Matt Hasselbeck Previews Seahawks vs Patriots

0:00Good morning everybody, welcome to another episode of Hawk Blogger Mornings. I am Brian Nemhouser, you can find me and all that we do on YouTube on TikTok, on Instagram, at Hawk Blogger you can get ad free audio and I know everyone's asking for ad free everything which you can get patreon.com slash Hawk Blogger, I'll get you ad free audio and speaking today's episode is brought to you by Pemko, Insurance, Northwest, great companies take care of Northwest families for 75 years and by prize picks and Matt Hasselbach after a hiatus recuperating from a long season with us is back and he's signed in blood for the rest of the season. Matt, man, it's good to see you. Yeah, excited to be back, that was super fun last year. I mean, the sea hawks go into the Super Bowl and winning it the year that they had. Wasn't always a smooth road. I remember that after the first Rams game, I remember after week one

1:00even losing to the Niners at home, losing to Tampa when I was there in town. So it wasn't a smooth road but that's the beauty of the season and it was a great road though and finishing it off with the parade in Seattle. I ended up bartending at Ozzy's near the space needle that day. It was pretty awesome, pretty awesome, pretty awesome experience. So I'm excited to do it with you again this year and again on behalf of team impact. So I took liberties. I wouldn't have done this before we've had a chance to get to know each other a little bit but I felt like I could take this risk and this little guy made it, let's move this off of there. This guy made it into the thumbnail today. Can you tell us what's going on here? I felt like a teenager perusing your Instagram. That's really funny. That's really funny. I haven't seen that picture in a while. I was at that's at Fenway Park or Fenway Park as they say. I was at a Morgan Walling concert. There were

2:02other artists and I was, you know, I'm a bald man. So if I'm bald at a public place like that, it's more recognized. I don't know. I took a picture with a fan and the guy said he's like, oh, you stick out with your bald head or something like that. And I was like, he had this wig in this hat. I was like, well, I need a hat and a wig like you. It's a Morgan Walling wig. So I put it on and here's the problem. Then some people as other artists were going. I think some people were looking at me like they thought I was Morgan Walling. I was like, I'm going to go back to be involved. You know, I don't want to be Morgan Walling at this concert. So it was a great night. It was so fun. And I'm not sure. It's just there's a lot of embarrassing photos like that of me circulating. Hopefully they just stay hidden. We'll see. We'll see you there you go. We'll see what I can do to resurface things that you do and do not want to be researched. I don't know if I'm embarrassed by having hair though. I'm actually like kind of like, oh stop. Oh stop. I'm kind of like coaches. I'm kind of like coaches when there's a fight. You know,

3:03like you sound hard knocks like Mike. Oh, guys, stop fighting. Oh, please. Yeah, here's a stop fighting. They don't mind it. They don't mind you at all. It's true. It's true. I'm glad you brought up hard knocks. I wasn't going to bring that up with you. But I'm curious. You know, you have a unique perspective knowing that team, knowing the franchise, kind of knowing the lore of how ignored it gets. You know, you were the, I think the originator of Southern Alaska. So what did you think? How do you think they did capturing the Seahawks? I was not the originator of Southern Alaska. That was Jimmy Johnson. He said South Alaska. I just didn't let it die. That's okay. You know, it was mostly great. I was so excited that the Seahawks are even on hard knocks. I can remember sitting in meetings at times being like, man, how great would it be if we were on hard knocks right now? You know, like there was some of that. You know, some of it I thought was performative a little bit, you know, a little bit of a, I don't know, it wasn't the biggest fan. But there were other things that were just incredible, just absolutely incredible and real. And you

4:03don't get access to that unless and less hard knocks is doing your team. And, you know, on the Seahawks put out some stuff like hard knocks content. That's actually pretty awesome as well. But I think like a couple takeaways, if I, you know, just like Cooper Cups leadership in that building was incredible. Everyone talks about his impact on the wide receiver room. Sure. You see that for sure. But how about his impact on the quarterback room? How about his impact on guys is don't even place position? How about his impact on the head coach? He's sitting in the head coach's office, going through somebody else's offense, GI wonder who it is, and helping him crack the code on what their rules are and what their kryptonite would be. I mean, you, you find me another wide receiver who is that kind of an impact that doesn't get measured in the box score on any team. Good luck. Like, so that, to me, that was a pretty cool, you know, that was one example of, uh, of like a lot of cool things on that show. Yeah. What is, is there anything surprised you that they were able to,

5:03like, the Seahawks were there comfortable allowing to be on there or that they were able to capture through through this experience? I mean, I think part of it for me is like, you know, I started out with my congruent. Everything was a secret. Everything. You know, I had a, I had a serious back injury that I was just looking for someone to do the surgery and it was like, hey, we don't know, we don't know what your status is for this week is like, bro, you don't know what my status is for this week. I'm on an airplane laying down on the ground, going to LA looking for someone to do surgery. Like, we know what my status is this week, but everything's a secret. And so like to just the open door, where Sam Ramston, who's like the head of medical performance, everything, just the conversations that he's having with John Schneider, the head coach conversations about signing a guy with a really ugly PR situation. I just, for me, felt like, wow, I can't ever imagine the old Seahawks kind of having this kind of an open door policy. Yeah, we're going to turn the page to this game. It's

6:05some other stuff in a second, but you brought up the Terry and Arnold thing and I don't know. One of the things that happened there was when Mike was finally put in front of the media to talk about that. And I was one of the people there. I just got the impression as he was answering those questions, it wasn't comfortable for him. Like, this was the first time that they've been pretty squeaky clean in terms of who they bring in, how they operate, who they want in the building. I do wonder how he's feeling with dealing with that kind of implication, compared to what they've done before. And I think he would point to the fact that he's talked to people that he does respect and trust and they speak highly of him. But how do you think Mike's going to kind of navigate that aspect of this season? I think he does a good job at the podium. I mean, that's part of the job. I mean, some of the best coaches at the podium, you know, right off the bat, I think of guys like Mike Tomlin and just guys that own the podium.

