Interestingly, the difficulty of schedule was pretty close to that of Indianapolis...and yet I don't recall hearing a single time how weak their schedule was when they were doing that unbeaten run. The teams that were decent that the Seahawks played this year were Atlanta (they were highly ranked at the time the Hawks beat them), Giants (another bad call allowed the field goal thing to even become an issue), the Panthers, the Colts...the Hawks beat all of these teams.
THe Hawks didn't have that big an advantage on TOP. While I totally respect TOP I think until the difference is 10 minutes it's not that meaningful.
10 minutes is 1/6th of the entire game...a good portion of an entire quarter. It's a significant TOP differential...but vs teams that score quickly, TOP has no meaning...but vs a "running" team it is significant.
All the predictions I heard said the weakness of both defenses was the secondary but the Hawks secondary was a little weaker than the Steelers and that would probably be the difference, and it was.
I would agree. The Hawks lost one of their best secondary guys in Hamlin when someone hit him in the head with a pipe outside a nightclub. And then his replacement went down during the game with an injury, leaving the 3rd tier guy. He's the one that took the wrong angle trying to tackle on that 75yd TD run. And the starting corner went out injured as well. No excuses, injuries happen, I'm just mentioning why the secondary looked a little off.
I didn't hear anybody say the Steelers D would shut them down, shut down the run is about the most I heard predicted.
I did, but that is neither here nor there. I guessed the Hawks would spend a fair amount of time passing...Hasselbeck is very underrated as a passer.
I don't know the whole story in that Hamlin incident but what I have read is that Hamlin started that fight and that the club owner where it happeded has a video tape of the incident.
Anyone in the Seattle area know more info on what happened??
The Colts didn't play anybody either. I was calling back in week 5 that most of the Colts defensive "improvements" was because they were playing teams with crappy offenses (except the Rams and the Bengals, neither of whom they'd played yet). They played the Colts AFTER Dungy's son died and the streak ended, completely meaningless game for both teams, and by the time they got to the Panthers the name of their entire offense was Smith (Goings was their 3rd string RB, the real 4th stringer got hurt earlier in the season, so when Goings went down the Panthers were on their FIFTH string RB... wonder who the ball is going to).
Right, that's why I consider 10 minutes to be the line, if you hold the ball for 1/6 of the game more than the other team that's a real and serious advantage. 33 minutes to 27 just ain't that big a deal, you expect a team to get 30ish minutes of possession, 33 minute ain't that big a deal, call me when it's 35.
Nobody I saw underrated Hassleback, the mantra I saw was the chance Seattle had to win was because of him.