There Are No Words - Seahawks 23, Impostors 3

I'm not going to bother with much analysis on this one. I'm just going to vent. If you had the misfortune to watch the "game" this afternoon, I share your pain. As I said to my brother halfway through, you know when you're hoping for another 70-yard punt from Dandy Andy on first down, things are dire. The only upside was I only threw 3 hours of my life into a black hole while most games run 3h30m. So at least we had that going for us. Which is good.

Alex's look says it all. And this was 2 minutes after kickoff...

To get the few positives out of the way, let's just say the defense played up to its 19th-in-the-NFL status. The secondary got torched on a couple big plays that essentially put the game out of reach. There was little to no pressure on Hasselbeck all day but Shaun Alexander was bottled up for the most part at around 3 yards per carry. Clements got a pick. Willis had 10 tackles to continue his run to RoY. Andy Lee was a monster again, averaging 54 yards per punt. He's our MVP at the quarter-pole of this season.

The list of negatives is too long to go through. But everyone that is involved with the offensive side of this team should be called to an all-hands game of Russian roulette tonight...and they'll be better for it next week. At least they'd play with some fucking fire in their belly. Dilfer proved that anyone who thinks Alex Smith is the problem has an IQ lower than this piece of work. Frank Gore fumbled twice, lost one, and that's not even a story. The receivers suck. The play calling sucks. The coordinator sucks.

But the line. Oh, the offensive fucking line. Everything in football starts and ends with the trenches. Seven step drops and stretching the field are great. But when a 308-pound ogre piledrives your $49.5 million dollar centerpiece into the ground, it doesn't matter what the scheme is or what gadget plays you have in the bag. Every single player along the front got abused today. Kwame was lucky he was on the sideline stretching and didn't have to sully his reputation with the fiasco on display this afternoon.

The most solid part of the line is the rookie right tackle, Joe Staley. Everyone else - shit. Jonas Jennings and Larry Allen were pancaking people all last season. They both now look like they should lay off the pancakes at training table. Center Eric Heitmann calls the blocking scheme and then blows it himself all within a half-second. Stunning what a Stanford education provides these days. And Justin Smiley - well he was benched in the middle of the game today and single-handedly killed two drives. And this fucknut had the audacity to turn down a $5M+ per year contract this offseason. Throwing a box of Trojan condoms out there in his place would offer more protection.

Ultimately all blame for this goes to Mike Nolan. This is the biggest game the team has had in several years. Last year's victories against the Hawks were considered flukes by outside analysts. This was supposed to be the Niners coming out party to show themselves as contenders for the NFC West crown. Instead they regressed big time today. And that falls to the head coach. If he wants the glory for the wins, he also has to clean up when they shit the bed. If there aren't benchings on the O-line and some dressing down of Hostler, expect the heat to keep building on Nolan all season.

The good news is we're still only a game back in the division. The bad news is, it's not clear what we can do to win another one this season. Back to the chalkboard fellas. It's not going to be an easy fix.