Week 16 - Sunday 24th December 2006

Christmas time, mistletoe and wine, Seahawks defending on the goal line", sang Cliff Richard in his popular hit "How will the Seahawks stop Ladainian Tomlinson"

It's a good question Cliff and gives me the chance to bring up an unfortunate Seahawk stat. The 2005 Seahawks ended the season with the 5th best run defense in the NFL whilst the supposedly upgraded 2006 Seahawks D are 25th in run defense.

You can talk about the Seahawks struggles in 2006 until Koren Robinson comes home but our inability to stop the run might well have been the most significant factor. I've said it before that the Seahawks can patch holes left by Haselbeck and Alexander but not by the absence of DT Marcus Tubbs.

Being able to stop the run against the Chargers is sort of important and it is to be hoped that the Seahawks coaches have used the 10 day break to come up with some sort of scheme to stop him. I'm sure that many tried and many died when trying to stop Tomlinson but just turning up with the same old crap on defense is not really a viable option.

Another thing that the stats show us is that, much like Shaun Alexander in 2005, when LT goes over 100 yards the Chargers win. The odds of the Seahawks holding him to less than 100 are not great with the only glimmer of hope being the fact that the Chargers have all but secured home field advantage in the play offs and might just scale things back a little. I live in hope.

Flying slightly under the radar is the Chargers QB Philip Rivers. After finally taking over from Drew Brees he seems to have brought the consistency that Brees lacked. Bring a QB rating of 90+ tied to a demon RB then you're going to have a good season. I'd like to think that Hasselbeck holds an advantage over Rivers but, his knee injury apart, he has struggled for consistency in 2006. I'm sure that Hasselbeck has a huge game in him and now would be a good time to deliver.

At WR the Seahawks will again be hampered by the loss of Darrell Jackson who has 10 TD's on the season and is a little shy of 1,000 yards. The Chargers WR Corps has scored by my calculations a grand total of 6 TD's between them. TE Antonio Gates takes up the slack between the receivers and Tomlinson with 8 TD's. Seahawks TE Jerramy Stevens will probably drop a pass but end up having a good game with a TD reception if the evidence of recent weeks are anything to go by.

The Chargers have a 3-4 defense and I fancy that they will be the first 3-4 team we have met since the Steelers in the Superbowl. It has not traditionally been a defense that the Seahawks do very well against and the Chargers lead the NFL in sacks with 54 whilst the Seahawks are in 6th with 39. It's another worry just in case we've not got enough.

Worries aside this is a game that the Seahawks really need to win to avoid a nail biting end to the season in week 17. The play off position, if the Seahawks lose their next 2 and the 49ers and Rams win their next 2, leaving all teams at 8-8, does not bear thinking about so I'm not going to worry about it just yet. The bottom line is if the Seahawks win OR the 49ers lose at Arizona we will be in the play offs.

It would be a nice Christmas present as the clock strikes midnight in the UK and a time for rejoicing in all that we see.

The game will be screened live in the UK as the 'red button' game on Sky which means we are spared adverts and get multiple cheerleaders in return. It's one of the best trades available on commercial TV anywhere in the world.

As ever, the game will be followed live in our exclusive Seahawkers UK chat room (no jeans or trainers please) where the properly attired are more than welcome.

Whilst there we like to listen to the radio coverage from the States www.thegamelive.com in the past the top link has been reliable.

For those without Sky there is also now a live streaming option for UK based fans with broadband via http://sports.yahoo.com/nflgamepass but this service has not been totally reliable so please check out the chat room first for further information.

HawksHead

13/12/06

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