Will Seattle play in a third consecutive Super Bowl?
Seahawks OC Darrell Bevell wouldn’t change the play call that ended Seattle’s hopes of winning Super Bowl XLIX. Those are his exact words, “I wouldn’t change it”, as told to MMQB’s Peter King last month. Even now – knowing that the play in question would end with a (sure, brilliant and improbable) interception by Malcolm Butler, dashing dreams of a repeat title and making Bevell into a national figure of fun – he still would not change the call.
Some people just like suffering, I guess.
Look, there is a valid debate to be had about what the right call was on second-and-goal at the one-yard line. Me, I would have put the ball in the hands of the running back who was averaging more than five yards per touch and had not lost ground on a carry all day. But whatever, we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about what impact – if any – last year’s trauma will have on the Seahawks going forward.
More bothersome than Bevell’s desire to defend his decision-making is the sense that he still has not truly come to terms with what happened. King’s attempts to discuss the mechanics of the play were essentially rebuffed. Bevell stated he had not rewatched it with Russell Wilson and the most he would say about the decision he made was that: “Match-ups had something to do with it, yes”.
Should a professional not be more open to critical self-analysis than this? Perhaps it does not really matter. Tom Brady, after all, has confessed to being unable to watch footage of Super Bowl XLII (when his undefeated Pats lost to the Giants) and he has done OK for himself since. Everybody has different ways of coping with a setback. Mostly we should all just be grateful that Marshawn Lynch’s way involved one of the all-time great cameos on The League.
Still, it will be intriguing to see how Bevell’s offense differs this year from last. The Seahawks signed Wilson to a new deal this offseason and gave him the best target he’s ever had to throw to in Jimmy Graham. But they also bid farewell to center Max Unger and guard James Carpenter. Wilson does much of his best work outside the pocket but this does not mean he can thrive without protection.
The defense ought to be dominant, but we should not underestimate the impact of Kam Chancellor’s protracted hold-out. A secondary that has already lost Byron Maxwell this offseason will look a whole lot less imposing until a deal is struck to bring its chief enforcer back on board.
And what damage has already been done to locker room cohesion? Chancellor is not only one of the best safeties in the league but, as former Seahawks full-back Michael Robinson recently pointed out, also a key figure in bridging relationships between players and coaches. “He’s a guy that Pete [Carroll] can go to and be able to talk to a guy like Marshawn [Lynch],” said Robinson on NFL Network. “[He’s] able to talk to a guy on the offensive side of the ball to get him straight.”
With our without Chancellor, the Seahawks will be contenders. They retain the core of a team that has won back-to-back NFC titles and have added another superstar, Graham, to the mix. But to (belatedly) answer the question posed at the outset, no, I do not believe they will go to a third straight Super Bowl.
That verdict is influenced in part by the offensive line reshuffle and Chancellor’s absence (for however long it lasts). Most of all, though, it stems from the simple awareness that the margins at the top are very fine.
To reach any Super Bowl often requires a few breaks to go your way. Were it not for a single moment of calamitous decision-making by a backup Green Bay tight end named Brandon Bostick, Seattle would never have made it to the last one.
No team has played in three consecutive Super Bowls since Buffalo in the mid-90s. The Bills lost every one of them. Regrets? Unlike Bevell, I’d say they still have a few.
Can Carson Palmer stay healthy?
If Carson Palmer had not torn his ACL two days after signing a $50m contract extension last November, then Arizona, rather than Seattle, would have faced New England at Super Bowl XLIX.
OK, maybe that’s a little bit presumptuous. Or actually very presumptuous. But the idea that things would have gone very differently in this division, and consequently the NFC as a whole, is really not so far-fetched. Palmer started six games for Arizona in 2014 and won all of them. He led the Cardinals to a road victory against playoff-bound Dallas, as well as home triumphs over Philadelphia and San Diego – each of whom finished with winning records of their own.
Arizona won games without Palmer, too – with backup Drew Stanton helping to guide them to a 9-1 start. It was not until he, too, went down injured that the wheels really came off – and even then, the Cards still only finished one game behind Seattle. It is not a stretch to suggest that they could have won the NFC West with a healthy Palmer, at which point the playoff picture would have looked very different indeed.
Now Palmer is back and head coach Bruce Arians claims his quarterback is throwing better than at any other time since arriving in Arizona. If such words are encouraging, then they do not really get to the crux of fans’ concerns. At 35 years old, nobody is expecting Palmer to start learning new tricks. All they really want to know is whether he’ll make it through 16 games.
It is hard to feel optimistic on this front. This is a man who, between injuries to his head, shoulders, knees and toes (Ugh, fine, sub the last one out for ankles and ribs you pedantic killjoys) has made it through a full season just three times in the last seven years.
Arizona have at least tried to improve his chances by improving the blocking up front. They spent a first-round pick on offensive tackle DJ Humphries as well as nabbing center AQ Shipley and three-time Pro Bowl guard Mike Iupati in free agency. With grim inevitability, Iupati has since suffered a knee injury of his own, but the hope is that he will return without missing too much playing time.
If that group perform to their capabilities then Arizona should see real gains in the running game, where Andre Ellington is back to full health after limping through much of last season. Rookie David Johnson will share the load and, as long as Palmer is on the field, both should find more room to run into than was available when opponents stacked eight and nine players into the box at the end of last year. A healthy running game would, in turn, open up opportunities for the deep ball that Palmer and Arians deploy so effectively.
