How The Seahawks Can Beat The Bangles
By Keith Myers
This week’s game against the Bangles isn’t going to be an easy one, even with the game at CenturyLink Field. The Bangles have one of the top defenses in the league, and against a sputtering offense like Seattle’s it could end up as another really ugly game. The Bangles are starting a rookie QB, and so their offense has been almost as bad as Seattle’s. Throw in the fact that the Seahawks have the league’s best rushing defense, and you have the making of another 6-3 game.
Still, here’s 6 things that the Seahawks need to do if they want to win this game. If they can manage to get them done, I think that Seattle comes out on top:
- Get off to a fast start. The Bangles aren’t all that talented on the offensive side of the ball. If the Seahawks can get an early lead, they can force the Bangles into becoming one dimensional on offense.
- Pressure Andy Dalton. The Seahawks are badly banged up at CB, and will start 2 players at corner that are fairly poor at covering WRs. The best thing that the Seahawks can do to help those corners is to get pressure on Dalton and force him to rid of the football early.
- Drop the No-Huddle. The Seahawks no-huddle approach backfired last week in Cleveland. All it did was force the defense to be on the field longer than it should have been. It was a nice gimmick that worked for a couple weeks; now it’s time to get back to the basics and run a normal offense.
- Protect the football. The offense will be lucky to be able to move the ball at all on Sunday. Points will ber very hard to come by. The last thing the Seahawks can afford to do is turn the ball over.
- Win the field position game. Big kick/punt returns from Leon Washington and good kick/punt coverage will be essential in this game. The Seahawks need to keep Cinci starting drives backed up near it’s own end zone, and simultaneously be starting their own drives out closer to midfield. With as little offense as I expect to see from both teams this week, whoever wins the field position game likely wins this game.
- Eliminate the penalties. This was supposed to be a list of 5 things, but lets face it, this needs to be said. The Seahawks have to eliminate the penalties in all facets of the game. This team just isn’t good enough to give up 80+ yards in penalties each and every week.