7:06They just do a great job and sometimes you're making mistakes and you learn from it. But no, you know, when you have, it's just funny. Like when you're when you're scouting guys, there's a phrase you use, nameless faces, nameless faces. I don't want to know what his name is, what he's done in the past. I just want to know what his jersey number is and I want to evaluate him on tape. And so like, that's how you do it when you're scouting an opponent. I think it's similar to how you scout a player. Like you just scout the player and then you do a deep dive on the character. And so obviously there's some really bad stuff, you know, legally pending. And so what you do in the meantime, if you're in that situation, you talk to the coaches that you know, you know, like a Nick Saban type guy and those people that you know, and then people in your building that you respect that really know this guy. And so you, you know, you either take them at their order, you don't. But again, like, you know, being at the podium, there's going to be whether it's this or other things where you're going to have to be the face of the franchise and you're going to have to sort of do the press conference in NACO viral. You know, I guess that's probably the moral of

8:11the story. You give the right sound bite, not the wrong one. And that's part of what makes some guys great at the head coach job and other guys, they don't instill confidence, they don't diffuse, they inflame. And I think Mike McDonald's done a great job of that so far. So it's a little bit bizarre. It's a weird situation. One of the last times you and I spoke was when we were previewing the Ceeox playing the Patriots. And it was a very different time, but the same year. And here we are one day before a Wednesday start to the season for the Ceeox and the Patriots. And I've been trying to figure out and trying to ask the players and the coaches, how do you prepare for this situation? We're literally the last team you played. You did beat them pretty handily. Yes, there's new players, but there's a lot that's probably the same. How do you kind of reset to take this and how would you approach this from a scouting standpoint? Do you look at what you

9:14did? Like, how would you do that? How do you get ready for a game like that? Yeah, you look at all of it. And it's a brand new year and you're a new team and they're a new team and you obviously know that neither offense really played to their best in that game. And that's a thing. And typically, weak ones favor the offense in my opinion. They also are harder on teams that are, I don't not say this the right way, but the weak ones are harder on teams that do a great job in coming up with game plans and scouting because there's there's it's a complete blind date. Like everything that you've seen so far is a pump fake pretty much. It's a setup for this game Wednesday night. Anything they've run formationally personnel group already in the preseason, you know there's a double move coming off of it. You know it's a setup for what they really want to do. And I don't care if I was playing in the Wednesday night to start the season or just a regular weak one game at one o'clock. We were talking about the first opponent in May and we were running scouting

10:14cards for that first opponent in May, not all the time, but a little bit like that's the film here. Those are the plays you're drawn up. These are the people they're talking about Josh McDaniels. They're talking about Mike Vrable. Like this is what we're saying. And so funny because the rest of the time you get ready for an opponent in six days. It's like, but for this game, we're it's a month. But I think that's why you see so many upsets week one or so many. I shouldn't always say upsets, but so many teams that don't win week one that should. I mean just go back to last year even like off the top of my head. The Patriots got spanked at home by the Raiders. I mean, the Patriots are good. You know, they people put them on their schedule. They get spanked at home by the Raiders. We got, you know, we got beat at home against the Niners. It's a, and we, you know, we end up winning the Super Bowl. So like week one's tough. And even in my own experience, I could just tell you like the feeling as a quarterback who is a preparer going into a game. I remember we went down to the year we went to the Super Bowl. We went down to Jacksonville to get spanked.

11:15Yes. Spanked because it's like you go in not really. It's like a setup. It's like it told the whole thing to set up. And so if you do what you normally do gameplay and wise, it's almost like, I don't know. It's like you're a fish taking the bait. Like you know it's bait. But like, I don't know. This is how I eat. I don't know. I don't want to tell you. So, well, it's easy about it. Yeah. It's always uncomfortable. And, and I think back to just last year and Clint Kubiak, who is an experienced OC and play collar and has a identity. He was, you know, under center, play action boot like a lot of boot like outside zone. You kind of knew going in. And then the first week of this season, it's 49ers literally one play action pass attempt. They were in shotgun most of the game. A bunch of quick screens. It looks nothing like the Kubiak offense. And we saw the Kubiak offense the rest of the year. And so I'm like, how does that happen? It does surprise

12:16me. It doesn't surprise me at all because two things happen. Number one, you play somebody that has your playbook. Like literally if you were to walk in the 49ers facility, the Clint Kubiak, you know, like that playbook is like on the shelves behind you. Boom, boom, boom. See how those offense like Clint Kubiak's offense when he was here, here, here, his dad's offense. Like, it's the same playbook. And so you get in your head sometimes like, oh, they know we want to have a full back. They know we want to run the ball. They know that we want to play action pass. So let's not do that. So like that's one thing that literally happens to guys when you play when it's McVeigh versus Shanahan and when it's that, that those families, Lafaylor versus Lafaylor. Like it, it happens. The other thing that happens is all off season, you get on these whiteboards and coaches and you try to come up with a new wrinkle, the new creative thing. Like we're going to have Jaylyn Milro do a trick play. We're going to, we're going to steal from the Eagles and we're going to steal from this team and we, you know, all the stuff. And then you come up with these other ideas. What if we try this? What if we try that? Sometimes you set the league on fire and the stuff works.

