Originally Posted by Baby Lee
I think this is all the downside of parity. Parity is a HUGE part of what makes the NFL so great, compelling games week-in, week-out. But parity also means that even shitty teams are pretty damn good.
For as bad as we had it last year with a Jeckyl Hyde defense and a meltdown in the playoffs, imagine being a Packer fan, they are a blessed franchise, a model franchise, but one arm going up to Aaron Rodger's collarbone and they're INSTANTLY a middle of the road ho-hum team playing out the string, they had to know right away.
Same with us, after the 2011 string of ACLs, we breathe a sigh of relief. That was a fluke, that'll never happen again. Then we see what even minor irritations for Hali and Houston mean for us this past year.
Every single game in the NFL, there are things that happen off screen that, if a savvier set of players recognized it, would have resulted in vastly different outcomes. Some of the most moribund offenses in the league just plain fail to see free-running WRs open for TDs, or flailing OLmen whose deficits aren't being exploited.
The key these days is keeping healthy and having quality depth.
This is what made the Seahawks so exciting to watch throughout the playoffs. Were they the most dominant at every position in the history of the league, no. But they were the best at maximizing positives and minimizing negatives. Is this guy a ferocious playmaker? No, then have him occupy a player in space and let the playmakers make plays elsewhere. They weren't the '854 Bears, . . . but they looked like it because they met power with power and let weakness hide over with weakness.
I've said it before and I'll say it again here, an NFL team is like a naturally aspirated, carburetor fueled engine. One thing gets out of whack and the entire feedback loop is disrupted and the whole machine runs like dog shit. We have a lot of quality players who, if the MACHINE is running clean can rape faces, on O and on D. But you slow down the pass rush 1 millisecond and now you're relying on your FS to keep it all together and his dog shit rises to the surface and the entire swamp looks like a pile of dog shit. Alex can led a well oiled offense, but let Bowe have a few drops, or some of our less savvy WRs run bullshit routes, or barely concuss our best RB and take our 2nd best RB out with injury as well, and we're running the O with a Yugo power plant.
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