My Take on the Seahawks/Chargers Game

My take on the Seahawks-Chargers game (9/26/10):

Offense:
- Matt Hasselbeck is still struggling. He only had an ok game today. He overthrew and underthrew MANY receivers today.
- Forsett is solid. Not great, but solid. If he has a few good games, he could be a 1,000 yard rusher, our first since Shaun Alexander.
- Golden Tate, Deion Branch, and Mike Williams may be our best top three receivers we’ve had in a long time.
- Where was Julius Jones? The announcers even commented on that.
- When John Carlson gets involved, this offense does well. Every time. He needs to get the ball as much as possible.
- HORRIBLE decision at the end of the 2^nd half. First, we waste our timeout right after the two minute warning. Then, when we’re near the goal line, we spike the ball, even though we had plenty of time to run a play. Then, with NO TIMEOUTS, Hasselbeck tries a quarterback draw and gets stuffed. We ended with zero points when we should have gotten three. Poor time management there. VERY POOR. I don’t know who is to blame: Hasselbeck, Carroll, or Bates? One of them could have cost us the game.
- It was the third straight week where the offense has started slowly. The Seahawks have ABSOLUTELY ZERO FIRST QUARTER POINTS SO FAR THIS SEASON. This offense is TERRIBLE at the start of games.
- However, for the first time this season, we did manage to score first. We got a field goal in the 2^nd.

Defense:
- When we rushed Rivers, we forced him to get off a bad throw. When we didn’t rush him, he almost always found a LONG completion to either Gates, Floyd, or Naanee.
- Which leads to me saying that there’s something wrong with our zone defense. There were GAPING holes in it.
- The Chargers had technically FOUR tries to tie the game. The first TD pass to Gates was taken back (holding), but he still ended up getting the TD on the next play. Then, on the two point conversion, Legedu Naanee got a conversion but it was taken back (illegal touching—he went out of bounds), but he still managed to get the conversion on the next play. We did not take advantage after either penalty. If we had just taken advantage once, the game would not have been tied.
- Earl Thomas may become a better defensive player than Aaron Curry. AND, if he keeps it up, he’ll be in the running for defensive rookie of the year.

Special Teams:
- LEON WASHINGTON! What else can I say? Let him return kicks all year long. But it also was a bit the poor special teams coverage of the Chargers.
- Golden Tate also needs to stay as our punt returner. Although he needs to stop catching punts inside the 10 yard line.

Officiating:
- The officiating was generally good for this game. The reviews went a bet overboard in the final two minutes of the first half. Also, they made a terrible mistake which could have cost the Chargers. While they were determining something (I can’t remember what they were trying to figure out), the play clock kept running and the Chargers got penalized with a delay of game on their 2^nd to last drive. That certainly didn’t help. They ended up turning the ball over on downs.

Other:
- Crowd appeared to be ecstatic! Four false starts and three delays of game! Great job by the 12^th man.
- I liked Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts. They are better than most Fox announcers. Especially Dick Stockton and his pronunciation of Olindo Ma-RAY!

All in all, solid win. Next week, at the Rams. The Rams are 1-2 and just beat Washington. This is a game we probably should win. We’ve had success their recently, so I don’t see why that would change.