Seattle is 5th in total defense whereas the Vikings are 20th. The last few games Seattle has given up an average of 93 yards rushing and actually less in the past couple weeks and the Vikings given up over 110. I will give the edge to Seattle in a close game as Seattle shuts down Peterson.
As that is about all the Vikings have offensively.
The Steelers threw for 480 yards against Seattle and only rushed the ball 14 times. That's the worst showing for a Seattle defense - ever. And that's saying something, given all the bad Seahawk teams of the past. In two of the last three games, against SF and PITT, the opposition ran the ball 16 and 14 times respectively. They aren't giving up much on the ground because teams are going at them through the air.
Seattle has given up 350 yards in the air per game over the past three games. That would put them dead last in pass defense.
Yes, the yards given up by the Seahawks through the air has been staggering. Scoring has not been so bad. Rushing Defense on the other hand has been impressive. As far as how these trends will effect the child beater predicts a bad day for him. Teddy Bridgewater is certainly not a Ben Rothlesburger or a Carson Palmer.
The Seattle Defensive backfield has had problems all season with our last three all pros opposite Richard Sherman taking the big money offered by other teams. This season we have had problems finding the personnel to shore up that side plus Chancellor holding out for the first two games making it even more difficult to get the DB corps dialed in as a group.
Lately though I believe we have most of the bugs worked out with Lane and Shead returned from injury. Success brings with it a problem of attrition as the whole team is looked upon as worth a lot more individually and a team like the Hawks can't pay everyone what the market offers.
Over the last two seasons we have also lost two very good Defensive Co-ordinators. Chris Richards was given a promotion from within as was Dan Quinn who preceded him.and Gus Bradley before him. Ken Norton our highly regarded linebacker coach was snapped up as the new DC for Oakland. So it is easy to see that the Hawks have had many talented coaches shoes to fill as well as the lack of success replacing the Cornerback opposite Sherman where we have have lost three talented DBs, Browner, Thurmond and Maxwell being the pick of the litter on that side of our DB's.
So yes we have struggled to maintain the success of the last two previous seasons at Cornerback and Defense in general
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The Hawks led in the fourth qtr of every one of our five losses. And yes it has been very frustrating. We could just as easily be 11-0 as the 6-5 record we now enjoy. Even with all of our troubles keeping up with attrition at Defense we are still pretty close to having a great team.
The O-Line seems to have matured enough for Wilson to feel confident with them.
All in all we still have a clear path to make the playoffs. The future is still in our own hands as they say.