As you might have guessed by my reactions to the Seahawks getting bullied by the mediocre Pittsburgh Steelers last Sunday, I am about done with this club, and how Pete Carroll and John Schneider have put it together. They lack toughness. I can’t handle that.

Football, at its core, is a game about toughness. Fundamentally, it is the teams that block better, and tackle better that make the playoffs, and advance. Even the pass happy attacks we have seen get Super Bowl rings have generally gotten them because of great offensive lines and good to great defenses.

The Seattle Seahawks have a defense that sucks. Some will argue that it is the players while others will say it is the scheme. I think it is both. Schematically, I think it is stuck somewhere between a 4-3 and a 3-4, and many players are tasked to be jacks of all trades and masters of none. Personnel wise, I think they too often struggle to defeat blocks, set edges, fill gabs, and play decent coverage in the middle of the field. I don’t think these fellas are coached up enough to be fundamentally sound football players, either.

It is as bad of a look as it gets for a defensive minded coach such as Pete Carroll, and the fact that his offense no longer dictates any sort of run game also doesn’t help his image, either. Fans have grown exhausted over his team’s mediocrity. You see it all over social media, you hear it all over the airwaves, and where you really feel it is in the stands where season ticket holders now prefer to sell their tix to opposing team fans instead of attending games themselves.

If Jody Allen allows Pete Carroll to walk everything back next year with his current coordinators, and high priced underwhelming players on this club like Jamal Adams, I fear she will alienate the Twelves to such a point that Lumen Field will become an advantage for visiting clubs next Fall. That is not hyperbole.

Therefore, I need this team to take a radical shift in coarse this offseason that is perhaps starting next week. Some will say that Seattle needs a young bright offensive minded head coach to lead them to some new age hipster brand of football. I respectfully say “fuck that shit.”

I need Seattle to become the biggest baddest bully team in America. I need them to become a mixture of Cobra Kai, and Orc Berserkers on Sundays. I need whatever coach is out there and GM who is willing to make that happen above anything else.

I need them to be the Baltimore Ravens. I don’t care what actions are taken to get there, either. Pete Carroll can stay if he is willing to do whatever it takes to get this team to that goal, but if he’s not, he needs to leave. Either way, I need aggressive actions taken towards achieving it this offseason.

Any expensive player who is not dynamic enough, or does not play on the line of scrimmage can be cut, or dealt for all I care. Seattle doesn’t need $48 million dollars tied up into their safeties. They need that money going to their offensive and defensive lines.

They don’t need the expensive salary of Will Dissly. This will read as blasphemy to many, but I am not so sure they need Tyler Lockett when they have JSN and DK Metcalf, either.

It’s debatable whether they should continue on with Geno Smith and his salary, or if they should bring in a cheaper bridge quarterback and draft a quarterback in the Spring. Either way, I firmly believe they need to draft a quarterback next Spring, and I would prefer them to select one of the six that are most often thought to be first round material. Of the bowl games I watched on New Year’s, I salivated all over my TV set watching Bo Nix, JJ McCarthy, and of course, Michael Penix Junior.

I appreciate Geno as much as the next fan, but the move that makes most sense to me is to cut Geno lose and let him go play for another team that can contend for the playoffs elsewhere while they bring in a cheaper bridge QB, and they draft one of these guys. Ultimately, that frees up the most money to go sign some badasses in free agency. I perfectly willing to trade decent veteran QB for more big, nasty, bruising badasses, and take my lumps with a rookie passer.

My youngster is really super into dinosaurs these days. Specifically, he loves the big meat eaters, T Rex, Giganotosaurus, Spinosaurus, etc.. and he could give two squats about the gigantic sauropods like Brachiosaurus. He is also really deep into Godzilla.

Little dude is attracted to all things that kick mother fucking ass, if I am being perfectly honest.

I get it. So, am I. I think that is what has attracted me so much to football in the first place. It is not a contact sport. It is a game built on violence, a blood sport like boxing and martial arts, and I think it speaks to our hard wiring.

Yes, it is joyous to watch Michael Penix Junior throw perfect rainbow bombs in the Sugar Bowl, but on many levels, it is more satisfying for sorts like myself to watch Bralen Trice absolutely dump the Texas quarterback hard on his ass bone. The latter speaks more closely to my soul, if I am being perfectly honest.

