2011 Pittsburgh Steelers Season Preview – Seattle Seahawks at Pittsburgh

Seattle Defense vs. Pittsburgh’s Offense

A check of their defensive DVOA shows the Seahawks earned their 7-9 record last season. They were 29th overall with a rating of 15.0%. Keep in mind that positive numbers are bad for a defense. This rating means they were 15.0% worse than the average defense overall.

On closer inspection, it is as bad as it looks on the surface. Seattle’s rushing defense was 17th in the league for DVOA against the run and 29th against the pass.

When you look at more conventional stats, you start to get a better picture of what happened and it isn’t all that pretty.

Seattle ranked 25th in scoring defense, allowing 25.4 points per game. By way of comparison, the Steelers’ defense led the league with 14.5 points per game. Seattle was 27th in the league in yards allowed per game; 27th in passing yards allowed; and 21st in rushing yards allowed.

Simply put, it is easy to see why they took defensive players (a lineman, two linebackers, and three defensive backs) with six of their nine picks in the draft.

Unfortunately for citizens of the Emerald City, I don’t see that any of those players’ names are Jack Lambert or Joe Greene, so it’s hard to imagine their defense improving that much in a single year unless they sign a bunch of free agent talent.

Location, Location, Location

This match up is one of the few I have reviewed where home-field advantage plays a huge part. I would have to imagine it is because of the shear length of the trip.

Historically, west coast teams traveling to the east for early games do not fare well. Jet lag can be a bitch.

For the series, the Steelers are 6-2 against the Seahawks in Pittsburgh. History is on the Steelers’ side.

As for when the game will (should?) be played, this is a week-two match-up for the Steelers, and it is sandwiched in between games at Baltimore and at Indianapolis. That spells “trap game.”

If the Seahawks can catch the Steelers licking their wounds from the Ravens or looking ahead to Indy, they could surprise the Men of Steel. I haven’t seen that tendency from them, but it could happen.

My Take

The Seahawks won a sorry division with a losing record last year, surprised the Saints during a shootout in the first round of the playoffs when Marshawn Lynch went “double-0 ninja” on them, and then were pounded for three quarters by the Bears. The Bears game was only as close as it was because the Bears were playing prevent for most of the fourth quarter, running time off the clock as much as they could.

They won seven games, five of which were over teams that could be called “bad,” including two wins over Arizona, and wins over San Francisco, St. Louis, and Carolina. How they managed to beat San Diego and Chicago in Chicago during the regular season would require the Watson computer and two clones of Bill Gates to figure out.

The fact is that this is not a very good team right now. They seem to know what they need and Pete Carroll seems to be the kind of guy who will make the changes he needs to in order to make a winner out west.

The lack of a marquee quarterback, however, is probably going to be their Achilles heal for a majority of the season. Even with Hasselbeck or Kolb, if they sign either of them, is not going to make them suddenly into a Super Bowl contender.

As it is, though, the Seahawks will probably have a tough time moving the ball against the Steelers and, therefore, scoring.

That and the trip to Pittsburgh, which has historically been tough for west coast teams, adds up to a relatively comfortable win for the Men of Steel.

I’ll say take the Steelers by ten points right now.