pick — so it’s reasonable to expect that Lockett will need to deliver some as a wideout to justify the trade.
Even if that happens, and I think it will, the Seahawks will have paid an enormous premium to make the move. It’s easy to see the value of Lockett because you can actually watch him play; he’s a tangible asset to the team. The opportunity cost is so difficult to see because you can’t really imagine what the players John Schneider might have taken would look or play like in Seattle’s colors. On Sunday, you couldn’t see them, but they were missing. Seattle’s offensive line was torn to bits while starting two undrafted free agents (Gilliam and center Drew Nowak) around a seventh-rounder (Sweezy). They had another undrafted free agent, Bailey, starting at strong safety. A fourth undrafted free agent, Shead, was in coverage on that third-and-15 conversion by Britt.
There’s no guarantee Schneider would have found stars with those middle-round picks in the exact spots where his team was lacking on Sunday, even if he’s found players like K.J. Wright and Sherman in the middle rounds in years past. But there’s also no guarantee he couldn’t have found a useful return man as an undrafted free agent, either. The difference between Gilliam and a third-round tackle prospect might not have stopped the Rams defensive line single-handedly, but we’ll never know whether it might have done enough to influence a key play or two. That gap between drafted talent and replacement-level talent is the opportunity cost that comes with trading up for a luxury item like Lockett. He looks to be a great player, and Schneider is no dummy. But if you’re looking to understand why opportunity cost matters, look at the guys who were stretched in meaningful roles for the Seahawks on Sunday.
The other upset-which-might-not-have-been-much-of-an-upset came in St. Louis, where the Rams beat the Seahawks for the second consecutive season, this time in a 34-31 overtime thriller. And while last year’s dramatic victory required two moments of stunning special-teams brilliance from Rams coordinator John Fassel, this year’s win was a back-and-forth slugfest that saw the Rams give away the lead and narrowly regain it before a pair of crucial overtime plays by the Seahawks.
Naturally, the big story coming out of the game for Seattle revolved around missing safety Kam Chancellor. The Seahawks defense gave up 27 points,3 but what was even more concerning was how they gave up those points. Last year, the Seahawks allowed just 39 plays of 20 yards or more, which was comfortably the lowest figure in the league. (Buffalo was second with 46, and the league average was 61.) On Sunday, the Chancellor-less defense allowed the Rams to hit eight plays of 20 yards or more, which is the most allowed by any team so far in Week 1.
The most notable of those big plays was the 37-yard bomb from Nick Foles to Lance Kendricks that tied the game with 59 seconds left, in part because of who Kendricks beat for the touchdown. That happened to be Dion Bailey, Chancellor’s replacement in the lineup, who was in coverage and slipped on the play. It seems difficult to blame a guy for slipping and suggest that the far-better-known player wouldn’t have slipped, but let’s say it’s fair to consider Bailey culpable for that mistake.
That’s one bad play. I ran through the other 20-plus-yard plays and don’t think there were any others really involving Bailey. Breaking down coverage without knowing the play call is always a dangerous game, but in most of the other cases, Bailey was on the other side of the field and couldn’t have had anything to do with the play. A seam route to Jared Cook over the middle went between two linebackers. A play-action pass to Stedman Bailey for 29 yards came while Dion Bailey was run-blitzing and near the line of scrimmage. A critical 21-yard fourth-quarter completion to Kenny Britt came with DeShawn Shead in coverage. Foles even fit a beautiful corner route between Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas.
The only exception I can find is a wheel route to Cook for 20 yards on the final play of the first quarter, where there appeared to be miscommunication. Bailey appeared to be standing over Cook like he was in man coverage before the snap, but when Cook went in motion, Bailey didn’t follow and gestured like he was passing him off to a defender on the other side of the formation. Cook ran free on the wheel route and was tackled by Cary Williams, who looked agitated after the play in the way that cornerbacks who have been witness to blown coverages look agitated.
It’s hard for me to say the play in question was Bailey’s fault. While I suppose Chancellor might have improved the defense on non-big plays or allowed it to play differently, I really don’t think he would have made much of a difference in terms of how Seattle handled those big plays outside of the touchdown pass to Kendricks.
The argument that Sunday’s game proved how Chancellor deserved a raise seems iffy to me. If anything, I think you can make a better case about how Sunday proved that Russell Wilson deserved what he was paid this offseason. If anyone ever tells you Wilson is a system quarterback or that he gets routinely carried to wins by his defense, show them this game against the Rams, where his offensive line was being ragdolled like they were boys against men for most of the game and Wilson had to run for his life and make guys miss on virtually every passing play to make anything happen.
