Dummy Weave Saturday
.
We asked yer, "HOW MUCH does a D-Line rotation help?" and reader Brent, rejoicing in the lack of Mariner implications in it, dumped an amazing bucket of refreshing Gatorade over his head:
.
When you are a 300+ pound defensive lineman, and you're basically doing a wind sprint impeded by a 300+ pound offensive lineman
.
He STOPS short
That's what it is! ... hey, my son played O-Line and D-Line, I've studied sports motions for years, etc etc, but it was never crystallized for me quite this way. One of the guys IS doing a wind sprint and the other is not only taking fewer steps, but has Physics Itself on his team (it's easier for anything to remain where it was than to get it moving).
And in one beautiful line, I understood why the defense gets tired. Even though I've played lotsa defense in lotsa sports, I never got this. That's a once-in-a-year aiki image there Brent, thanks kindly.
...
Mr Jonez pointed out that in 2013 the Seahawks had a "ridiculous" rotation on the D-Line and all of a sudden we "got" that too. Not KNEW it, but GROKKED it. (Grok = understand so deeply that you merge with it, and it becomes part of your personality.)
So would any of you mooks care to go through the Seahawks' second-line big men and compare the current depth, as such, to the 2013 depth? In view of the fact that better starters are an aspect of depth itself.
.
NFL TOP 100
If you missed it earlier in the summer, this is a very fun writeup (with videos) of the 8 players the Seahawks put in the NFL's top 100. It's not even bylined. Tough field to break in to, NFL writing, eh.
...
DOUG BALDWIN - This summer I saw that "this is not the receiver you're looking for" highlight on him, and just kinda suddenly got it (how much Doug Baldwin does that is similar to Steve Largent - his ankles, his hands, his heart). The funny thing is, this 2011 post (by jemanji!) on Baldwin. I didn't really stick with him as much as I shoulda.
...
KAM CHANCELLOR - thought he'd be slowing down by now, much less signing an extension right now. There are several Seahawks who are the definition of their positions, but none as distinctively so as this guy. ... what is the realistic window he has left to play at a high level?
...
EARL THOMAS - perhaps you missed Carroll's earlier baseball metaphor, "He's pitching a no-hitter right now." ... hey, another question. It's a little puzzling to me how the Seahawks' defense can have 4 separate players (LOB, Wagner) that no other team has -- and yet NEED them all. It seems to me that even one of them goes down and the whole defense can drop three levels.
Maybe that's because what the Seahawks do in the back 7 is so basic and predictable. Not that they should change it. But five years is a lot of time for the NFL to figure out how to attack this defense, so maybe its margins are hair-fine.
...
RUSSELL WILSON - my feeling had been this summer, "Boy, back in my day he'd have been at an age where he had a LOT of improvement left." For some reason they don't emphasize that much at Field Gulls, though, so I kinda figured it must be different these days. Then Pete Carroll put it this way in the above-linked top 100 article:
.
“It will be just continued comfort with what’s going on,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said at the end of last season. “His sense for anticipation of stuff, all of those things, just the feel. I think he’ll feel the pocket better, I think he’ll feel his receivers better, I think he’ll feel the urgency more clearly. You just get better.
Remember that we’re comparing him to guys that have played for 11 and 12 and 13 years. We compare him to the best in the world, because he’s worthy of that, but look at them when they were 6-years-old (in their careers). What were they doing, how many of those guys won so many games, how many of those guys were in the playoffs five times? I don’t know how many games he has won but he has won probably as many as anyone who’s ever started playing the game. He has been in position to do a lot of stuff and he has had a good team around him to do that, of course, but he has still got tons of growth.
“It’s going to be thrilling to watch what happens in the next three or four years. Get him to year eight or nine and see where he’s going to be, you know?”
.
"If you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Einstein. Pete Carroll can explain very subtle football things in a very clear and convincing way, can't he?
Enjoy,
Dr D