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New Orleans-Seattle: 9 Takeaways From A Sloppy Seahawk Win

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The Seattle Seahawks reached the NFC Championship Game for the first time since 2005, with a hard-fought 23-15 win over the New Orleans Saints in the gusts and rain of the Pacific Northwest. Here’s the Notebook Nine takeaways from the New Orleans-Seattle game…

    • *If you watched this game, was there anything about Seattle that shouted “Super Bowl favorite”? I know the conditions made it tough for anyone to look good, but New Orleans moved the ball more consistently, and if not for a big turnover leading to an easy Seahawk touchdown, and some other missed opportunities, this is a different game.


    • *Then again…the Seattle defense made big stops consistently, and Marshawn Lynch ran for 140 yards on 28 carries. Russell Wilson didn’t throw an interception. Seattle never gave New Orleans anything for free, and any good team is going to be hard to beat if they don’t shoot themselves on the foot. Maybe I’ve become so jaded by Fantasy offensive numbers, that I’m losing my appreciation for the football I love the most—ground-and-pound, mixed with tough defense.
    • *The general game plan of New Orleans head coach Sean Payton was a good one. He committed to the run, and this newly found Khiry Robinson combined with Mark Ingram to give a flash and muscle combination in the backfield. Had this combo been found earlier, maybe the Saints win the NFC South, get a bye and we’re not doing this post-mortem from Seattle for at least another week.
    • *While Payton’s overall strategies were good, his decisions in specific tactical situations were awful. When going into the wind, he attempted two field goals of over 40 yards, the second one a 48-yard try. At that, Bill Simmons, the editor of ESPN’s Grantland tweeted out that we were still looking for the second person on earth who thought the kick had any chance.
    • *Seattle’s own clock management at the end left a lot to be desired. With three minutes to go, an eight-point lead and New Orleans down to one timeout, Wilson threw an incomplete pass on first down. The highlight play—a 3rd-and-3 completion to Doug Baldwin down the sideline—was a poor decision that worked. Why risk stopping the clock when you have a great defense, minimal time left, and might still get the first down by running? Finally, when Lynch galloped 31 yards for a TD with 2:40 left, it was better for the Saints. They were out of timeouts and the only hope was a Seattle score that would allow New Orleans to try for a score-onside kick-score miracle.


  • *And as it turned out, it almost happened. After a Saints’ touchdown, Seattle’s Golden Tate flubbed the onside kick. When this happened, how many people in the state of Wisconsin thought it was poetic justice? Tate was the receiver on last year’s train wreck play against the Packers on Monday Night Football that brought the replacement ref era to an ignominious end. He stood to be the goat when he gave Drew Brees the ball back, down eight with 24 seconds left.
  • *Like the rest of the nation, I’m not sure what New Orleans receiver Marques Colston was thinking, as he caught a pass around the 35-yard line with a few seconds remaining. Rather than easily step out of bounds and let Brees launch one into the end zone, Colston tried an across-the-field lateral that went forward and ended the game. No one was looking for it, so it clearly wasn’t a designed play. Unfortunately, the play will overshadow that Colston caught 11 balls for 144 yards against a secondary that’s as good as any in the game.
  • *Speaking of that secondary—safeties Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor were laying hits everywhere, supporting the run defense and constantly disrupting the passing game. We could cite their 25 combined tackles, but perhaps the more consequential stat is this—New Orleans’ tight end Jimmy Graham caught just one pass for eight yards. Really, I could have saved this entire column space, quoted that stat, and we’d know why Seattle won the football game.
  • *On the gambling/entertainment side of things, the standard line for this game was Seattle (-8), meaning Brees’ final touchdown drive was a nightmare for Las Vegas. It put the game on a push, which means all bets are off and the sportsbooks don’t collect the 10 percent juice on losing bets. And on television, if play-by-play man Kevin Burkhart and analyst John Lynch are Fox’s #2 broadcast team (Joe Buck and Troy Aikman go today in Carolina), then the network needs to add some depth.

NFL Playoff Preview: New Orleans-Seattle

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The second round of the NFL playoffs starts late Saturday afternoon when the New Orleans Saints visit the Seattle Seahawks (4:35 PM ET, Fox). Here’s our Notebook Nine points of preparation for the New Orleans-Seattle game…

    • *New Orleans first had to overcome their own history of never winning a road playoff game in last week’s win over the Philadelphia Eagles. Now the Saints have to beat a Seattle team that has never lost a home playoff game since moving outdoors (the Seahawks lost in the old Kingdome once, back in 1999). This history includes a 41-36 upset of New Orleans back in 2010, when the Seahawks were a 7-9 division champ and the worst team in NFL history to make the postseason.
    • *Between this history, and Seattle’s 34-7 thumping of New Orleans in this same venue on the first Monday of December, the oddsmakers have no doubt where this one is going. The Seahawks are an eight-point favorite. The Over/Under is 45.5, so let’s combine those and come up with projected final score of 27-19 for Seattle.
    • *The Over/Under indicates a lack of respect for the Saints’ offense, combined with weather likely being a factor. Can Drew Brees take care of the football? Brees threw 12 interceptions this year, and while it would be an overstatement to call him a turnover machine (that’s reserved for Andy Dalton, Eli Manning and Joe Flacco), interceptions are what keeps Brees from being in the true elite of NFL quarterbacks (Brady, Peyton and Rodgers). Seattle is the NFL’s best at forcing takeaways.


