Not Kenny Easley or an imposter: just a fan of a great Seahawk.

Seattle’s defense needs to be playing its assignments correctly, not flying to the ball. If players aggressively chase the ball without thought for the scheme or assignment, then the defense gets blown up by misdirection or cutbacks. An outstanding player like Peterson will make them pay for that over-aggressiveness.

I believe Seattle’s defense is getting too amped up and trying too hard to make big plays. They need to do what they’ve been told to do and let their natural talent take care of what’s in front of them. Trust their teammate to do the job.

Don’t try to be a hero and try to make a play on the other side of the field (before you even know that’s where the play is going.)

Re AD.. He’s the best back in the NFL.. and will make people miss if you don’t hit him square.. take that 70 yarder away and he was held to a respectable 115 or so…

I think what happened against Gore/SF was quite different from what happened with Peterson/Min.

Gore/SF was primarily related to an adjustment made at halftime by SF regarding their run blocking offensive line scheme. As I recall, Seattle had done a decent job of bottling up Gore in the first half but got killed by line play in the 2nd half. SF may have the best run blocking offensive line in the league. So probably not a systemic problem but a defensive line scheme issue. As we will have to face SF at least one more time this year, scheming for this should be a high priority.

AP/Min was primarily a missed-tackle issue on a few big runs. On the 77 yard run, he should have been tackled in the backfield but wiggled away and then broke a couple more tackles. Losing KJ Wright on the 3rd play of the game didn’t help. Again, I don’t think this is a systemic issue, but more a case of some uncharacteristically bad tackling and the fact that this is, by far, the most explosive running back in the league.

I expect the ‘Hawks run defense to redeem itself in coming weeks.

In my opinion, the Seahawks biggest issue on defense is their difficulty stopping teams on 3rd down in obvious passing situations. They are very vulnerable to short/intermediate passes over the middle and don’t seem to have a good feel for zone discipline. Age is probably an issue here, especially at linebacker.

I fear this will continue to be exploited as the ‘Hawks defense acchilles heel.

Wagner certainly has had a good rookie season, but he’s also been something of a liability at times; bad tackling, over-pursuit, etc.. For as sensational as he has looked at times, he has also looked very much like a rookie, and Seattle’s opponents have taken advantage of that.