13:18Other times it's just kind of a swing in a miss, man. It's just, you know, and I, and I, I've experienced that myself too. Like it's the same people on offense. We were great this year. We go into the next year and we all look like we stink. Well, I just part of it is that the white board committee, the guys that came up with the, what if we try this and what if we try that? Like, and go, you know, you overthought it or this wasn't good enough or, you know, that that part of it happens too. And I think two years in a row, that kind of happened to the Seahawks on week one. They took all their off-season stuff and it's like, oh, this is what we're going to be. We're going to be an empty backfield team. We're going to be a dropback passing team. No one's going to suspect it. And luckily they got it corrected last year quickly. Do you, when you think about Brian Flurry as first game as a play collar, what do you think? He talked about this actually yesterday that actually two days ago now. That basically the first two

14:18series, you're going to be what you have in mind and then you're going to be adjusting. And there's going to be a, Mike McDonald, this is what happened yesterday. He said, yeah, like this is the game of all the games where coaches are going to have to be making adjustments in game more than any other game. So how much do you feel like the game plan matters going into this game? And how much do you kind of, how do you kind of get ready for potential adjustments, like off of those game plans that you're going to need? Yeah, they're absolutely right. They're absolutely right. And that's why I think half-time adjustments, which normally aren't like the biggest, biggest thing, they're real in week one. Like they're extremely real. You know, one thing that kind of, I say the Bella check family of coaches always, I felt like they did is that, yes, you have your script to what you know what you're going to probably call, but not on third down, not not really on third down. They'll give you something on the like the first couple of third downs that they're not going to do the rest of the game. That's so different. And so literally you come to the

15:18sideline and instead of spending 90% of your time on what they're going to do 90% of the time, you're spending 90% of your time on what they're going to do 10% of the time and they probably already just did it and they're never, you're never going to see it again. You know, it's like, this almost like this like mind trick of how you spend your sideline time and how you spend your half-time. So, you know, I think half-time is probably better for the offensive adjustments, defensive adjustments, but no, it is a chess match with all that stuff. And again, I just think it's uneasy for a quarterback for that way. For a play caller and Brian Flury, I do think the preseason was really good for him to get the mechanics with his new coaching staff because just like players need to play together, coaches need to coach together. And so they went through some preseason games where they had, okay, who's on the headset? Who's taking notes? Who's charting? Who's in charge of the video? Who's telling, you know, who's telling me that, hey, we need to challenge this. Like all the different things that come together with the coaching staff. So,

16:20to me, I'm not worried about that kind of stuff because I feel like they probably worked out those kinks in the preseason. So, one of the things that I've been kind of interested in this offseason is this notion of obvious passing situations. And the notion there is you see a lot of teams that when they are in an obvious pass situation, that is the toughest part for an offensive line to pass protect. You're going to see the most exotic looks. And from a quarterback, it's a straight dropback pass, you know, it's tougher. We saw last season with Kubeak, 21 personnel, bringing the heavy in and facing base defense was something that really unlocked a lot of their offense. But I want to show you this. This is actually a list of all the teams in the NFL. That's you. Let's pull you off there. That was fun too, though. This is a list of all the teams in the NFL. And what percentage of plays were in obvious pass situations in the Rams, all the way on the left, right? 22% of their dropbacks were obvious pass situations.

17:22Seahawks are 12, they're about 29%. And this other piece that I want to put up here, this is the Seahawks. When they were in obvious pass situations all of last year. And interestingly, the highest percentage of obvious pass situations that Sam Donald faced all year was in the Super Bowl against the Patriots. And I do wonder if that contributed a little bit to what went on for them from a passing perspective and some missed plays for Sam. But for you as a quarterback, like when you were facing these kinds of third and five plus, second and eight plus situations, how did it change your approach, if at all? Well, first off, it was like you noticed the Rams were in the bills and good teams were way to the left of your first chart and notice it was like the Browns and the Raiders and the Titans. So it's a problem. I don't think quarterbacks mind it. I didn't mind it not one bit, but it's really hard on your offensive line. And so therefore, if you

18:25don't have good pass pro, I don't care who you are as a quarterback, you're not going to be as successful. And so that's the problem. You got to put yourself, that's why I think the best play callers put themselves in a situation situation before they think about routes, they think about the lens of the offensive line. You know, a lot of talk this year about, you know, the how the offensive line for the Patriots played in Super Bowl. Well, they were left hanging, like they were left hanging. It was like knowing what was going to happen. The pass rush was just teeing off. So I don't care who's quarterback, who's wide receiver, like good luck. So that's why it's a problem. It's not because the quarterback doesn't want to throw an 18 year dagger route or a deep pile on route. Like, no, that's just seven on seven to us. That's that's no biggie. We're good. And plus guys are allowed to catch it and run for a first down two. If it's third in nine, you can throw it for seven. You know, one of my favorite third and seven to 10 plays of all time