    • *One way for New Orleans to contain the turnovers and reduce the pressure on Brees would be to run the ball. Sean Payton broke character and muscled up last Saturday night in Philly and Mark Ingram ran for 97 yards, in what is easily the biggest performance of the former Heisman Trophy winner’s pro career. The Saints finished 26th in the league during the season in rush average, but we see every year in the playoffs how current form matters more than anything. Let’s see if the head coach feeds Ingram again.
    • *By running the ball, the Saints did not employ tight end Jimmy Graham as much. Graham has no peer as a pass-catcing tight end, save for maybe New England’s Rob Gronkowsi on the rare occasions Gronk is healthy. What Graham doesn’t do is block well, and Payton often went to two-TE sets that did not include Graham. It’s a tough trade off to make, but Payton may not have a choice if he wants to keep the heat off Brees.
    • *A great battle looms on the outside, with Seattle corner Richard Sherman going up against New Orleans wide receiver Marques Colston. We can talk strategy all we want, but if Sherman can lock down Colston man-on-man, it’s tough to see any gambit by New Orleans working. Colston has to get himself open and make a couple big plays down the field, or at the very least, force safety help that might free up someone else.
    • *Teams that win in the playoffs usually find someone who can play beyond their regular season stats. With Seattle, the person to keep an eye on is defensive end Chris Clemons. He had a meager 4 ½ sacks this year, but we know he’s much better than that. Here’s another case of a player who can shred a gameplan if he can wreck the pocket, or at least force extra attention on himself.


  • *Offensively, Seattle has the image of a team that muscles up with Marshawn Lynch and plays percentage football in the passing game with Russell Wilson. Don’t overlook that Seattle is one of the best in the NFL at yards-per-pass, and now they’re going to have Percy Harvin available on Saturday. New Orleans can’t give up the big play and to that end, corner Keenan Lewis is going to have to deliver. Lewis locked down DeSean Jackson in the first round before a head injury and the league’s concussion protocol kept him in the latter stages of the game. Lewis is healthy and needs another big performance.
  • *Seattle’s biggest Achilles heel has been pass protection, as they rank 20th in sacks allowed in spite of having a mobile quarterback. New Orleans has two players who can get pressure, outside linebacker Junior Galette and defensive end Cameron Jordan, who line up on opposite sides of the ball. We know defensive coordinator Rob Ryan will bring the heat. How much can Wilson’s mobility and the need to respect Lynch’s muscular running between the tackles slow the Saints’ pass rush?


I’m not ready to buck history and pick an upset here, so I’m taking Seattle. If I were at a Las Vegas sportsbook I probably wouldn’t bet the game, because the (-7) seems like a lot, although it has been pointed out that the Seahawks are an “avalanche” type of team, especially at home. I respect what New Orleans has done this year in winning 11 games and then taking a road playoff game, but this is too big a hill to climb.

 

The New Orleans-Seattle Fight For Homefield

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Will it turn out that a fluke of the schedule ends up being what decides who wins the Super Bowl this coming February in New York? It’s well possible–certainly the consensus view is that it will at least decide the NFC champ. The Seattle Seahawks host the New Orleans Saints on Monday Night (8:30 PM ET, ESPN) with the winner taking the inside track to the #1 seed.

I understand where the consensus view comes from. In spite of recent championship teams (the last three in fact) doing it the hard way on the road, the overall record of home teams in the playoffs remains very good. Furthermore, these two teams in particular seem to have as big a home/road disparity as any contender. On their own field, each is unstoppable. Away from home, they become a pretty good team, but nothing spectacular.


Then, assuming there would be another New Orleans-Seattle game in January, the contrasts in home environment are sharp. The Saints throw it all over the place with Drew Brees indoors, while the Seahawks relish their punishing ground attack behind Marshawn Lynch and their physical cornerback play, led by Richard Sherman, all in the rain and wind of the Pacific Northwest.

So yes, I understand why this game is seen as the de facto NFC Championship Game, but I’m not ready to go quite that far myself.


New Orleans is a much better defensive team this year, more capable of winning outdoors–and whether it’s Monday Night or later in January, they’ll almost surely have to. On Seattle’s side, Russell Wilson might not be Brees, the second-year Seahawk quarterback can still move the ball and the last I checked, there’s nothing stopping Lynch from running wild indoors. The team with homefield in January would surely be the favorite, but not an unbeatable one.

Finally, let’s not forget that there are some other contenders. Could Detroit go to New Orleans and win? Why not? How about San Francisco up in Seattle? The 49ers last two trips there have been atrocious, but there’s nothing structurally about Jim Harbaugh’s team that makes them unfit to win in the cold and rain. Let’s not reduce the whole NFC race to Seattle and New Orleans just yet.

That’s why, even though I’m really looking forward to tomorrow night’s Battle In Seattle, I would still consider Denver-Kansas City late this afternoon a bigger game. The loser of that game is staring at a 5-seed and three road games. The loser of Saints-Seahawks is staring at a 2-seed, a week off and home game before going on the road.

Of course both of Monday Night’s teams have division races they have to survive, but they’ll control their own destiny in those come Tuesday morning regardless.

I don’t mean to debunk the importance of the game–I’d still rather have the 1-seed than not–but simply argue for keeping this game in perspective.

Seattle is a (-4.5) favorite, suggesting oddsmakers see them as slightly better than New Orleans on a neutral surface, plus a field goal for homefield. Although given the homefield disparity discussed above, it’s also possible that the entire number is based exclusively on who’s at home. The moneylines for outright wins–what we use here at TheSportsNotebook in making picks–has the Seahawks at (-215) and the Saints at (+180).

It was a big upset back in 2010 when New Orleans traveled to Seattle as the defending Super Bowl champ and lost a first-round playoff game to a team that won its division at 7-9. It won’t be this time. The Seahawks match up well–the Saints’ defense is better against the pass than the run, and the Seahawks’ D is the same, which works well for Seattle.

In spite of that, I’ve got a good feeling about this New Orleans team, and they remain my pick to win the Super Bowl. That likely means they have to win in this venue sooner or later. My money’s on sooner.