Seahawks vs Rams: Notes from the game tape

After a long and extensive look at the coaches tape from the Seattle Seahawks loss to the Saint Louis Rams, some very interesting trends appeared. Unfortunately, few of them were positive.

One of the things I do every week is rematch the game from the all-22 and end zone angles. I also try and be very consistent with my methods:

I watch the plays out of order. I watch all the special teams plays first, then offensive plays, and finally all the defensive plays.
I typically don’t try and look at anything in particular. I look for overall trends and things that might be interesting for fans to read about when I do my tape study on Wednesday.
I take a lot of notes, but intentionally don’t label what play they belong to. The goal is to look for trends only, so my notes end up looking like this:

"Bennett, Avril great inside/outside pass rush force bad throw. Good coverage ShermanBennett unblockable on inside, needed more help from ?, Marsh perhapsWagz/ KJ blitz – screen pass, ouch"

The end result is a bit of a running commentary that removes context and emotions. One bad play can get lost in a sea of positive notes. One great play will get lost in a sea of negative. This gives me a true idea of how well players played.

Rarely do I get a chance to write up anything from this. I’m going to try out a few formats. Leet me know if you have any suggestions.

Here some notes from this week:

The interior of the offensive line was putrid. Nowak and Britt really struggled in all facets of the game, but that was somewhat expected.

Sweezy being as bad as he was is really disappointing. He’s now in his fourth season. It is time for all of that potential to show up on the field, and it simply isn’t happening. There was very little to find encouraging in his play.

The Seahawks need those three inter linemen to step up in a big way if the offense is going to become as efficient as we have seen in previous seasons.

I think we need to start referring to the following blocking issues as the “Tom Cable Effect”

The offensive tackles weren’t as bad as the interior linemen, and they didn’t play as poorly as I believed when I watched the game live.

Russell Okung struggled at times against Robert Quinn, but he also was able to negate Quinn’s speed on many plays. This wasn’t the dominant Okung from 2012 by any means, but the tales of his demise are a bit exaggerated.

Gary Gilliam was as bad as a run blocker as we had feared. He just cannot get his pad level right. He is always too high or too low.

His pass blocking on the other hand and was surprisingly good. There is a reason why we heard almost nothing from Chris Long in this game. Gilliam did a good job of shutting him down.

Seattle’s linebackers were uncharacteristically undisciplined. They got themselves out of position too often, and the Rams took advantage.

Pete Carroll mentioned some of this in his Monday presser. The LBs often didn’t get deep enough in their zones, which is why the Seahawks gave up so many big plays.

Play-action was also a major issue. Wagner and Wright are typically very good at not getting fooled. That wasn’t the case this week. There were a lot of wasted steps as players drifted out of position and then were late to recover.

Bruce Irvin was especially bad at that this stuff on Sunday. He bit inside on the Tavon Austin run, giving up the edge and allowing the touchdown. That wasn’t the only instance either. His gap discipline was probably as bad as it has ever been in Seattle.

Seattle’s linebackers won’t play that poorly again. They are simply too good and have too much of a proven track record for me to believe otherwise.

The Seahawks missed their Hammer in the middle. They can claim otherwise and talk up Dion Bailey all the want, but it doesn’t change the fact that Kam Chancellor’s absence really hurt them.

Don’t get me wrong. Bailey played well except for the pass where he fell down and gave up the tying score. The rest of the game he did his job for the most part.

The problem was that the receivers weren’t afraid of the center of the field they way they are when Chancellor is out there. There were no alligator arms, no guys flinching as the ball approaches.

Chancellor’s presence is as much of a psychological advantage as it is a physical one. That is just something that cannot be replaced.

The following picture is everything that went wrong with the overtime kickoff in one picture:

Next: Grading Seattle's Week 1 performance

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