19:25was this played a Bobby Ingram double option. It's an eight yard route and he breaks in or out or he's like his option. He can do whatever that he wants to do. He'll catch it at eight and he'll get to 10. That's the deal. Like you're I'm not it's my favorite call. I love it. I don't even mind it at all. But if I'm an offensive lineman and I don't have the threat of the run and this dude gets to tee off and run T East onsen ear hole me while one guy comes around or TTE stunts are like are you know all the sons like good luck man. That's no fun. You know, I don't care if you're Walter Jones and you're sitting there getting ready to block the end and then the weak side linebacker earholes you and knocks you off your spot. And now Bruce Smith's coming around like yeah, no, I don't want that. That's why when you develop a first 15 guys love when they let the first 15 plays of the game. Guys love to to script it where the offensive line gets to fire out at least half the time like it's a run run play. It sets the tone for what those deep those defenders get to do. So that's why

20:28it's such a problem not because really not because of anything else. And now you're also having mismatches in the backfield. Some of your great third down backs. They're not so great when they got to stay in the block. Well, one of the things I'm really curious about is I know this was something you cared a lot about when you talked about last year was a difference between the Kubiac offense and the Shanahan version of this offense was Shanahan had five receivers eligible out significantly more often than Clint Kubiac did. Clint Kubiac was more likely to keep a few guys in than Kyle Shanahan. And I wonder like how much we're going to see of Kyle's like a couple things from the Shanahan offense more motion like you know at the snap as you've talked about. And then more eligible out. And then they actually used quite a bit more shotgun. And I don't know if that was because of pretty and Mac Jones or if it was just that Shanahan prefers that compared to Kubiac.

21:30So what are your what are your kind of expectations in terms of how much of this is going to resemble Shanahan and how much of it's going to resemble Kubiac based on hard knocks and based on my time in Seattle talking to Brian Flurry. I think that Sam Donald is going to have a lot of say in that. You know, do you want to be under center here? Do you want to be in gun? Do you have a preference? And then you marry you marry your passes with your runs. You know, whoever's in charge of the run game kind of like we you know we'd say the run game gurus because a lot of times you get the guys that are charged of the passing game they go off and spend hours and hours and hours working on your situations first and second down third and three to six third and seven tenth third and eleven plus short yardage goal line red zone high red low red all that stuff. Then you have your run game gurus who are trying to get okay what would be our best runs with personnel groupings? Is it a fullback this week? Is it two tights this week? Is it four wides and spread them out? You know what is it? And then you get the two groups together and marry it. And so sometimes the run game

22:31gurus like hey do you care if it's under center or gun or pistol like yeah we don't really care or hey no we really want to be under center here. And then you say okay well we could be in gun or we could do this under center or hey this is a drop back pass but we could do it in a two-back play action same routes no biggie you know and so it's it's a collaborative effort and based on what I've seen seems like Sam Darnold will have a voice. So one of the things that worked really well for the CX last year and we just touched on this a bit was getting defenses into base they would the CX would go heavy and defense is switched to base and they were just passing like crazy against it. It's interesting though if you look at an efficiency metric EPA is kind of the favorite at the moment EPA per drop back when the CX faced base defense last year fifth in the NFL in EPA per drop back when they face nickel 11th when they face dime 17th so it was pretty clear that the

23:33the more that the defense was prepped personnel wise for the past the less effective the CX were at attacking it. How do you this year get teams to still honor your heavy personnel so you can get them into base so that you can exploit them through the past. Yeah that was that was actually one of the things I was with Brock Cured and he was we were talking about Brian Flurry and and Brock was just grilling him just grilling him it was like coach to coach he was almost like man let this guy just relax and talk about the weather and his kids and stuff like that but Brock was all over him about that and and I think Brian Flurry's approach to the answering those questions was very much like hey this was a lead trend you know this was this was last year's lead trend that doesn't mean it's going to be next year's lead trend and so he didn't seem like you know like the the the heavy wins in those directions weren't moving him off his spot too much he's he at least gave the vibe that it was like we're gonna do what we do and we're gonna put our best 11 out on the

24:37field for the play that we're running you know that was his because I was I was very much into like hey man I was talking about the tight end groups and the versatility and like the different shapes and sizes of the tight ends you got obviously AJ Barnars coming on you got a rollo that excites a lot of people with who is as a receiver Brady Russell kind of like the Swiss Army knife can play fullback now all the sudden you know all these types of things and you know I don't it wasn't like his eyes weren't lighting up he just was kind of like you know that was a trend last year we'll see what the trend is this year and and from my experience how how those things really take off is how it took off kind of with the Rams their wide receivers were all hurt and then also in the where we're playing 12 personnel and now also it's 13 personnel and all of a sudden the tight ends that are stepping up are making plays and staffers like hey man I'm good leave leave Cody Parkinson in there leave that guy in there I'm good like let's just roll with that they're better blockers anyway a bigger target anyway you know and you've seen the New York Giants fell into that a couple

