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- iHaveNet.com: NFL Football
Seahawks' Penalties Might Be Their Strategy
Photo: Drew McKenzie, Sportspress Northwest
Adam Lewis
Are the Seahawks breaking the rules on purpose? One ESPN columnist believes being oft-penalized works to Seattle's advantage.
As talk continues to swirl about whether the Patriots knowingly deflated footballs before thumping the Indianapolis Colts, 45-7, in the AFC championship game, ESPN senior writer David Fleming chimed in with a column sure to irk even the most subdued of 12's.
The gist of his article: The Seahawks are good because they completely disregard the NFL rulebook.
The best team in the league has been penalized so many times (416) in the last three seasons that I'm pretty sure the fluorescent yellow trim on the Seahawks uniforms is actually just residue from all the penalty flags. Still, Seattle's success isn't in spite of all the penalties. It's inspired by it. Without anyone really noticing, Seattle has created a blossoming dynasty in the most competitive league in the world by completely, and brilliantly, turning the stigma of penalty flags upside down; embracing infractions rather than avoiding them at all costs.
In 18 games, Fleming points out, the Seahawks drew an NFL-leading 144 penalties while opponents earned 80, almost a 2-1 ratio. The 3-13 Jaguars led the league in fewest penalties during the regular season, with 73.
Fleming argues that the Seahawks make a conscious effort to play hyper-aggressive and ignore the rules to successfully impose their will on opponents.
What about the pre-snap penalties?
There's a reason for those, too, according to Fleming:
The Seahawks have run more than 1,000 plays this season. For argument's sake, let's say they've started all of those plays on offense a micro-second early or an inch or two closer to their opponent, but only got caught 33 times. That means the Seahawks have had a jump on their opponents on 97 percent of their offensive plays. All it did was cost them 165 yards in penalties, total, or 2 percent of their total production. Of course it's not that cut-and-dried. After all, the shame and punishment of 33 false starts caused the Seahawks to fall all the way to No. 1 in rushing.
In other words, they've made officials useless by exploiting a loophole. If a defensive back holds every time, as Fleming believes the Seahawks did in 2013 before the NFL made a rule change, an official can't call it every time. It would make games too long and boring. If DT Michael Bennett lines up offsides and is penalized five yards, it's worth it for Seattle when he does it, isn't penalized and records a sack.
To Fleming, Seattle's willingness to break the rules so consistently made the Seahawks defense more dominant and the refs less influential.
Inside "Law & Order: NFL," the Seahawks have found a way to make penalty flags meaningless while rendering the ultimate authority of officials little more than an illusion.
Belichick-Carroll lovefest
New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick continued to say nice things about Seahawks coach Pete Carroll Friday during the annual joint press conference between Super Bowl head coaches.
In particular, Belichick was impressed with the sustained effort level Seattle is able to command. As a reference, he used the Seahawks' comeback win over the Packers in the NFC title game.
"Everybody just competes at such a high level for every single second that they're out there,'' Belichick said. "I think that's a great credit to Pete and his staff. The players they brought in there, they're just relentless in the way that they play. Any coach wants his team to play that way.
"I think that Seattle and Pete really are the model for that. They do a better job than anybody.”
FiveThirtyEight at a loss
The advanced analytics site, fivethirtyeight.com, proclaimed Friday that Super Bowl XLIX will be the second strongest Super Bowl matchup since the 1970 AFC-NFC merger, according to their Elo ratings.
But according to their data, great matchups on paper (tablet?) don't always result in great games, as they go on to cite past Super Bowls when supposedly evenly matched teams played a lopsided game.
As of Friday, the Seahawks were two-point underdogs, according to sports betting site, Bovada.
We wouldn't say to expect a bad Super Bowl on Sunday ... It's probably a fluke that the games that looked best on paper turned out to be among the worst on the field.
But that's the point: Any one game won't tell you all that much, and as we've pointed out before, an NFL matchup that looks just about even beforehand is only slightly more likely than average to result in a great game. This could be a super Super Bowl -- but it could just as easily turn out to be a dud, in which case Deflate-gate and Katy Perry will burn an SEO-optimized hole into our collective memories.
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Super Bowl History
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Super Bowl I
Packers 35 Chiefs 10 -
Super Bowl II
Packers 33 Raiders 14 -
Super Bowl III
Jets 16 Colts 7 -
Super Bowl IV
Chiefs 23 Vikings 7 -
Super Bowl V
Colts 16 Cowboys 13 -
Super Bowl VI
Cowboys 24 Dolphins 3 -
Super Bowl VII
Dolphins 14 Redskins 7 -
Super Bowl VIII
Dolphins 24 Vikings 7 -
Super Bowl IX
Steelers 16 Vikings 6 -
Super Bowl X
Steelers 21 Cowboys 17 -
Super Bowl XI
Raiders 32 Vikings 14 -
Super Bowl XII
Cowboys 27 Broncos 10 -
Super Bowl XIII
Steelers 35 Cowboys 31 -
Super Bowl XIV
Steelers 31 Rams 19 -
Super Bowl XV
Raiders 27 Eagles 10 -
Super Bowl XVI
49ers 26 Bengals 21 -
Super Bowl XVII
Redskins 27 Dolphins 17 -
Super Bowl XVIII
Raiders 38 Redskins 9 -
Super Bowl XIX
49ers 38 Dolphins 16 -
Super Bowl XX
Bears 46 Patriots 10 -
Super Bowl XXI
Giants 40 Broncos 20 -
Super Bowl XXII
Redskins 42 Broncos 10 -
Super Bowl XXIII
49ers 20 Bengals 16 -
Super Bowl XXIV
49ers 55 Broncos 10 -
Super Bowl XXV
Giants 20 Bills 19 -
Super Bowl XXVI
Redskins 37 Bills 24 -
Super Bowl XXVII
Cowboys 52 Bills 17 -
Super Bowl XXVIII
Cowboys 30 Bills 13 -
Super Bowl XXIX
49ers 49 Chargers 26 -
Super Bowl XXX
Cowboys 27 Steelers 17 -
Super Bowl XXXI
Packers 35 Patriots 21 -
Super Bowl XXXII
Broncos 31 Packers 24 -
Super Bowl XXXIII
Broncos 34 Falcons 19 -
Super Bowl XXXIV
Rams 23 Titans 16 -
Super Bowl XXXV
Ravens 34 Giants 7 -
Super Bowl XXXVI
Patriots 20 Rams 17 -
Super Bowl XXXVII
Buccaneers 48 Raiders 21 -
Super Bowl XXXVIII
Patriots 32 Panthers 29 -
Super Bowl XXXIX
Patriots 24 Eagles 21 -
Super Bowl XL
Steelers 21 Seahawks 10 -
Super Bowl XLI
Colts 29 Bears 17 -
Super Bowl XLII
Giants 17 Patriots 14 -
Super Bowl XLIII
Steelers 27 Cardinals 23 -
Super Bowl XLIV
Saints 31 Colts 17 -
Super Bowl XLV
Packers 31 Steelers 25 -
Super Bowl XLVI
Giants 21 Patriots 17 -
Super Bowl XLVII
Ravens 34 49ers 31 -
Super Bowl XLVIII
Seahawks 43 Broncos 8 -
Super Bowl XLIX
Patriots 28 Seahawks 24