NFC Championship Revisted

[Ogsponge]

So I have been wanting to the post this for a while as I have seen this phrase (or some variation of) posted what seems like 100+ times on this board "We dominated them for 55 minutes of the football game". This is simply flat out false.

If we had "dominated" anyone for 55 minutes of a football game, we would have won, period end of story. Never in the history of the NFL has a team been "dominated" for 55 minutes and won the football game, never. In fact I contend that at no point in this entire football game did we dominate them at all. Did we outplay them for a portion of this game? Absolutely, but even that did not happen for as long as so many posters on this board erroneously believe.

Let's break down the game stats:

GB SEA
First downs 19 20 - we got beat
Rush-yards-TDs 30-135-0 35-194-2 - we got beat
Comp-Att-Yd-TD-INT 19-34-178-1-2 15-30-228-2-4 - we got beat
Sacked-yards 1-7 5-25 - we got beat
Net pass yards 171 203 - we got beat
Total yards 306 397 - we got beat
Fumbles-lost 1-0 2-1 - we won
Turnovers 2 5 - we won
Penalties-yards 5-45 8-40 - slight edge to SEA in yardage
Third Down Conv. 3-14 8-16 - we got utterly dominated
Fourth Down Conv. 0-0 1-1 - we got beat
Total Plays 65 70 - we got beat
Time of Possession 32:15 31:04 - slight and meaningless advantage

Now I am sure some of you are going to say but that all happened at the end of the game. You would certainly have an argument there as all of Seattle's points came at the end of the game but let's break this down further.

Packer Drives:

Start plays time yards result

1 1 15:00 GNB 20 9 3:44 51 Interception
2 1 10:28 SEA 19 5 2:21 18 Field Goal
3 1 8:01 SEA 23 6 2:54 22 Field Goal
4 1 3:39 GNB 44 7 3:39 56 Touchdown
5 2 13:18 SEA 33 6 3:41 11 Field Goal
6 2 9:18 GNB 44 3 0:57 23 Interception
7 2 1:55 GNB 20 4 1:20 12 Punt
8 3 13:05 GNB 39 3 2:12 9 Punt
9 3 4:44 GNB 20 4 2:22 7 Punt
10 3 0:55 GNB 13 10 5:02 57 Field Goal
11 4 6:53 GNB 13 3 1:40 6 Punt
12 4 5:04 GNB 43 3 1:12 -4 Punt
13 4 1:25 GNB 22 7 1:11 48 Field Goal

Seattle Drives

1 1 11:16 SEA 20 3 0:48 3 Interception
2 1 8:07 0 0:06 0 Fumble
3 1 5:07 SEA 20 3 1:28 0 Punt
4 2 15:00 SEA 20 3 1:42 3 Punt
5 2 9:37 SEA 20 1 0:19 0 Interception
6 2 8:21 SEA 31 12 6:26 51 Interception
7 2 0:35 SEA 26 2 0:35 -8 End of Half
8 3 15:00 SEA 20 3 1:55 9 Punt
9 3 10:53 SEA 22 11 6:09 78 Touchdown
10 3 2:22 SEA 34 3 1:27 -1 Punt
11 4 10:53 SEA 13 10 4:00 37 Punt
12 4 5:13 SEA 46 1 0:09 0 Interception
13 4 3:52 SEA 31 7 1:43 69 Touchdown
14 4 2:09 50 4 0:44 50 Touchdown
15 4 0:14 SEA 22 1 0:14 -1 End of Half
16 5 15:00 SEA 13 6 3:19 87 Touchdown

Okay so here we go:

1st Quarter:

Packers 147 yards and 16 points Seahawks 3 yards and 0 points.

So here the numbers look pretty damn dominating and they were but let's look at this quarter a little closer.

1st drive - got all the way to the Seattle 29 where the sequence of events were incomplete, incomplete, interception. Oops, that was a possible 3 or 7 points left off the board.

2nd drive - goal line field go - 4 points left off the board

3rd drive - goal line field goal - 4 points left off the board

Before you think I am trying to play the "should of, could of, would of game", I am not, I merely trying to point out the difference between dominating and playing better than your opponent. I will say this, the defense did actually, thoroughly and utterly dominate the Seahawks in the 1st quarter, the offense not so much. There is no doubt the offense soundly beat the Seahawks in the 1st quarter but a dominating team would not have left a possible 15 points off the board with the way that game was going. Also let's not forget that our absolutely atrocious special teams scored the only Packer touchdown of the day. In fact if you want to get technical, the only unit of the Packers to score this game was the special teams, the special teams put all 22 points on the board for the Packers this day. Yes the offense had to gain some yards but they did not score a single point.