25:37years ago when Brian Debal was there they had nobody at wide receiver they played four tight ends and it was working it was like and then they just made a package out of it and then it just gave him a little territory and then they got more territory and more and it became who the offense was so I think that the the the sea ox have a really interesting thing where there's there's some more production available with guys that didn't see it last year you know and that that could be Shaheed it could be a tight end it could be running backs in the passing game and the unknown with Brian Flurry it's kind of what we're saying it's a blind date for the defense I mean there's 21 new offensive coordinators in the NFL this year right now and like I'm telling you it's a thing like you don't really know what the guy's going to be all about and so what you're studying is the preseason and I'm just telling you it's a it's a Trojan horse so Matt last few minutes we've got with you what are you what are you looking at in this game where what what it has your attention

26:38in terms of how these teams are going to match up obviously Christian Gonzalez just signed his deal I don't understand why it's not gonna get that deal done but it's done leverage leverage yeah I guess so and congrats to him on that but what what do you think is going to decide this game and I have to admit I'm confused why so many even New England analysts have like give the Patriots no shot in this game I'm like I don't quite understand that but well you don't know Boston fans that they're slightly negative on their on their own team I guess you know if you don't win it all they they they think you're rubbish rubbish yeah well so so what what do you think when you look at these two teams and what are you expecting to see tomorrow I think you'll see a completely different game than the Super Bowl we'll see a lot more creativity for the Patriots on offense you'll see a lot more I think you'll see a lot more points a lot more scoring uh it felt like in the Super Bowl both offenses were sort of playing not to lose and uh that works for

27:39the Seahawks when you've got the dark side defense and you're so good uh but the Patriots are a better team than people realize and you know they they've got two great corners like really great corners up front they're really strong Milton Williams Christian Barmore like they're good on defense they really are the weakness had been past protection and you know they're they're much better now they went out and got a free agent guard they're healthy um you know the the thing that'll really hurt them is not having their explosive back Traveon Henderson if that's if that's the case and then the other thing that'll be really tough is just that crowd like no one wants to go play in Seattle especially a game like this kicking off the season the whole world's watching concerts before during and after the game like it's it's gonna be cool and so the crowd noise will be a major thing and that'll help the past rush of the Seahawks um but I do think like just you know I was at the Super Bowl is so great it was one of those games that was a lot of defense and a lot of field goals I just don't think it will be that kind of game I think it'll be a high scoring game it's hard to game plan uh

28:44Patriots are really good and big and physical and a tough matchup outside at Wider Seaver with AJ Brown and the speed of Romeo dobs and they got Matt Collins who I think is one of the most underrated guys Kyle Williams are a really good guy they used to say he was their big receiver now he's like one of their small receivers because they'll big they got in the Wider Seaver room it's it's not gonna be a good game be a fun game and uh probably a little bit sloppy too so one more thing I haven't had a chance to talk you about the ownership change and the the legacy of the Allens uh that you obviously were a big part of and then this change to the Coast Slough family who this will be their first time as owners of of the Seahawks and they're all over Twitter talking to people and interacting with fans and um Mike McDonald yesterday I think there was a funny moment where someone asked like is there is the coastal I the coastal is gonna be introduced to the team and Mike was like that's up to them like they're team so there's this weird dance that's going on

29:47where John and Mike are getting to know their new bosses while the seasons getting started and the coasts are getting to know what it means to be NFL owners how much if if at all do you think that's a storyline to this season uh storyline to this season yeah I think it's a storyline I don't know how much it's gonna affect the people on the field necessarily uh but yeah it's a big thing and just speaking you know quickly about the Allen family they did an amazing job you know Paul Allen wasn't the most uh talkative or extroverted like person but he was uh he cared deeply and he cared deeply about the city of Seattle he cared deeply about um football and his relate in football's relation to his relation with his dad now he would talk often about you know his childhood memories were going to football games you dubbed football games with his dad and he just was like his special time with his dad he's great memories I think a lot of people can relate to that and then you know the Seahawks were Seattle was in danger of losing the Seahawks and he stepped up not

30:49because he was the biggest football fan but he just felt like it was the right thing to do for the city and so you know like the whole story is really great I mean the money's going to philanthropy like the whole story is just really amazing Jodi Allen taking over um in kind of taking the baton and doing such a great job and obviously the success on the field a lot of people that don't have success on the field and it's partly because of the ownership so yeah that's incredible and so the the path has been paved it's really nice I would just say like if it were me what I would expect I would expect Chuck Arnold and John Schneider to kind of um lead the way with the Kostla families in terms of like hey here's what we've done in the past we feel like you know this is a good entry point and then the Kostla's will probably it'll they'll take a life of their own as a quarterback as a player we would see Paul Allen probably two to three times a year he would come in the OTA's shake a couple hands watch practice he'd come for the team picture and then he would come for big

