by: Chris Sullivan
I was one of the lucky few attending the game yesterday, and something that really stuck out to me was how terrible Matt Hasselbeck looked. Now, of course, he had flashes of brilliance as we would expect, but for the most part Matt looked like Bizarro Matt. He was constantly missing his receivers and appeared to be just plain off. I know he is unfamiliar with a lot of his WRs, but that was the case in 2005 too, let's not forget.
So, I wanted to see just how bad the Seahawks passing game was this year. Their stats are summarized below:
| 2008 | Games | Comp | Att | Pct | Yds | Avg | TD | Int | Rating | Career |
| Matt Hasselbeck | 6 | 87 | 171 | 50.9 | 929 | 5.4 | 5 | 9 | 54.9 | 84.6 |
| Seneca Wallace | 6 | 64 | 121 | 52.9 | 669 | 5.5 | 5 | 1 | 79.5 | 79.1 |
| Charlie Frye | 1 | 12 | 23 | 52.2 | 83 | 3.6 | 2 | 2 | 53.3 | 70.4 |
| Seattle Seahawks | 11 | 163 | 315 | 51.7 | 1681 | 5.3 | 12 | 12 | 59.7 | |
| PROJ 08 Hawks | 16 | 237 | 458 | 51.7 | 2445 | 5.3 | 17.45 | 17.45 | 59.7 |
| 1992 Seahawks | 16 | 230 | 476 | 48.3 | 1778 | 3.7 | 9 | 17 | 49.3 |
So, uh, that's not very good. Still, to make us feel better, I compared those stats to our worst year, the 2-14 Seahawks of 1992.
It made me wonder, what the hell is wrong with our QBs? Matt especially is having an atrocious year--30 points behind his career average in QB rating. What changed? A lot of things! We know the issues with the WRs, and we know that we have a new TE (who has been excellent for Matt), new RBs, and a fullback who has emerged as a screen pass threat, etc., etc.
Those are some changes. We also changed our QB coach when Jim Zorn left to lead the Redskins, replacing him with the recently fired Bill Lazor (former a Redskins coach). Could it be his fault? How? I have always viewed the QB coach as relatively unimportant, at least for someone like Hasselbeck who is well established and generally just pushes himself to be better [it would seem]. Let's look at Lazor's history, though:
| Games | Comp | Att | Pct | Yds | Avg | TD | Int |
| 2007 Redskins | 16 | 319 | 525 | 60.8 | 3463 | 6.6 | 17 | 11 | ||
| 2006 Redskins | 16 | 274 | 470 | 58.3 | 3027 | 6.4 | 18 | 10 | ||
| 2005 Redskins | 16 | 278 | 481 | 57.8 | 3106 | 6.5 | 25 | 11 |
Those last three years are not great. Not bad, though. Last year's numbers were significantly padded by Todd Collins coming in and slaying the last five or six games for them, throwing no interceptions in the regular season and nailing quite a few TDs. There's little question that Lazor failed to develop Jason Campbell into the quasi-weapon Zorn has helped him become this year. What I found very interesting though, is Lazor's first year in all three of his jobs.
| 2008 | Games | Comp | Att | Pct | Yds | Avg | TD | Int |
| PROJ 08 Hawks | 16 | 237 | 458 | 51.7 | 2445 | 5.3 | 17.5 | 17.5 |
| 2004 Redskins | 16 | 288 | 514 | 56.0 | 2632 | 5.1 | 18 | 17 |
| 2003 Falcons | 16 | 230 | 460 | 50.0 | 2408 | 5.2 | 14 | 21 |
Very, very mediocre. Exceedingly mediocre. So mediocre, it's BAD. Literally. He was never given a shot to improve on his record in 2003 (under Mora), and it's possible that he will be let go after this disastrous year. More likely is that he is another "Ruskell/Mora" guy, and he'll stick around, so hopefully we'll see more numbers like the '05 Redskins and less like the '08 Seahawks. It could be worse, but it's pretty bad.
So why, pray tell, is no one calling for Lazor's head? Is it because we all just love Hass too much? What are your thoughts, guys and gals? And while we're at it, in what round do we draft a QB in 2009? ~END~
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