Anyway to move on, if the Packers had actually dominated the Seahawks in the 1st quarter, the score would have been anywhere from 19-0 to possibly 31-0, and for the record, 31-0 would have been domination, instead the offense managed to eek out some yards due to turnovers and then let the special teams score 16 first quarter points. So in closing the 1st quarter did we soundly beat them in the 1st? Absolutely. Dominate? Not even close except for the defense.

2nd Quarter.

Packers 46 yards and 3 points Seattle 46 yards and 0 points.

So does a whole lot need to be said here? Was there any resemblance of domination in the 2nd Quarter? No there was not. The only reason we got 3 points was because of yet another really bad pass by Wilson. Neither team dominated anything, they were equally horrible.

3rd Quarter: Packers 73 yards and 3 points Seattle 86 yards and 7 points.

Um wait a second, what the heck is going on here, according to so many posters on this board, we "dominated" the Seahawks for 55 minutes of this game yet here is 15 minutes of football where we simply got beat. There was certainly no domination going on here.

4th Quarter

Green Bay 50 yards and 3 points Seattle 118 yards and 15 points

Again, there was no domination going on by the Packers, I don't think anything else really needs to be said.

Overtime:

6 plays, 87 yards 6 points Seattle, game over.

So in closing, it is my contention that we never once dominated this game, did we manage to look like we dominated the 1st quarter due to turnovers? Absolutely, but all we did was beat them for 1 quarter of this football game, if we had dominated them even in this one quarter, Seattle loses, we play in the Superbowl. Heck, we did not even need to dominate them that quarter, we only needed 3 points out of possible 15 left on the board, and the Pack wins.

There is a clear distinction between dominating 55 minutes of a football game and outplaying your opponent for a quarter. The Packers did the latter and if that is all you can muster against a top tier team, you are going to lose 90% of the time. So for all of you hanging your hat on "we dominated for 55" minutes, we did not.

We have a great team, we are still going to win a lot of game next year, more than likely make the playoffs but this team need to fix it it's mental toughness in the big game in order to get back to the Superbowl, and I am not just talking about the defense, I am talking about the offense as well. If the Packers are going to play with a middling defense then the offense needs to develop a take no prisoners and utterly crush your opponent attitude. Winning 27-0 at halftime? I don't care, keep doing what you do well and make it 47-0.

Anyway, I look forward to anyone trying to use facts to show me how we dominated the Seahawks for 55 minutes of this game.

 

[D.J.]

Can't disagree at all. The Packers benefitted from 55 minutes of substandard play by the Seahawks. I can't bring myself to watch the game again but from what I recall we didn't force many of their mistakes, they were given to us.

I also think there is something to our offense that we just can't get things going when we are on the road. Maybe it is because our offense is all about precision and timing that when we play in an unfamiliar/hostile environment it throws everything off kilter.

If we had dominated then our #1 scoring offense would have rolled up at least a few points. Certainly not the case.

All that said, we did hang with the toughest team in the NFL in their house and came within a Shawn Slocum of getting to the Super Bowl.

Neither team played its best that day. I really hope that McCarthy and staff make a cut up of the Badgers basketball season to show his players what it looks like when a team plays to the buzzer and finishes strong.

 

[Packerfan0220]

Yet we lost because we collapsed at the end, so how does your post change that??? Maybe it wasn't domination, but we did outplay them, and only an epic collapse could cause us to lose! Good post, but doesn't change why we lost at the end.

 

[TJV]

Dominated vs. "played better than" vs. "played much better than" doesn’t make much difference to me.

 

[Ogsponge]

Dominated vs. "played better than" vs. "played much better than" doesn’t make much difference to me.

makes the difference between winning and losing and you usually have to do it for more than one quarter which they did not do. I completely understand your point, but the the bottom line is, the Packers did not do any of those 3 things for more than one quarter of football, so they lost.

