9. Football is nothing like baseball, nowhere near as predictable. Baseball (BABIP, K/BB, S% etc) is driven by Pascal's Triangle. In baseball, probability theory crushes all attempts to defy gravity.
However, there is no Pascal's Triangle involved in a Matt Hasselbeck throw to Mike Williams. A team can suddenly play a lot better than it has been playing. You can't try to saber the NFL the way you do the AL and NL.
Of course, there are many basic principles that are extracted by a site like advancednflstats.com, and this kind of research has been gone since at least the days of Landry and Noll. But an NFL defense that ranks 32nd, after 16 games, could still be a good one the next Sunday.
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It's possible that the Seahawks could play in the Super Bowl, whereas it would not have been at all possible for the 2010 Mariners to play in the World Series.
The Seahawks' defense could, feasibly, shock the pundits play in Chicago the way it did the last time there. The 2011 Mariners' offense could not, feasibly, shock the pundits.
In baseball, if your team OPS+ is 80 after five months, and you don't change players, then it just isn't possible to get a 110 OPS+ the last month. But in basketball and football, that can happen.
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Football's different. So is basketball. That's because they're team sports, and baseball really isn't; baseball is a series of individual sporting matches linked together, more like a Ryder Cup than like an NFL game.
Like Geoff Baker said, take your playoff games where you can get 'em.
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10. Give Matt Hasselbeck an offensive line in 2011 and he's just as liable to be a star again. Or not.
How hard can it be to filed a decent O-Line after you've already got your Walter Jones / Russell Okung? It's like asking, how hard can it be to run a 100 ERA+ after you've already got 250 innings from Felix Hernandez.
A quarterback's effectiveness depends -- more than fans realize -- on his teammates. Give Peyton Manning this O-Line, and these receivers, in 2010, and he'd have had problems too.
It's totally realistic for the 2011 Seahawks to fix their O-Line and receivers and RB's from "diseased" to "average." Seeing as they've got Russell Okung.
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11. Pete Carroll's X's and O's are awfully good considering that he's a college coach.
Pete said it: Brees and the Saints are a tough crew over there. Carroll took fewer pieces at the start, and won the chess game. Against a master.
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12. Football fans were fretting --- > if Whitehurst can't even beat out Hasselbeck for the start, after Hasselbeck's stats this year, what does that say about Whitehurst? ... bah humbug ...
It didn't say anything about Whitehurst, other than that Pete Carroll intuited that Matt Hasselbeck had this game in him.
On this day, with this left tackle playing, against this defense, in front of this crowd, Carroll felt Hasselbeck would play great. That's all.
Personally, I'm a Whitehurst optimist. Give him 2011 under Carroll, watching Hass one more year.
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13. After watching the 2009 Seahawks quit in week five, and after watching the 2006, 07, 08 and 010 Mariners quit in May, I'm awfully glad to see a dubious team fight its guts out all year.
I'll watch any sports team that cares as much as its fans do. Many don't.
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14. Marshawn Lynch made John Riggins look like a dead man. Marcus Allen too. Can't imagine what playoff run comes close.
And yet, it happened at the very most dramatic moment possible. The pixies and sprites were out Saturday. This sports event was comparable to Edgar's Double in 1995.
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15. Chances against Chicago: about the same as against New Orleans. Won't have the crowd, but Da Bears won't have Brees.
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Be Afraid,
Dr D