31:51games that you'd see him maybe in the locker room afterwards and it meant a lot when he was around he wasn't he wasn't like overbearing he kind of let the football people do the football stuff but he was a supporter and a cheerleader and like I've said many times my my favorite memory maybe one of my favorite memories uh playing there in Seattle is when he raised the flag uh the 12 flag news the NFC championship game we never know as the players who's gonna do it we don't you know usually pay attention or know who's doing the national anthem so I just have this memory of like carry underwood singing like one of the most amazing national anthem renditions and then all of sudden you hear this the music you know the 12 flag things come in and you look up and it's Paul Allen and just like Goosebumps even now so it's um it's I think an incredible legacy that the Seahawks have with their ownership groups and hopefully it just keeps on rolling Matt thank you as always let's tell people again uh your your appearances here are gonna be benefiting a charity uh talk to them a little bit about team champion yeah team impact which is uh you know well this

32:54is part of it we're trying to make team impact known so team impact is an incredible organization that pairs kids who have disease or disability with NCAA teams and you basically get drafted to sign a two-year contract onto those teams and it's really incredible for the kids that have disease or disability but I would say it's just as important for for the athletes and there's so much bad in college sports right now and this is something that's really really good and at the same time it gives these kids uh something that um medicine could never give them so it's a awesome organization I would encourage everyone to learn about it or uh bring it to your schools called team impact you can find them at team impact dot com team impact I will get that down I don't know how I forgot that but that was great there's more work to be done I'm here it kind of reminds me can I tell a quick story yeah of course so uh when they put Jersey patches on our practice jerseys for the first time we had we had bing like that's what it was like the search engine Microsoft and uh the you know we come in after practice and we had this linebacker from Auburn

33:56will herring great guy in this uh reporter was like hey you know how do you feel about the jersey patch you know with the the sponsor he's like oh bing I don't even know what it is I guess I'll have to go home and google it until like it's like like the worst thing you could say right but the people to their credit at Microsoft they said hey listen this is good this tells us what the scoreboard is and how what what we need to do and we need to make it so at least this becomes a household name you know something like that it was kind of like that sort of a mindset so uh I don't know that was our that was our bing dot com moment right there it's okay for team impact I appreciate I appreciate that I any comparison to will herring I will take so uh cool madhouse back thank you for coming on and we will see you every week on Tuesdays take care see right all right that was madhouse back what a treat every single week we'll talk to him and we get to talk to another hassle back tonight five o'clock actually I think it might be moving to four o'clock sea ox collective

34:58today as Rob state in myself and Annabelle Hasselback will be previewing this game between the sea ox and the patriots it's actually really fun yesterday I got to bring Rob state into the v-mac thank you to Dave Pearson and Julie Barber and and everyone in the sea ox PR department for making it possible for him to join and Rob was a his a kid in a candy store it was so cool I'm sure he'll talk about it more tonight on the show but you know one of the things he was telling me was he's been a journalist you know for 20 years or something now and he felt like a rookie in there he didn't he didn't know how to behave and you know the fact that he's still I mean he's such a big sea ox fan it's different than being a professional journalist covering a EPL team like he does for the BBC and it was really cool it was great to see it through his eyes and we had a really actually a fun interview with Dante Fowler Jr and in fact like I'm tempted to play it for you guys

36:03but like because YouTube folks don't get it it's only an audio interview I don't know if there's a way that I can actually play that effectively hmm I'm I'm not going to try because we know how audio issues on this show can sometimes infuriate people but it is available on all the podcast platforms and it is available on patreon.com.sashhawkplugger at free but it was fun Rob and I did a joint interview of Dante Fowler and he is so excited for this game and just the look on his face he he feels so rejuvenated to be here in Seattle to be playing around these veterans who love the game and are all about ball and the coaching staff it's really really encouraging to kind of talk to him and he's a forgotten there's a few of these names like the sea hawks there are years that you go into a season and you're like man if we get this guy and this guy to play well then we

37:08can be good and there's not a long list of who those guys are but this year you know that list is really long like Sam Darnal Jadari in price Emmanuel Wilson J.S. and Rashid Shaheed Guper Cup Elijah Royo AJ Barner like that's just the offense great Zable matters how he Jalen Sondell his second year like all these guys have a chance to kind of build on what they did last year and there's a lot of focus for me and for others on who's not going to be there namely you know Tio Kata namely Nicki Minaj like those kinds of names are meaningful but there are so many guys that are going to be there stepping on the field and this is such a talented team you know the hope is that part of what you get from being a team that is largely the same team as it was a

38:10year ago at least relative to most is that when you start this first game there isn't the getting acquainted period and you do keep in mind that the defense for example we talk I talk a lot about how the first game last year offensively was an outlier defensively it wasn't and why was that partially because that defense had continuity with the personnel that they finished the 2024 team with and with Mike McDonald and with the coaching staff so they hit the ground running so to speak the offense was all new not just new coaching staff but a lot of new players this year yes there's a new OC but a lot of the coaching staff is the same and a lot of the players are the same so you kind of hope that there is a little bit more continuity and a little bit less grinding of gears getting into this week one game relative to last year's week one game we will see I've got

39:15some more stuff to share with you guys I see there are some super chats I will get to those before we do that let's let's hear from our sponsors real quick and appreciate everybody who has been supporting our sponsors if you want to still get tickets there's a good way to do it here with Seekyke football season can mean a lot of sitting on your couch sponsor today's video Seekyke deserves a huge shout out for helping us get out of the house Seekyke is the number one rated ticketing app with over 35 million downloads there are more than 70,000 events listed on Seekyke including concerts sports festivals and more football seasons officially here the NBA and NHL seasons they're right around the corner and Seekyke has your back each ticket is rated on a scale of 1 to 10 so you know you're getting a good deal so look for the green dots green means good red not as good plus every ticket is backed by their buyer guarantee and Seekyke has more than sports you could go see Jim Gaffigan or the smashing pumpkins I love using Seekyke and of course