The point remains the same, there is no way anyone with eyeballs can say "55 minutes"

 

[Packerfan0220]

except the difference between winning and losing was how we played the last 5 minutes. Had we played the last 5 the way we played the first 55, we win it. Doesn't matter if it was domination or just played better.

 

[TJV]

Here’s what can be said with certainty: According to the espn.com play-by-play, the Packers punted the ball to the Seahawks with exactly 4 minutes on the game clock, leading 19-7. To that point in the game, exactly 56 minutes in, the Packers defense had not surrendered a point.

 

[Packerfan0220]

I do agree we didn't dominate, because if that was true, woulda been less fgs and more Tds

 

[Ogsponge]

except the difference between winning and losing was how we played the last 5 minutes. Had we played the last 5 the way we played the first 55, we win it. Doesn't matter if it was domination or just played better.

It amazes me how people can flat out ignore facts. After the 1st quarter we played like crap the rest of the game. If we had played any 5 minutes after the 1st quarter in the same fashion that we did the 1st quarter, we would have won the game. The last 5 minutes is the easy scapegoat. While the last 5 minutes of the game was the proverbial straw, this game was truly lost in the previous 55 minutes by lack of touchdown and by complete lack of doing anything offensively after the 1st quarter.

And the whole point of my post was we did not dominate anyone and there is no reason to say we did, so yes, it does matter whether we dominated or played better for a quarter.

Dominated for quarter or 55 minutes = Win
Played better for one quarter = loss

The facts don't lie

 

[Ogsponge]

Here’s what can be said with certainty: According to the espn.com play-by-play, the Packers punted the ball to the Seahawks with exactly 4 minutes on the game clock, leading 19-7. To that point in the game, exactly 56 minutes in, the Packers defense had not surrendered a point.

with all the turnovers and chances we had to stomp on their throats, do you really consider 19-7 domination? If so fine, I can't argue you with your thoughts but I would certainly believe your opinion on the matter to be utterly wrong.

Not saying that to attack you, just saying I would not agree.

 

[TJV]

with all the turnovers and chances we had to stomp on their throats, do you really consider 19-7 domination?

Dominated vs. "played better than" vs. "played much better than" doesn’t make much difference to me.

 

[pacmaniac]

I said it many times in the week after the game. Their D dominated our O the entire game. That's why every time our D got a turnover and gave us the ball deep in their territory, we had to kick FGs almost every time.

But of course, our D dominated their O for the first 55 minutes. That's why we got so many turnovers and we had a defensive shutout going until the last few minutes. Then they got the final interception and started hugging each other on the sideline. The D was mentally in the locker room during the last few minutes.

 

[adambr2]

This sort of feels like running my dog over with a truck and asking me several months later if I want to talk about it again.

 

[XPack]

I kind of disagree. We did dominate the game, but the facts are even because we couldn't well finish in red zone. Had we been more effective there ... as much as we dominated rest of the pitch ... the tale would have have had a better ending. Calling 193 yards for 19 points vs 46 yards for 0 points a domination is not way over the top. They couldn't get their passing game going, they couldn't get the running game going. The couldn't get their defence going. We were better all around, except for lack of gutsy play calling in red zone.

The definition of 'domination' is fluid. Had we been facing a bottom table team, then high score difference is a sign of domination. But in a NFL championship match against a team as good as SEA, this is as close to domination as any team can get, imo.

 

[AmishMafia]

Leading a team everyone considered the NFLs best team, in a stadium known for home dominance, 16-0 at the half was very impressive. 19-7 at the 4 min mark - very impressive. 'Beating them handily" "Thumping them" "Kicking their butts" all come to mind. If you don't want to call it dominance, so be it. No sense in arguing semantics at this point.

 

[JBlood]

If we win 19-7 the story written by anyone would have been our domination. Instead, the story was the collapse.

 

[sschind]

Leading a team everyone considered the NFLs best team, in a stadium known for home dominance, 16-0 at the half was very impressive. 19-7 at the 4 min mark - very impressive. 'Beating them handily" "Thumping them" "Kicking their butts" all come to mind. If you don't want to call it dominance, so be it. No sense in arguing semantics at this point.

At the 55 minute mark I think pretty much everyone was kind of in shock at the way the game had played out to that point that it may have seemed more dominating than it was.

 

[DaveRoller]

Very insightful post.