When St. Louis pieced together its dominant defensive line, this was the sort of game it must have been dreaming about. Wilson has been sacked six or more times in a game on four occasions, and three of those days have come against the Rams. They sacked him six times Sunday, knocking him down a total of nine times, and it’s a miracle those figures aren’t higher. Aaron Donald was, bar none, the most impressive player I saw on any field in Week 1. St. Louis’s front seven appeared to be spending as much time in Seattle’s backfield as Wilson and Marshawn Lynch. It was a dominant performance and one that raises concerns about this Seattle offensive line going forward.
The defensive line also came up with the final play of the day. I’ll spare you the jokes about how Pete Carroll finally chose to run for it on short-yardage, but that game-ending stuff is a reminder that even the league’s best short-yardage back doesn’t get 1 yard when he needs to every time. Here, my suspicion is that the Seahawks had a genuine4 read-option play called, which the Rams snuffed out beautifully. Chris Long stayed at home on the edge to force Wilson to hand the ball off, and Michael Brockers — who is, remember, arguably this team’s fifth-best defensive lineman — shot through the gap between J.R. Sweezy and Garry Gilliam to meet Lynch in the backfield. The play never had any shot of succeeding, and it wasn’t because of a bad decision. It was because the Rams out-executed the Seahawks.
There was also a bizarre decision when it appeared Carroll chose to attempt an onside kick at the beginning of overtime, a move that was later revealed to be purely accidental when Steven Hauschka admitted that it was actually a failed squib kick. Carroll wasn’t trying the onside kick, but it’s actually a very reasonable gambit, given that you can recover an onside kick and promptly win in overtime by kicking a field goal without needing to give the ball back to the opposition (who, by rule, had a chance to possess the ball) and while sacrificing only about 30 yards of field position. Brian Burke, who now works for ESPN, wrote about this very topic in 2011. I don’t think it made sense for the Seahawks given that they were favored to win the game, but it’s a brilliant idea for a team with a good offense and/or a great kicker from distance.
Strangely, the player who stood out to me as emblematic of why Seattle might have lost this game was, entirely indirectly, Tyler Lockett. Lockett didn’t do anything wrong; in fact, he had a brilliant punt return5 for a touchdown and looks every bit the return genius he seemed during the preseason. When I wrote about the Lockett trade this May, I criticized the move, not out of any doubt that Lockett was a good player, but out of the opportunity cost Seattle spent in doing so.
It’s really hard to write about opportunity cost in terms of football because the cost is so difficult to see. The Seahawks gave up third-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-round picks to Washington to move up 26 slots and grab Lockett, basically valuing him as equivalent to the 27th pick of the first round. Most teams wouldn’t draft even a great return prospect that high — remember that Devin Hester was a late second-rounder and Dante Hall was a fifth-round pick — so it’s reasonable to expect that Lockett will need to deliver some as a wideout to justify the trade.
Even if that happens, and I think it will, the Seahawks will have paid an enormous premium to make the move. It’s easy to see the value of Lockett because you can actually watch him play; he’s a tangible asset to the team. The opportunity cost is so difficult to see because you can’t really imagine what the players John Schneider might have taken would look or play like in Seattle’s colors. On Sunday, you couldn’t see them, but they were missing. Seattle’s offensive line was torn to bits while starting two undrafted free agents (Gilliam and center Drew Nowak) around a seventh-rounder (Sweezy). They had another undrafted free agent, Bailey, starting at strong safety. A fourth undrafted free agent, Shead, was in coverage on that third-and-15 conversion by Britt.
There’s no guarantee Schneider would have found stars with those middle-round picks in the exact spots where his team was lacking on Sunday, even if he’s found players like K.J. Wright and Sherman in the middle rounds in years past. But there’s also no guarantee he couldn’t have found a useful return man as an undrafted free agent, either. The difference between Gilliam and a third-round tackle prospect might not have stopped the Rams defensive line single-handedly, but we’ll never know whether it might have done enough to influence a key play or two. That gap between drafted talent and replacement-level talent is the opportunity cost that comes with trading up for a luxury item like Lockett. He looks to be a great player, and Schneider is no dummy. But if you’re looking to understand why opportunity cost matters, look at the guys who were stretched in meaningful roles for the Seahawks on Sunday.
