Paging John Fox...the NFL has kindly requested that you return the smoke and mirrors.
After a hard fought victory the Panthers will limp onto a plane to trek across the county to face a Seahawk team that's well rested and cruised in their first playoff game. The Cat's running game is crippled with the lost of Foster and will have to rely on a 3rd string back. Add to that the injury of one of the most feared defensive linemen in the league and we're looking at a blowout. I'd run thru a matchup of the players by position, but they would all favor the Seahawks save the WR1 position which would be a slight advantage to the Panthers. Surely the Seahawks will have seen enough film to cover Smith. The superiority of the Seattle offense doesn't merit further discussion. I would have considered the defenses about equal until I saw Rex freaking Grossman march up and down the field at will with WRs that pail in comparsion to what Seattle has.
History alone will tell you that a team doesn't win four consecutive must win games. No team has ever beaten three division winners as a wildcard to advance to the Super Bowl. When you add up the league's MVP + Walter Jones + a huge home field advantage to the equation, you better make sure the hotline to your man is open to load up on Seattle. Early line is +4.5...who scheduled Christmas in January this year?
Final Score: SEATTLE 38, CAROLINA 17
Let's try to keep this thread focused on the game unlike the Shick! merged thread that has turned into a discuss of superheros and Smoo fantasties.
you keep telling yourself that!..look, carolina has a better defense than you give them credit for. lets not forget that it'll take 3 guys or more to cover Steve Smith, so how many are they going to use to stack the line of scrimmage???
Nick Goings is a great fill-in player, and does things Foster doesn't do particularly well, such as running hard inside, between the tackles..the strength of the Seattle defense might be its front seven, but its back 4 are flimsy...you'll see Smith open all day long against that secondary, and Carolina can run on ANYONE with the line they have...
what this game comes down to is this: can Matt Hasselbeck win a big game like this or not??? to this point, he has NOT been able to do so, he did beat a washington team with NO offense last week, but this is a real test...
he nearly had 2 passes picked off for TD's last week vs. Washington. he threw an int-for-td vs. GB in an overtime loss in the playoffs a few years back..he has not been a good post season QB ,up to this point..
I'll take the Carolina coaching staff over the Seattle coaching staff, any day of the week..obviously you know very little about Dan Henning's coaching abilities in these type of games..the bigger the game,the better he is at designing schemes to confuse defenses...Ray Rhodes and his posse better be ready come Sunday, they won't know what hit them...
how many times has Seattle, under Mike Holmgren, been a playoff team? how many playoff games have they won in TEAM HISTORY, how many Championship games have they played in, and how many postseason games have they lost with Hasselbeck at QB?
who'd they play this year to get to this point?? oh,thats right...SF, St Lou, Az for 6 games..what do they have between them , 7 total wins or something like that?!?! they've played a pancake schedule , ala the Indy Colts..
Carolina went into Philly two years ago,and destroyed the always-tough @ home Eagles in the NFC Championship Game..they nearly won a SB that year, if not for Tom Brady and Vinitieri, they WOULD have won..that NE defense was GREAT and they still couldn't even stop Smith..with BELLICHICK & Crennell coaching the defense, Smith still got 180+ yards and a td !!
Dan Henning will out-FOX any defensive coordinator in games like this: he never coaches conservatively and always goes for the throat..Delhomme is #2 all-time in postseason QB passer rating..he's very good in the clutch..
lets see if hasselbeck can handle the pressure , and if SA shows up to play or pulls up lame with a headache again...
and for the love of the game, nobody wants to see seattle v. denver in the SB, at least not on the East Coast !! lol