by Ray GlierFiled under: Saints, Seahawks, NFC South, NFC West
Defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and the Saints have all offseason to consider their tactics in Saturday's loss to the Seahawks. They waited and waited to apply pressure to the Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and they waited too long.Hasselbeck stood in and made throws with no hassle in the first half as the Seahawks raced ahead 24-20. He stood in and made plays as the Seahawks built the lead to 34-20.
The Seattle quarterback completed 22 of 35 passes and threw four touchdown passes. The Saints had allowed 13 touchdown passes all season, but they let Hasselbeck carve them up because they didn't respect that he could throw the ball so well into spots.
How about this pivotal moment in the third quarter? Seattle has the ball at the New Orleans 38 and it is third-and-two. New Orleans rushes four. Three linebackers are covering grass, no one is coming out of the backfield for them to cover. They are useless defenders as Hasselbeck has time to wait for Mike Williams to run deep.
Hasselbeck throws the ball downfield for a touchdown for a 14-point lead.
On the next Seattle possession, the Saints finally started to chase Hasselbeck. He kept missing passes against five-man and six-man pressure and the Seahawks kept giving the ball back with the punt.
There was one particularly clever New Orleans blitz on 2nd-11 from the Seattle 42-yard line. Patrick Robinson, the rookie cornerback, came flying off the corner and forced Hasselbeck to step up in the pocket and he was sacked by Scott Shanle.
The Seahawks did not convert the third down and had to punt and the Saints had the ball back down one score. They couldn't do anything with it. They lost, 41-36.
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Source: http://nfl.fanhouse.com/2011/01/08/matt-hasselbeck-victimizes-saints-atypically-vanilla-defense-in/
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