I think the Pack's D (not the O and most assuredly not the STs) did dominate for 55 minutes.

What causes me concern is that the Seahawks were missing their best DT and another one, Earl Thomas dislocated his shoulder, and Richard Sherman tore ligaments in his arm/elbow and our O was still dominated -- even though the D came up with 5 TOs.

I don't like the matchup of GB's O against Seattle's D.

 

[El Guapo]

Don't take anything away from our defensive performance in the first three quarters. We didn't allow a first down until mid-way through the 2nd quarter and we forced those turnovers. Someone didn't fart and the ball fumbled out of Lynch's hands, Brad Jones knocked it out. Dix did a great job of being in position to intercept Wilson multiple times. We played better than MOST PEOPLE EXPECTED against arguably the best team down the stretch in 2014. We may not have dominated the entire game, and we obviously lost, but nobody took it to the defending Super Bowl champs like the Packers did.

Rocky didn't beat Apollo Creed in the first fight....but everyone saw what he did to the champ. He had him on the ropes and so did we.

 

[Half Empty]

A spooky beginning to the week. Somebody in another forum used the same Rocky reference yesterday.

 

[El Guapo]

That's not spooky, that's brilliant! Too bad it wasn't me as this is the only one that I visit

 

[armand34]

Geez man, had some spare time? LOL...I never felt they dominated the hawks while I was watching the game, but the Defense did an amazing job of getting opportune turnovers...which kept us well ahead for a while....Those plays ceased and the Offense couldn't score TD's even on the 1 yard line 2x....to me that is simply why we lost

So I have been wanting to the post this for a while as I have seen this phrase (or some variation of) posted what seems like 100+ times on this board "We dominated them for 55 minutes of the football game". This is simply flat out false.

If we had "dominated" anyone for 55 minutes of a football game, we would have won, period end of story. Never in the history of the NFL has a team been "dominated" for 55 minutes and won the football game, never. In fact I contend that at no point in this entire football game did we dominate them at all. Did we outplay them for a portion of this game? Absolutely, but even that did not happen for as long as so many posters on this board erroneously believe.

Let's break down the game stats:

GB SEA
First downs 19 20 - we got beat
Rush-yards-TDs 30-135-0 35-194-2 - we got beat
Comp-Att-Yd-TD-INT 19-34-178-1-2 15-30-228-2-4 - we got beat
Sacked-yards 1-7 5-25 - we got beat
Net pass yards 171 203 - we got beat
Total yards 306 397 - we got beat
Fumbles-lost 1-0 2-1 - we won
Turnovers 2 5 - we won
Penalties-yards 5-45 8-40 - slight edge to SEA in yardage
Third Down Conv. 3-14 8-16 - we got utterly dominated
Fourth Down Conv. 0-0 1-1 - we got beat
Total Plays 65 70 - we got beat
Time of Possession 32:15 31:04 - slight and meaningless advantage

Now I am sure some of you are going to say but that all happened at the end of the game. You would certainly have an argument there as all of Seattle's points came at the end of the game but let's break this down further.

Packer Drives:

Start plays time yards result

1 1 15:00 GNB 20 9 3:44 51 Interception
2 1 10:28 SEA 19 5 2:21 18 Field Goal
3 1 8:01 SEA 23 6 2:54 22 Field Goal
4 1 3:39 GNB 44 7 3:39 56 Touchdown
5 2 13:18 SEA 33 6 3:41 11 Field Goal
6 2 9:18 GNB 44 3 0:57 23 Interception
7 2 1:55 GNB 20 4 1:20 12 Punt
8 3 13:05 GNB 39 3 2:12 9 Punt
9 3 4:44 GNB 20 4 2:22 7 Punt
10 3 0:55 GNB 13 10 5:02 57 Field Goal
11 4 6:53 GNB 13 3 1:40 6 Punt
12 4 5:04 GNB 43 3 1:12 -4 Punt
13 4 1:25 GNB 22 7 1:11 48 Field Goal