40:18I have a code for you guys you can use code Hawk blogger 10 for 10% off your next set of tickets at Seekyke that's 10% off any tickets with promo code Hawk blogger 10 make sure you click the link in the description of the video to download the app and automatically have the code loaded into your account great deal thanks for your help over at Seekyke good stuff there and also if you haven't already go download the price picks app links in the description of the video if you play $5 get $150 and bonus lineups all that at price picks get your favorite new gear simply Seattle dot com code Hawk blogger 15 for 15% off at simply Seattle make sure you show up at the game tomorrow look in your best dodo coffee dot co dodo coffee dot co Cooper Cup and a cup they would love to know that you've been drinking their coffee at dodo coffee you can get some of their merch I have that dodo hat I love it have one of those shirts as well Hawk blogger 12 will get you 12% off at dodocoffee dot co

41:24all right thanks to our sponsors and thanks to you guys for supporting our sponsors let's talk a little bit more about this game let's talk about superchats here Alex Simmons go hawks been member for two years thanks for what you do I'm addicted well I'm happy to hear that I have to admit like I had this conversation with somebody yesterday who I will not name but they're like yeah you know I listen to the show and I'm like really and they're like yeah and and they're like I mean everybody does and I'm like I don't I just don't think that way I really don't I'm this not false modesty and the truth is I would just talk about the see hawks if nobody was listening I did for many years like that's I love doing it and I hope I will always be a little surprised that somebody listens to the show and I really really am grateful for folks to do and increasingly as the show has gotten really big like bigger than I could have ever imagined

42:27there's a lot of negative stuff that comes my way as well people that complain about things people they get mad at me people that troll me for you know things I said or didn't say or did or didn't do whatever and so I'm really really grateful for people that one have gotten to know me and know that I try to be a good person and try to you know do the right things wherever I can and that you know it support me and support the fact that sponsors and all this stuff is part of how this show exists like I'm the sole breadwinner for my family mortgage is not cheap you know running this is not cheap will heart who does a great job in my shorts and reels like he needs food on the table and being able to support him as much as I can is dude war sponsors pemko has been sponsoring our shorts and reels right now and that's a big thing for me and it's a big thing for for will so

43:28really really grateful for all of you for supporting us through the process and the more you can support our sponsors the more you support us so really appreciate everyone who does that Gavin Ellersick asked question hardest part of what you do and what's the most fulfilling I don't know if this was for me or for Matt I think it's for me apologies for Matt hard is part of what I do um the thing that I always was cautious about and I thought that this whole venture road on was whether or not this would turn into a job in an obligation and then it would extinguish the passion I have for football and for sea ox stuff and I want to I love that I have access to get a view behind the curtain I didn't want that to sour or make me jaded or too cynical about the game and about the players and about the coaches in the front office it hasn't at all I

44:33was worried that I would feel like I have to do this and then I wouldn't want to do it and there are some days that that does happen and I try to take days off when it does but it's a grind I mean this is literally as much of a one-man show as any can be and doing all the editing and doing all the coding of all the things and I'm gonna be writing an article after this and you know all that stuff is a lot of work and after doing it you know 365 days a year for a couple of years and now into the third year I'm looking for ways to to offload that as much as possible but you know it's tough I have standards I have ways I want things done and when I want them done so that's probably the hardest the most fulfilling most fulfilling I don't know I'll just be honest like straight honest like that when there are coaches players for an office people scouts professionals in the in the field

45:37that pull me aside and say I love what you do you do a great job and they're all different types of players and coaches in front office people like that is something I never ever expected I didn't expect anyone to even recognize what goes on here but to have that happen and then to be in the Super Bowl locker room last year and have folks tell me whether I agree with them or not that I was part of what went on that will never be something I will forget now there's very generous of them to say that I still don't feel that way I mean I'm an observer I have a real issue with media people that have big egos and think that they're somehow more important than the people that are actually doing the things that we're all watching and being impressed by but that was very moving for me and even now thinking about it's pretty impressive so all right a couple things so

46:42I want to bring these these stats back up because I just showed them quickly and I don't know there might be a let me do this I'm going to share them a different way because I want to zoom in on a couple things and I do think that this is this is a big deal it's something to keep an eye on going into this year so let me open one of these images and this is about obvious passing situations so this first one is the obvious okay so let me do this and let me zoom in all right so these are obvious passing situations in 2025 share of snaps that an offense was in second and eight plus or third and five plus lower is better garbage times not included two minute drills excluded this

47:43comes from sumer data so let me make sure and see that you guys are seeing what I want you to see okay so this is the left side of the chart which is the good place to be and look at the Rams how little 22 and a half percent of their snaps we're in obvious passing situations the bills were next to 24.4 and then the 49ers at 26.8 the reason I kind of wanted to zoom in here by the way patriots they were what was six at 27.4 I think the see ox were 12 if I remember correctly I don't want to count but that's roughly where they are there are 29.4 which was about league average all right if the only difference that Brian Flurry brings and it's not as easy as snap in your fingers as you go from 29.4 and 12th in this stat to 27 and third watch out like that would be a massive

