FanPost

Let's take a look at Seattle

I posted a comment saying how I didn't believe the Saints could beat Seattle at home and got a ton of negative feedback for doing so. Now we will not know who wins until the Monday Night game is complete, but I decided to look at the Seahawks stats, including who they play. I'm going to let you know now that I am looking at these very unbiased. I really do hope the Saints can pull off the win and at the end of this post I will either regret my comments and admit that I was wrong or I will stand by them. Let's find out.

I first looked at the Seahawks opponents. How many of them were actually good? They played Carolina, San Francisco, Jacksonville, Houston, Indianapolis, Tennessee, Arizona, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Atlanta and Minnesota.

Out of all of these I would only consider San Francisco, Indianapolis and Carolina a good opponent and even at that the only really good one would be Indianapolis who they lost to. I'm already seeing that maybe Seattle isn't as good as I had maybe thought.

Seahawks Offense:

4th in Points Per Game with 27.8

2nd in Total Points with 306

12th in YPG with 385.5

11th in Scrm Plays with 306

10th in 3rd down% with 40%

1st in Average Passing Yards with 8.7

3rd in Average Rushing Yards with 4.5

3rd in Average Rushing Yards Per Game with 147.9

9th in Red Zone Touchdown Percentage with 60%

8th in Drive Success Rate with .708%

5th in Points Per Drive with 2.30

That looks like a pretty solid offense, but once again who they have played is looming overhead. Most of the high scoring is from beating up on the bad teams. The offense never really scared me that much. I know that this Saints offense could keep pace with them and our defense is good enough to stop them. I was mostly worried about the Seattle's defense.

Seattle's Defense:

3rd in Points Per Game- 16.3

5th in Completions Per Game- 19.5

1st in Pass Yards Per Attempt- 5.4

3rd in Yards Per Completion-9.2

6th in Sack Percentage- 8.48%

1st in Passer Rating- 68.7

15th in Rushing Yards Per Game- 112.9

20th in rushing yards per attempt- 4.2

22nd in Rushing First Down Percentage- 31.28%

14th in Drive Success Rate with .672%

14th in Yards Per Drive with 28.55

Now as you can see Seattle's pass defense seems very solid, but how much of it is because of the bad teams they've faced? I'd say actually a lot. They lost to Indianapolis and the only other offense that was slightly good was Carolina who they held down, but all the other teams are pretty bad at passing. It will be very interesting to see how they do against the Saints. The rush defense is anything, but amazing. Another miss match that I see is the Saints have a very high drive success rate and yards per drive where that is an area where Seattle is mediocre.

All in all I retract my comment that I made. Seattle wasn't as good as I had thought. Don't get me wrong, they are still a very good team, but seeing that they have not played many good teams, I'm not sure I can call them great. The Saints beat them in offense statistically and that's even with Seattle having played one more game. They are also right up there with Seattle's defense against the pass and just a little bit worse against the run. The Saints can really win this game if they can stop like the run like they did against Seattle and be able to exploit Seattle's average rush defense. I apologize for my comments. I will admit that I was completely wrong and that the Saints have just as much of a chance to beat Seattle as Seattle does them. This team is very capable of doing so.

This FanPost was written by a reader and member of Canal Street Chronicles. It does not necessarily reflect the views of CSC and its staff or editors.

In This FanPost

Teams