A lot of blame for the Boom

Go ahead, blame place kicker Blair Walsh for missing a 52-yard field goal late Monday night for the Seattle Seahawks being on the outside of the NFC playoffs right now.

In the long run, it’s probably his fault anyway.

WITH A ton of expectations on the Seahawks at the start of the season, even some Super Bowl ones, it’s time to be a little realistic with this team.

No Richard Sherman hurts, a little bit.

Cliff Avril being out, that hurts a little more with the team a little limited in the pass rush these days.

Signing Dwight Freeney seemed like a good move at the time, and he had three sacks in four games for the team. Earlier this week, Freeney was released and signed by Detroit on Wednesday.

With no Avril, that hurts a little as well.

Seattle once had a level of invincibility at home, but has lost two straight at CenturyLink Field, losing an ugly game to Washington on Nov. 5 after Walsh missed three field goals.

After struggling through most of Monday’s game with Atlanta, Seattle, on the heels of missed field goals at the end of both halves, lost to the Falcons and dropped from the sixth and final seed in the playoffs.

The first kick wasn’t on Walsh however, as the team ran a fake kick and failed miserably right before the end of the half.

Had the play worked, maybe it’s a different outcome.

But it didn’t seem that way.

TOO OFTEN coaches get the blame when things go bad, and the credit when things go well.

For Seattle coach Pete Carroll, that blame is all his this time.

Granted, he could have replaced Walsh with an extended period of time off between the Arizona and Atlanta game — nearly 10 days — but opted to stick with Walsh instead.

That’s fine, he didn’t cost them the game this time.

Who knows, since Atlanta coach Dan Quinn was the defensive coordinator in Seattle when the Seahawks won the Super Bowl, maybe he expected Carroll to do things a little bit off script anyway.

Don’t forget, Quinn’s final game with the Seahawks ended with an interception on the goal line against New England on the brink of a repeat championship.

Those trick plays might have worked out well for Carroll at USC, but not so much these days.

CHANCES ARE, Seattle will have to rely on some of those same tricks to get where it wants to go this year, no matter how things go on Sunday.

One thing is for certain — the Seahawks aren’t exactly invincible anymore, at home or on the road.

And they’ve only got one person to blame for that.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at (208) 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JECdAPress.