Q. So what difference would Randy Moss make, if the offensive line is going to get detonated the way it did, in the first half against Oakland?
A. None.
The Oakland game was a replay of a game Dr. D watched long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away...
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Q. The October 2010 Oakland game happened before?
A. In 1983, Chuck Knox' first (!) season with the Seahawks, he traded about eight draft picks for Curt Warner ... and then Hard-Knox-Willed the Hawks to an 8-7 record. "These guys have never won that one big game to, put them in the playoffs, for example," he said in the middle of that year.
Game 16, Kenny Easley, Jacob Green and those guys did K.O. the Patriots, 24-6, legitimizing football in Seattle, and then in Game 1 of the 1983 playoffs, they ripped the Broncos in the Kingdome. 31-7! Wow!
The Seahawks went down to Miami to attempt to avoid embarrassment... and, incredibly, beat a 12-4 Don Shula / Dan Marino team on their home field.
I remember how pysched Pete Gross was to go to Oakland. "The Seattle Seahawks are going to be in the AFC championship game!," he exulted on TV. "Did you ever think you'd hear yourself say that?" answered Steve Raible.
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The Seahawks went to Oakland and, snap one, the Raiders lined up 13 men on the line of scrimmage. Jumping around. Hocking lugies and spitting them across the line of scrimmage. Faking blitzes three times before the snap, and then 7 guys coming across with the snap of the football.
The Raiders tore the Hawks' arm off and beat them to death with the stump. Dr. D learned a lesson that would last him the rest of his life that day: bullies win sports contests.
Finesse guys can beat bullies, but they've got to have a verrrrrrrry well-contrived plan to do sidestep death.
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A. The 2010 Seahawks aren't finesse guys, are they? You said that their front 7 on defense are "grass players."
Q. The 2010 Seahawks' offensive line are turf players, except Okung and maybe Chris Spencer.
The Hawks ran about five plays last Sunday, and I lost interest in the game right then and there. Their offensive line got smoked like I've only seen about five times in the history of the Seahawks.
Hasselbeck, Lynch, and Stokley are the other demonstrated tough players on offense. Williams maybe; we'll see. I know he's big and runs over the middle; doesn't mean he's a grass player. Carlson may later become one.
Forsett, the other receivers, fuhgeddaboudit.
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Q. So, again, why get a receiver if the line can't block?
A. Cause other games won't be as bad as Oakland was.
Even by the second half, Carroll had a tourniquet on. He gets X's and O's onto the problem.
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Part 2
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