Hawks led the league in two places

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Hawks led the league in two places

Postby Largent80 » Fri Mar 02, 2018 7:07 pm

Injuries and penalties.

The first is not coachable, the 2nd IS and if this team is to contend in 2018, this needs to be cut in half.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby RiverDog » Sat Mar 03, 2018 7:58 am

Largent80 wrote:Injuries and penalties.

The first is not coachable, the 2nd IS and if this team is to contend in 2018, this needs to be cut in half.


Agree 100%. Penalties have been a pet peeve of mine ever since Pete took over. In my opinion, it is a direct reflection of his management style. We were able to overcome them when we had superior talent, but now that our team is basically a .500ish squad, they constitute a fatal flaw.

Hopefully with a new coaching staff, particularily a new OL coach, some of these penalties will be coached out.

Injuries as a rule are a random element that affects all teams equally, but there are occasions where they can be a reflection of a team's conditioning or style of play.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby Uppercut » Sat Mar 03, 2018 12:12 pm

Are there stats on which players had the most penalties by type...esp personal fouls?

Could probably guess but would like to see numbers. Probably 50% of the penalties came from 2-3 players
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby RiverDog » Sat Mar 03, 2018 12:41 pm

Uppercut wrote:Are there stats on which players had the most penalties by type...esp personal fouls?

Could probably guess but would like to see numbers. Probably 50% of the penalties came from 2-3 players


Here's a very good website that has NFL penalties sorted out by as many methods as you can dream of and then some:

http://www.nflpenalties.com/all-players.php?year=2017

And as you or any other Seahawk fan might have guessed, the league leader in both the number of accepted and total penalties (which includes offsetting and declined) was our own Germain Ifedi. Michael Bennett led the league in pre-snap penalties and tied for 2nd in total flags.

Those two players combined for 28 accepted penalties called against the Seahawks, or approximately one out of every five of our team total of 148.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby Aseahawkfan » Sat Mar 03, 2018 1:12 pm

We won the Super Bowl either leading in the league or in the top five of penalties. Cut in half? Is that even realistic? How many penalties did the lowest teams have and was that half? How many of them were contenders?

The penalties I don't like are the O-line penalties. That's a lack of discipline and cohesion for that unit. Most of the other penalties I don't care that much about. The defensive penalties are often due to aggression, even the mistimed pass rush offside penalties. No one will time it perfectly every time, but you want your D-ends coming off that line aggressive rather than a tick behind the ball being hiked. And I never want our D-backs being afraid to go after the receivers. That pays off more often than not.

Until the penalties affect our results, I don't worry about them too much. People freaking out about penalties while we're going to the playoffs and they're not having a material effect on game outcomes are being OCD about a non-factor. The injuries hurt us more than penalties last year by a large margin.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby Largent80 » Sat Mar 03, 2018 1:53 pm

Dude 9-7 WAS a direct result. One drive I saw last year by an opposing team that resulted in a touchdown was almost exclusively by Seahawk penalties. Most of them were defensive holding or interference. Make NO mistake, penalties are a huge part of Seahawk failures. We don't own the 2013 defense anymore.

Cut in half IS realistic. And it should be a goal to shoot for.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby RiverDog » Sat Mar 03, 2018 2:52 pm

Largent80 wrote:Cut in half IS realistic. And it should be a goal to shoot for.


Last season, we had a league leading 148 accepted penalties. Cutting them in half would mean that we'd have 74. The least penalized team in the league last year was Carolina with 85, so I have to agree with ASF, cutting them in half is unrealistic. Perhaps cutting them down to the league average of 110 would be more achievable.

The pre snap penalties are the ones that to me are the most coachable, and that includes those called on defensive linemen. I once saw Michael Bennett get flagged for lining up offside twice, on successive plays. Motion penalties, illegal formation, delay of game, too many men on the field are all very coachable. But that doesn't mean the others aren't coachable. IMO our coaching staff is directly accountable for all the penalties we incur.

ASF is correct, even in the years we went to the Super Bowl, we were one of if not the most penalized teams in the league but no one paid much attention because we were winning. Now we're not winning as often and the penalties stick out like a sore thumb. But that's not an excuse. It's all a matter of emphasis. Mike Holmgren's teams were always amongst the least penalized, and that was because a player would rather dig a hole and climb into it rather than come to the sidelines after committing a stupid penalty.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby Aseahawkfan » Sat Mar 03, 2018 3:11 pm

Largent80 wrote:Dude 9-7 WAS a direct result. One drive I saw last year by an opposing team that resulted in a touchdown was almost exclusively by Seahawk penalties. Most of them were defensive holding or interference. Make NO mistake, penalties are a huge part of Seahawk failures. We don't own the 2013 defense anymore.