48:43difference for Sam Donald part of the reason I say that is this is the data that I was talking about before this is going to show up in my tail the tape I continue to revise these graphics that's why it's taken a little longer to get tail of tape out but this is if you look at the see ox passing game and you look right here these are the defensive packages that the see ox face last year base nickel dime and percentage of time they face they face base 27% of the time last year fifth in EPA per dropback against base defense 11th against nickel 17th against dime two thirds of the time they're playing nickel and so if you can get to where you're playing nickel the way you'd probably play it but ideally getting into less obvious past situations is another way to get to base do you follow me on that I want to be clear if it's not

49:47obvious so a big part of the story last year that I tried to help people understand and follow was use of heavy personnel to get to date base defense why did they do that they did that because the teams that were in heavy personnel defense has rules if there's two tight ends on we're going to act this way we're going to bring on this package on our side or they get to three tight ends that's an even bigger package we're going to get so that got to base defense and then it allowed the offensive play collars to exploit that base defense with fewer coverage defenders well another way kind of the classic way to get to more base defense is to get to more advantageous advantageous downs and distances so you're not going to play nickel on second and three right or second and four probably now you might if the team goes to 11 personnel still

50:50who knows so personnel down in distance as well as where you are in the field all plays a role in what defensive shells are out there but I am telling you one way or another it matters what percentage of snaps a team faces an offense faces where the defense is in base however you figure out how to do it that's a big deal and then this is the graphic I I flashed up there quickly as well with Matt this is the sea hawks game by game percentage of plays in obvious passing situations and let me make this a little bit bigger for you guys so you can see and what I've got going on here is the top is the percentage of situations that are obvious past situations the dash line is the sea hawks season average so you can see where they're above or below there season average and then below is how they were EPA per dropback so is there any correlation

51:56between games where they were in less obvious past situations that they had better passing performances I haven't really dug into this I literally just made this graphic right before the show started but one of the things that stands out for me is there was a lot of obvious past situations the first part of the year like through what would this be week seven last year they had five different games that were above their season average in their first seven but they also had some really good EPA like three of their better EPA per dropback games came well actually two of their better EPA per dieback games came to that you see when it dropped down in week was this week eight that was a good EPA game for them as the season went on you know there are some games where they got into like very few obvious passing situations and this generally seemed to improve for a period of time

53:04but then as the late in the year you know these games against the Rams game against 49ers they were not a terrible shape but they had a decent amount of obvious past situations and you see the EPA per pass per dropback you know not so great in those moments and the Super Bowl the highest of those situations in terms of percentages and also not a great game EPA wise right efficiency wise for the C.R.X. passing now the game in the NFC championship against the the Rams compare that to what was the week 16 game 33% obvious past situations in week 16 28% in the NFC championship game they went from a negative point two EPA per pass to a positive point three eight it's a huge difference and I think getting into these less obvious past situations was part of why that worked and

54:08you know part of the reason this is going to be a big deal is because it's a big deal for every team it's a big deal for every offense but I'm telling you if you're going to be facing teams like the the Rams like the 49ers like the Broncos and you're going to be an obvious passing situations good luck like that is a very tough ask for your offensive line as Matt was talking about and that's something I'm going to be really curious to see how that goes all right one last thing I want to make sure folks are protecting themselves from identity theft and this from cover on I think is a really good product I hope folks take advantage of it protect themselves protect their families it feels like every day I get a new message that some company has had a data breach and my personal information has been exposed and if it's not that I get a new fishing email that's more and more

55:09sophisticated trying to get me to expose my own information to some sort of scam and it's to the point where if you're not doing something to protect your identity online you're in real danger and that's where a product like cover on comes in cover on's a new product brought to you by the makers of NordVPN or security comes with dark web monitoring to keep an eye on anything going on as well as identity theft recovery and online fraud insurance plus you get identity theft protection from all the places you might need and you get an individual plan I'd recommend the family plan because if it's your wife or your husband or your kids you can get five adults covered on the family plan and have total peace of mind one scam can cost you everything protect yourself now the first 100 users get 20% off with code hot blogger at coveron.com slash hot blogger that's coveron.com slash hot blogger we're going to be doing Nord who makes cover on is going to be donating

56:09$500 to spoke in fire relief I don't think we've gotten many signups yet for cover on and I really want to encourage them and other partners to continue this charitable stuff want to make sure that they're they're getting supported to do it so please think about looking at that product I do think it can be helpful and this is something that I certainly use for my family I see that we've got someone who's going to be joining patreon which is great patreon.com slash hot blogger got this nice comment from winged warriors as you inspired me to be a cx content creator in both english and Spanish thank you for being you and how you are I hope to meet you someday and even create a collaboration video together well let me know when you're ready and we'll see if we can work that out I think robby is joined in patreon.com and I just got a funny text from Matt Hasselback turns out he had his he said he has will herring moment it is team impact dot org so I had my wrong

57:15moment with team impact so to Matt so I guess we both get started getting the cobwebs off for a week once a team impact dot org is the charity that we will be supporting with Matt so hope to see you robby on the discord server when you get there all right everybody that will do it for today's episode I'll be back with you for cx collective later today till then have a great rest of the day