On defense, Arizona should be strong. The play-calling might not be quite so smart now that Todd Bowles has departed, and there are valid concerns about the cornerback spot vacated by Antonio Cromartie, but elsewhere plenty of talent remains. Even when Arizona’s offense was at its most abject last season, this group often succeeded in keeping them in games.
The hope is that they can spend a bit more time with their feet up on the sidelines this season, watching Palmer do his thing. It is impossible to know for certain, at this stage, whether their wish will be fulfilled.
Are the reports of San Francisco’s demise premature?
Remember when Colin Kaepernick was the future of football? It really wasn’t so long ago. To attend a 49ers media session in the days leading up to Super Bowl XLVII was to slip into a parallel universe in which Kaepernick himself had invented the read-option. Reporters asked earnestly how long it would take defenses to catch up.
Not very long, apparently. That was Kaepernick’s first season (his first half-season, in truth) as a starter and his performances have been declining ever since. From 98.3 in 2012, his passer rating dropped to 91.6 in 2013 and 86.4 last season. His rushing yardage has increased over the same period, but nowhere near as quickly as sack totals.
Increasingly, opponents seem to have him figured out. Kaepernick has a bad habit of looking downfield and panicking if his preferred target is not open. Sometimes he can improvise his way out of such situations with his feet, but at others he makes costly mistakes.
He has not hidden from such criticism, spending part of the spring working with Kurt Warner on his technique. Team-mates say they see improvement. They might well be right, but is there also an element of wishful thinking? The 49ers desperately need something positive to hang onto after an extraordinarily turbulent offseason.
The roster was always likely to be overhauled after Jim Harbaugh left in December, but few could have anticipated quite how drastic the changes would be. On offense alone the 49ers have lost their starting running back (Frank Gore) three wide receivers (Michael Crabtree, Stevie Johnson and Brandon Lloyd) and two starting offensive linemen (Mike Iupati and Anthony Davis).
Things are even messier on defense. The retirements of potential Hall-of-Famers Patrick Willis and Justin Smith came as no surprise, but that of Chris Borland – the 24-year-old linebacker whose concerns over the long-term impact of head injuries persuaded him to quit after just a single season – arrived as a bolt from the blue.
Having already released defensive end Ray McDonald over off-field misdemeanours in December, the 49ers then found themselves cutting ties with linebacker Aldon Smith after he was arrested over an alleged hit-and-run this August. Meanwhile, cornerbacks Chris Culliver and Perrish Cox, as well as linebacker Dan Skuta, were allowed to leave in free agency.
It all leaves new head coach Jim Tomsula with rather a lot to be getting on with. There are bright spots to be found here and there – from the promise Carlos Hyde showed while filling in for Gore last year to the impressive performances of rugby league convert Jarryd Hayne in preseason.
But for this team to defy expectations, Tomsula is going to need all the help he can get from his team’s few returning starters. Nobody has a greater role to play here than Kaepernick. If he can become the leader this team needs and reverse his declining performances then perhaps San Francisco can avoid sinking to the bottom of the division.
For now, though, that is where most of us expect to find them.
Will St Louis ever turn the corner under Jeff Fisher?
The Rams team that Jeff Fisher inherited in 2012 was a train-wreck. They had gone 2-14 the previous season, averaging barely 12 points per outing, and were coming off the worst five-year stretch of any team in NFL history. Between 2007 and 2011 St Louis had won a grand total of 15 games.
It did not take Fisher long to make them competitive. In his first year the Rams won seven games – four of those against division rivals – and tied another. A young defensive line led by Chris Long and Robert Quinn terrorised opposing passers, while Fisher turned games and raised spirits with his trademark trick plays. The locker room at St Louis’s Earth City practice facility became a genuinely uplifting space to visit. Everybody was pulling in the same direction to get this team back on its feet.
Two years later, though, what progress has been achieved? There have been memorable victories – from a 22-7 home defeat of Peyton Manning and the Broncos to a 38-8 beatdown of the Colts in their own backyard – but ultimately the Rams have slipped back from 7-8-1 in 2012 to 7-9 in 2013 and 6-10 last year.
There have been mitigating circumstances. Beyond Sam Bradford’s injury woes, St Louis has often been fighting a losing battle to patch up its offensive line. The competition in the NFC West has also been ferocious. There are plenty of other divisions that the Rams might have won in this time.
All this helps to explain why the front office have continued to support Fisher, despite three consecutive losing seasons since he took charge. Such patience, however, cannot be extended indefinitely. A team that has not been to the playoffs since 2004 eventually needs to remember how to win.
Could this finally be the year? With San Francisco in turmoil and Arizona losing Bowles, St Louis have become a trendy pick to vault up to second place in the division. They still boast the same group of playmakers along the defensive line and filled Kendall Langford’s space in the rotation with Nick Fairley. Linebacker Akeem Ayers adds much needed run support.
On offense, fans are understandably excited about the potential of first-round pick Todd Gurley, the best talent this team has had at running back since Steven Jackson departed. But is Nick Foles really an upgrade over Bradford at quarterback? Much like his predecessor, he cannot even really be trusted to stay injury-free.
The biggest worry remains the blocking up front. Jake Long and Joe Barksdale are gone from the offensive line, and just about none of the rotation of replacements tested in preseason has impressed. The best of the returning starters, left guard Rodger Saffold, continues to struggle with a long-standing shoulder complaint.
And so it all comes back around to Fisher, who must overcome these challenges to produce a winning football team. If it does not happen this year, his fourth in St Louis, then it probably never will.
Predicted final standings
1) Seattle Seahawks
2) Arizona Cardinals
3) St Louis Rams
4) San Francisco 49ers