Cut in half IS realistic. And it should be a goal to shoot for.


No, it wasn't a direct result. As RD has pointed out (and I know penalties drive him nuts) our team was highly penalized when winning. Injuries killed us last year and a bad kicker.

The offensive penalties need to be cleaned up big time in my opinion. That's a sign of lack of discipline, cohesion, and sloppy offensive coaching. I am not going to worry about penalties from an aggressive defense. Playing to the edge of too much aggression is better than playing soft and careful. This defense set a record for most years as the number one points allowed defense playing aggressive and being penalized. I don't want to lose that edge at all. Pete instills aggression in this defense. You don't maintain that by hammering on the players to work harder on not getting offsides penalties rather than pushing it to the edge to come off that line as fast as possible or jam that receiver at the line or put the hit on someone. You live with some mistimed defensive plays to maintain the aggression that has them going after the ball and whoever has it.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby RiverDog » Sat Mar 03, 2018 4:27 pm

Aseahawkfan wrote:Pete instills aggression in this defense. You don't maintain that by hammering on the players to work harder on not getting offsides penalties rather than pushing it to the edge to come off that line as fast as possible or jam that receiver at the line or put the hit on someone. You live with some mistimed defensive plays to maintain the aggression that has them going after the ball and whoever has it.


We have one player, Michael Bennett, that is the main culprit for our pre snap defensive penalties, and there's no excuse for it. You can't justify it by saying that he plays on the edge or playing aggressively, because the top sack artists in the game don't have anywhere near the number of pre snap penalties that Bennett racks up each season.

In 2017, Bennett had 10 offsides penalties, 2 neutral zone infractions, and 1 encroachment. Chandler Jones, the league leader with 17 sacks, had just one pre snap penalty. DeMarcus Lawrence, tied for 2nd with 14.5 sacks, had 6 pre snap flags, and Calis Campbell, also with 14.5 sacks had just 1 pre snap penalty. The 3 of them together had 8 while Bennett alone had 13.

So clearly, Bennett has a big problem that is not explained by simply playing on the edge. And yes, Pete, Richard, or someone should have gotten in his face big time about it. I don't care how good a player he is, he needs to work on his self discipline.

But I suppose at this point in his career, it's probably like teaching an old dog new tricks.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby Largent80 » Sat Mar 03, 2018 5:19 pm

Injuries was part of it, but to blow off the penalties is just incorrect. If you don't think it's a problem then what are you watching?

I saw a TON of 3rd down conversions via penalty. THAT keeps the defense ON THE FIELD, therefore wearing it down and that also contributes to injury.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby mykc14 » Sat Mar 03, 2018 11:02 pm

Germaine ifedi led the league in penalties last year with 16, 3 more than anybody else. He was a penalty machine. Bennett wasn’t far off with 12 of his own. It wouldn’t shock me if he were the most penalized player in the league during his time here.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby RiverDog » Sun Mar 04, 2018 3:35 am

mykc14 wrote:Germaine ifedi led the league in penalties last year with 16, 3 more than anybody else. He was a penalty machine. Bennett wasn’t far off with 12 of his own. It wouldn’t shock me if he were the most penalized player in the league during his time here.


Just to clear up some discrepencies, Ifedi had 16 accepted penalties and 20 total, which includes both declined and offsetting. Certainly offsetting penalties ought to be included as without them we would have gained an advantage either in the result of the play or the penalty yardage from the other infraction.

Bennett had 15 total flags, 13 of which were pre snap. Obviously they are including declined and offsetting in the pre-snap category, as well they should. Aaron Rodgers has made a lot of hay by getting a free play when somone like Bennett jumps offsides. Bennett had 12 accepted penalties.

And although it's not fair to compare anyone with Walter Jones, but just to give us an idea of a player at the other end of the penalty spectrum, Big Walt had just 9 holding penalties in 12 seasons and was flagged for just 35 accepted penalties for his entire career. That's an average of less than 3 accepted penalties per season.
Last edited by RiverDog on Sun Mar 04, 2018 5:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby RiverDog » Sun Mar 04, 2018 3:49 am

Largent80 wrote:Injuries was part of it, but to blow off the penalties is just incorrect. If you don't think it's a problem then what are you watching?

I saw a TON of 3rd down conversions via penalty. THAT keeps the defense ON THE FIELD, therefore wearing it down and that also contributes to injury.


