TERRY MOSHER
Does anybody out there really know who these Seattle Seahawks are? Really, I’m serious, who are they? One game they look like world beaters and the next game they look like bottom feeders. What gives?
Of course, when you factor in that the NFL is full of contradictions maybe the Seahawks are no different than the rest of the league teams.
Maybe I’m confusing the issue. Maybe it’s just that on any given NFL game-day anybody can beat anybody else. It’s why a team like St. Louis can beat the Seahawks twice, go 4-2 in the NFC West Division and wind-up with a 7-9 season record.
The Rams come to CenturyLink and smash the Seahawks right in the face to take a bruising 23-17 victory and then turn around on Sunday and get whipped by the lowly San Francisco 49ers.
It’s why Minnesota can get beat up 30-13 at home against Green Bay and then turn around on Sunday and go to Green Bay and beat the Packers 20-13. Go figure.
That is why Minnesota’s 38-7 loss to the Seahawks in Minnesota in early December means nothing in the bigger picture. That’s because we don’t really know, do we, which Seahawks’ team will show up this Sunday in Minnesota in the first round of the NFL playoffs. We don’t know which Minnesota team will show up either, do we?
On any given Sunday ….
Are the Seahawks really a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde team?
I’m not sure about that, either. Are they really a contradiction in themselves, or is there something simpler at work”
First of all, I don’t think you can blame or credit injuries to a team’s defeat or its victory. Football is a violent sport and when you get to the top level – the NFL – the violence is unbelievable, and very dangerous. I cringe every time they bring out the cart to carry off another player, and it happens way too much for me.
But the speed of the game, the toughness, the strength and the bigness of the players, is a story for another time. As I have written a few times before, I believe players, with all the available conditioning tools they have today, have made themselves too good for the rules of the game.
In effect, they have outgrown the game and unless the game itself is outlawed, we will see more and more players carted off the field, and more and more players in later life become crippled with the after effects of the game they played.
So injuries are going to happen and I don’t think you can use that as an excuse for why your team did not perform well. Yes, injuries can harm your team, but injuries show no discrimination; they happen to every team.
If I’m Minnesota, or any opponent of the Seahawks, I believe I can win against them, or at the very least stand a good chance of winning, if I can man-up against their receivers and taken them out of routes while at the same time keeping Russell Wilson in the pocket and don’t let him scramble to do what he does best, make incredible plays when things break down.
Seems simple enough. Yeah, but not everybody can do it. Obviously, the Rams could. They got rough with the Seahawks and played nasty and made it difficult for the Hawks to get untracked. And, let’s make this clear, you don’t want to let the Seahawks get untracked and march up and down the field in smooth fashion.
You won’t get any opposition from me if you say the Seahawks, when they are right, are the best football team in the NFL. The question is why aren’t they always right? And I believe the answer to that is simple; play them mean and nasty and take away, if you can, their receivers and put pressure on Wilson to put his team on his back and carry it to victory, and then they aren’t right.
Can Minnesota do all this?
Yes, but quite obviously the Vikings did not do it in their first go-round. They will have to toughen up this time and attack the Seahawks in those two areas – receivers and Wilson – to have a shot.
My guess – and that is all it is, a guess – is that the Seahawks will win, but it will be close and not decided until the last moments.
But if they lose, that wouldn’t surprise me, either.
After all, the Seahawks just might be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.