Seattle Drives

1 1 11:16 SEA 20 3 0:48 3 Interception
2 1 8:07 0 0:06 0 Fumble
3 1 5:07 SEA 20 3 1:28 0 Punt
4 2 15:00 SEA 20 3 1:42 3 Punt
5 2 9:37 SEA 20 1 0:19 0 Interception
6 2 8:21 SEA 31 12 6:26 51 Interception
7 2 0:35 SEA 26 2 0:35 -8 End of Half
8 3 15:00 SEA 20 3 1:55 9 Punt
9 3 10:53 SEA 22 11 6:09 78 Touchdown
10 3 2:22 SEA 34 3 1:27 -1 Punt
11 4 10:53 SEA 13 10 4:00 37 Punt
12 4 5:13 SEA 46 1 0:09 0 Interception
13 4 3:52 SEA 31 7 1:43 69 Touchdown
14 4 2:09 50 4 0:44 50 Touchdown
15 4 0:14 SEA 22 1 0:14 -1 End of Half
16 5 15:00 SEA 13 6 3:19 87 Touchdown

Okay so here we go:

1st Quarter:

Packers 147 yards and 16 points Seahawks 3 yards and 0 points.

So here the numbers look pretty damn dominating and they were but let's look at this quarter a little closer.

1st drive - got all the way to the Seattle 29 where the sequence of events were incomplete, incomplete, interception. Oops, that was a possible 3 or 7 points left off the board.

2nd drive - goal line field go - 4 points left off the board

3rd drive - goal line field goal - 4 points left off the board

Before you think I am trying to play the "should of, could of, would of game", I am not, I merely trying to point out the difference between dominating and playing better than your opponent. I will say this, the defense did actually, thoroughly and utterly dominate the Seahawks in the 1st quarter, the offense not so much. There is no doubt the offense soundly beat the Seahawks in the 1st quarter but a dominating team would not have left a possible 15 points off the board with the way that game was going. Also let's not forget that our absolutely atrocious special teams scored the only Packer touchdown of the day. In fact if you want to get technical, the only unit of the Packers to score this game was the special teams, the special teams put all 22 points on the board for the Packers this day. Yes the offense had to gain some yards but they did not score a single point.

Anyway to move on, if the Packers had actually dominated the Seahawks in the 1st quarter, the score would have been anywhere from 19-0 to possibly 31-0, and for the record, 31-0 would have been domination, instead the offense managed to eek out some yards due to turnovers and then let the special teams score 16 first quarter points. So in closing the 1st quarter did we soundly beat them in the 1st? Absolutely. Dominate? Not even close except for the defense.

2nd Quarter.

Packers 46 yards and 3 points Seattle 46 yards and 0 points.

So does a whole lot need to be said here? Was there any resemblance of domination in the 2nd Quarter? No there was not. The only reason we got 3 points was because of yet another really bad pass by Wilson. Neither team dominated anything, they were equally horrible.

3rd Quarter: Packers 73 yards and 3 points Seattle 86 yards and 7 points.

Um wait a second, what the heck is going on here, according to so many posters on this board, we "dominated" the Seahawks for 55 minutes of this game yet here is 15 minutes of football where we simply got beat. There was certainly no domination going on here.

4th Quarter

Green Bay 50 yards and 3 points Seattle 118 yards and 15 points

Again, there was no domination going on by the Packers, I don't think anything else really needs to be said.

Overtime:

6 plays, 87 yards 6 points Seattle, game over.

So in closing, it is my contention that we never once dominated this game, did we manage to look like we dominated the 1st quarter due to turnovers? Absolutely, but all we did was beat them for 1 quarter of this football game, if we had dominated them even in this one quarter, Seattle loses, we play in the Superbowl. Heck, we did not even need to dominate them that quarter, we only needed 3 points out of possible 15 left on the board, and the Pack wins.

There is a clear distinction between dominating 55 minutes of a football game and outplaying your opponent for a quarter. The Packers did the latter and if that is all you can muster against a top tier team, you are going to lose 90% of the time. So for all of you hanging your hat on "we dominated for 55" minutes, we did not.

We have a great team, we are still going to win a lot of game next year, more than likely make the playoffs but this team need to fix it it's mental toughness in the big game in order to get back to the Superbowl, and I am not just talking about the defense, I am talking about the offense as well. If the Packers are going to play with a middling defense then the offense needs to develop a take no prisoners and utterly crush your opponent attitude. Winning 27-0 at halftime? I don't care, keep doing what you do well and make it 47-0.

Anyway, I look forward to anyone trying to use facts to show me how we dominated the Seahawks for 55 minutes of this game.