I also saw a ton of 1st and 15's when we had the ball. Those little 5 yarders for a team like ours that has such an ineffective offense are drive killers.

I'm not sure if I'm going to go along with your injury-penalty correlation, but you're right about those attempting to trivializing them or not admitting that they were one of the major causes of our woes.

Bennett is a great example and a microcosm of our team. His penalties were tolerable when he was creating havoc and playing at an MVP level. But for whatever reason, his production was way off last season, without which makes him a liability due to the number of flags he draws. I'd rather have a DL that doesn't get to the quarterback but stays onside rather than a DL that doesn't get to the quarterback and jumps offside at a rate that's 3-4 times that of his peers.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby mykc14 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 8:11 am

RiverDog wrote:
Just to clear up some discrepencies, Ifedi had 16 accepted penalties and 20 total, which includes both declined and offsetting. Certainly offsetting penalties ought to be included as without them we would have gained an advantage either in the result of the play or the penalty yardage from the other infraction.

Bennett had 15 total flags, 13 of which were pre snap. Obviously they are including declined and offsetting in the pre-snap category, as well they should. Aaron Rodgers has made a lot of hay by getting a free play when somone like Bennett jumps offsides. Bennett had 12 accepted penalties.

And although it's not fair to compare anyone with Walter Jones, but just to give us an idea of a player at the other end of the penalty spectrum, Big Walt had just 9 holding penalties in 12 seasons and was flagged for just 35 accepted penalties for his entire career. That's an average of less than 3 accepted penalties per season.


All good points, and as you said in your next post, we were behind the sticks way too often and as much as RW talks about staying on schedule that kills a run-first offense. Combine that with our terrible OL play and it’s amazing our team moved the ball at all.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby Largent80 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 9:29 am

Bennett had/has plantar faciitis and after having it myself I can't even believe Bennett played yet still got 8.5 sacks !!!!!
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby NorthHawk » Sun Mar 04, 2018 10:37 am

Penalties extend drives if they are against your opponent and kill drives when they are against you.
That being said, Pete develops a culture where players play on the edge and I think he is accepting of some penalties that will naturally follow, so the goal should be (like said above) to get it down toward the average. We may always be above the average, but more in line could help out a lot with a young OL.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby RiverDog » Sun Mar 04, 2018 12:21 pm

Largent80 wrote:Bennett had/has plantar faciitis and after having it myself I can't even believe Bennett played yet still got 8.5 sacks !!!!!


Even more amazing is that even with that plantar faciitis that he was still able to jump offside 12 times. Just think, if he were healthy, maybe he would have had 16 offside penalties!!!
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby RiverDog » Sun Mar 04, 2018 12:40 pm

NorthHawk wrote:Penalties extend drives if they are against your opponent and kill drives when they are against you.
That being said, Pete develops a culture where players play on the edge and I think he is accepting of some penalties that will naturally follow, so the goal should be (like said above) to get it down toward the average. We may always be above the average, but more in line could help out a lot with a young OL.


I can understand the defensive holding and DPI penalties, even committing a few more unnecessary roughness penalties than the norm. But the pre snap penalties are inexcusable as they are not due to playing on the edge and are strictly a matter of self discipline. A couple years ago, how many times was Aaron Rodgers able to entice Bennett into jumping offside? It got to the point where it was comical.

Just as an FYI, we were in the top 5 in the league in the following penalties: False start (22, T-3rd), defensive offsides (13, 2nd), DPI (13, T-2nd), OPI (6, T-2nd), and illegal use of hands (8, T-1st).

Oddly enough, offensive holding, one penalty that I feel would have been justified, we ranked 16th in the league. With an inept offensive line and an unpredictable scrambling quarterback, I'm amazed that we weren't one of the leaders in that category. But I guess it's pretty hard to commit a holding penalty when you're having to hold onto that matador's cape.

And we were 31st in delay of game penalties. Gotta give Russell some kudos.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby Largent80 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 1:58 pm

Part of those delay of games were on Bevell taking his sweet assed time getting a play in that wouldn't work.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby RiverDog » Sun Mar 04, 2018 3:05 pm

Largent80 wrote:Part of those delay of games were on Bevell taking his sweet assed time getting a play in that wouldn't work.


You have it upside down. We were 31st worst in delay of game penalties, meaning that we were the 2nd best in not getting flagged for it. We only had one delay of game penalty all season last year. You have to give credit to the QB.
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Re: Hawks led the league in two places

Postby Largent80 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 3:08 pm

Maybe so but he routinely took too much time getting plays in
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