Seattle beat a GREAT defense today. The question is, does that mean they are that good, or was Carolina tired, road-sick, and too inept offensively to give their defense a chance?
I'm not bitter at all. Check the posts, I played Pitt and Carolina evenly today and broke even in NFL, so this isnt one of those desperate pissed off remarks, but take it FWIW: With a week off to rest, AND with Foster OR Davis back, Carolina wins this game today.
Carolina basically used a 3 headed monster on offense all season to compliment a superb defense, relying on it not to lose games instead of being the unit that WON games. Today their offense LOST the game. The problem with relying on 3 guys, QB, WR, and RB too much is your offense goes completely down the drain without one of those 3. Granted most teams would be at a loss w/o a QB, but the loss of a WR or RB usually doesnt hurt a team that relies more on schemes than personnel. The Eagles last season did just fine w/o T.O. in their playoff run because the scheme was what worked.
With a good gameplan on defense, the hawks eliminated Smith as well. That was relatively easy to do b/c Foster's injury FORCED Carolina to be one dimensional from play number one. The result was a 3 headed monster stripped down to one guy who simply tried to do too much. What happens when a QB tries to do too much? Interceptions, overthrowing, exactly what Delhomme did all game long. I didnt have enough faith in Seattle's secondary to shut down Smith and do that today. I was wrong.
Congrats to you Hawks fans. I'm an Eagles fan and speaking for backers of teams that dont go often, I can appreciate how cool it is to finally go to a superbowl. The game will be entertaining, no doubt about that, but my assessment of Seattle's chances doesnt go up after the "whoopin" they put on Carolina tonight. Pittsburgh picked apart an awesome defense today by demonstrating they can be two dimensional when they had to. I'm sure they can do it again to a team with even less defensive talent on a neutral field
