Right Now, The Redskins are the Better Team

As we head into tomorrow’s wild card playoff battle in Seattle, here are my thoughts on the game:

• I’ve read a lot of Seattle fans commenting on how Todd Collins is a career 56% passer and is playing way over his head. Most of those passes came ten years ago, so they just aren’t relevant. Ten years ago, Matt Hasselbeck was still playing college football at Boston College and I don’t think anyone is using college stats to evaluate Hasslebeck. Is Collins playing above his head? Who knows, but please don’t pull out 10 year old stats to tell me he sucks.
• To me a comparable situation to Collins take the league by storm in December is Kurt Warner back in his 1st year starting with St. Louis. It doesn’t seem right that a career back-up is taking the league by storm, but he is. Until a team proves they can handle Collins in a game (without tornado like wind conditions), there is nothing out there that proves he can’t play at a high level.
• Question for Seahawk fans: Does the week 17 game against Atlanta count or not? All week I’ve heard that the fact that Seattle gave up a zillion points to Chris Redman and the Falcons shouldn’t be considered when evaluating the Seahawks, as the game had no meaning to them. But then, I’ve also heard that the Seahawks running game is back because in the same game they put up big rushing numbers. Either the game matters or it doesn’t. Last I checked, Atlanta didn’t have anything to play for either.
• Seattle’s Qwest Field is loud, perhaps the loudest the stadium in the league. The Redskins may take a few false start penalties due to the crowd noise, which obviously is a help to Seahawks. But none of this changes the fact that the ‘12th man’ stuff the Seahawks play up and continually talk about is one of the lamest things going in the NFL.
• Seahawk players who don’t get a lot of press, but who concern me: Rocky Bernard, Maurice Morris, Leroy Hill and Bobby Engram
• Shaun Alexander is done. The more he plays and the less Morris sees the field, the better for the Redskins. Either way, I don’t see Seattle having much of a running attack this week.

Positional Breakdown:

Quarterback: Seattle – Hasselbeck is proven, Collins is hot, but unknown
Running Back: Washington – Portis by a long shot
Wide Receiver: Even – Seattle is deeper, but Moss is biggest threat on the field
Tight End: Washington – No contest.
Offensive Line: Washington – Seattle can’t run and they give up a ton of sacks
Defensive Line: Seattle – The Redskins are better run stoppers, but Seattle’s pass rush is the difference
Linebackers: Seattle – Fairly close, but Seattle has the edge.
Secondary: Even – Pretty similar units, although Seattle will test Washington’s depth with its many WR packages.
Kicker: Seattle – How will Suisham handle the pressure?
Punter: Washington – Who’d have guessed?

Prediction

In my opinion the way to find a winner is to determine who’s playing better right now. The Redskins destruction of the Lions earlier this year and the Seahawks home loss to the Saints have no impact on this week’s game as they both happened so long ago. What matters is how the teams are playing now. Obviously the Redskins are rolling and hotter than the Seahawks at this point. I’ve pulled the weekly DVOA scores (from Football Outsiders) for Seattle and Washington and completed a trend chart, which is below:



The straight lines are trendlines while the lines that bounce up and down are the weekly scores (the Redskins DVOA in the Dallas game is higher than the scale). The Redskins trendline is in burgundy and Seattle is green. You can see the Redskins are, as expected, trending upwards in their performance. They’ve scored higher than the expected trend for 3 consecutive weeks. The Redskins have better scores than the Seahawks in three straight weeks as well. (Note – even if you exclude the last Seattle game, the Redskins still trend better than the Seahawks, although the difference reduces to about 10% rather than the 25% you are seeing here).

The chart and explanation are just complicated way of saying the Redskins are simply playing better than Seattle right now. The Seahawks may have the better record, the home field advantage and a division title, but right now the Redskins are the better team. And this game right now is all that matters now.

Washington Redskins 24 Seattle Seahawks 16