Stats Are For Losers @ Seattle

This segment will continue to garner truth as the season progresses, but in week 6 I am willing to trust the numbers. Both teams have revealed their identities through five games, and what we have is a heavyweight match-up between The Patriots #1 Offense and The Seahawks #1 Defense.

On the other side of the ball, New England's injury-riddled Defense takes on a inconsistent Offense with a Rookie QB. LBs Tracy White (foot), Dont'a Hightower (hamstring) and S Steve Gregory (knee) have been ruled out. These injuries are a major concern because without White and Hightower, The Patriots will need to find a 3rd LB to play the strong side. Also, Tracy White is a core Special Teams player that is hard to replace.

One possibility is that Rob Ninkovich could slide from DE to SLB and Jermaine Cunningham/Brandon Deaderick would take snaps at DE. However, Belichick might opt to apply the "next man up" theory and go with Bobby Carpenter or Niko Koutovides. I favor the idea of Ninkovich sliding back to LB, but I think it depends on how things looked in practice this week. I defer to Belichick and Patricia on this one.

The injuries on New England's Defense change the way that these stats should be looked at. The middle of the field is severely depleted, and Seattle will look to exploit these injuries. Seattle looks to improve their dismal 3rd down efficiency against a Defense that has struggled even when healthy. Still, if New England can keep that percentage in the 30s, I think New England sports a slight advantage.

However, Seattle might have an advantage when it comes to completion percentage. Russell Wilson has been completing a lot of passes, but his stats are inflated due to his propensity to hit his check down target. Still, Seattle looks to improve in this area because New England is allowing 2/3 of attempts to be completed.

Russell Wilson might have some relative success with his completion percentage and on 3rd downs, but this game will be decided by scoring plays, not statistics. Currently, The Patriots are getting into the endzone twice as often as Seattle. However, Seattle's Defense is more than twice as stingy as New England's Defense. This truly is a match-up of strength vs strength, and the statistics might as well be thrown out the window.

Nevertheless, I think this will be a big test for New England. Overall, Seattle goes into the game with an advantage. New England has lost both of their match-ups against "elite Defenses" in Baltimore and Arizona, but neither team has a Defense as fearsome as Seattle. Seattle is notoriously tough to beat at home. Everything seems to be stack up in Seattle's favor, but the game will be decided by execution, not be statistics. Although New England has not faced a Defense like Seattle, Seattle has not faced an Offense like New England. It will be interesting to see which way this plays out.