That is football for me. It is Tyrannosaurus Fucking Rex when it is working at its best. I will take Penix (or Bo Nix) in a heartbeat to be a part of that equation, but I want that rookie quarterback surrounded by absolute monsters. In my mind, the surest way to get as many monsters as possible is to have a talented quarterback on a cheap rookie deal. That is the golden ticket in this league.

So, yeah. Count me in on the Gimme Penix To The Seahawks Bandwagon Club. I have been on that ride for months now. However, what I truly appreciate, what most speaks to my twisted mind, and warped soul, is all the dudes who can walk into a phone booth with any other dude and duke it out until the other guy has lost the ability to continue and collapses in near death until medics arrive.

That may sound graphic, and unpleasant, and you might think I am boiling over in toxic masculinity while reading this, but fuck it, that is how I am hard wired. Maybe it comes from somewhere deeply embedded into my DNA where ancestors hundreds of years ago fought in close quarters constantly, and there was value in those skills, or maybe it is just simply because I am total asshole, but that is the way it is, and I am perfectly willing to own it.

In that wiring, nothing annoys me more than watching my favorite football team get kicked around like it did against the Steelers last Sunday. I can stomach my quarterback throwing five interceptions in a game as long as the rest of the team is battling like warriors like they did in that NFC championship game against Green Bay almost a decade ago.

I cannot handle my team being physically owned by another. I cannot have that any longer.

The Seahawks need to get back to the team they once were when they physically bullied others with defense, an intensely tough ground attack, and playmaking quarterback on a rookie contract. I need dudes who are horses and elephants and grizzly bears up front. I need Dan Campbell knee biters.

I also need coaches who will mandate physical dominance. I need that staff to demand excellence at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, and a physical style from all the skill position players equally, as well. I need fundamentally sound football drilled into these dudes so much that they dream about tackling grannies at grocery stores just for sickly dark humor.

I do not feel that from this coaching staff on any level. Maybe it starts and stops with Carroll, and it is time for him to walk away, or maybe he just hasn’t surrounded himself with the right coordinators. Either way, something has got to give. Realistically, I don’t know if Jody Allen fires Carroll after year two of the post Russell Wilson rebuild, but perhaps I underestimate that.

Watching this defense lose its will to fight against an average Steeler team last Sunday was beyond damning, in my mind. It looked like they plainly stopped fighting for Carroll, and it was an absolute embarrassment. If they bring the same flat performance to Phoenix against the Cardinals, then perhaps it is time for Jody to act in a sweeping manner.

On one hand, it feels unfair to fire Carroll during an injury plagued year with a tough schedule, but on the other hand, teams like the Bengals and Browns have lost all kinds of starters (including their quarterbacks), and are competing better for the playoffs. These Seahawks have lost games due to inept coaching, bad scheming, and embarrassing fundamentals more than lack of talent on the field, in my opinion. Now it feels like perhaps players aren’t even playing hard.

If players aren’t fighting for their coach, then something has to give. Either change the players or change the coach. This is what Jody Allen needs to decide if Seattle lays another egg this Sunday. For me, I think it’s easier to change the coaching.

I could go on and on about the things I want for this team. I want better coaching and I am actually fantasying about nutcase Jim Harbaugh taking over, if Carroll can no longer cut it. I want a bright young playmaking quarterback to build around. I need a powerful offensive line. I need an intimidating defense. What I really circle back to is that I just need this team to be exactly like the Ravens.

The Ravens had Joe Flacco at QB, and decided to spend a late first round pick on the raw but talented Lamar Jackson, anyways. The Ravens constantly draft offensive and defensive linemen in abundance. The Ravens pay good money for top free agents offensive and defensive linemen, as well. The Ravens also do not spend second round picks on running backs in back to back years. The Ravens change coordinators when they are stuck in ruts to where the team just isn’t advancing far enough with the talent it has.

This is what I crave. I don’t just want greatness. I need greatness born out of total physical domination. I want to break the wills of players, not watch the will of my defense fly out the window because Mike Tomlin simply decides to stay with his run game.

Yeah. How could you not want this for the Seahawks?

Why not just do whatever to be the biggest and baddest ever? Is this not what football is about????

Or are we just going to give out orange slices every time Tyler Lockett catches a pretty pass from Geno Smith that temporarily elevates our hopes. If this is what we have become as a fanbase, then yeah, sell your tickets off to 49er fans when their team comes up to play because we have all totally lost our edge, and the Seahawks have clearly become a joke again.

For my part, I want the edge back. I need nasty. I need to feel a team that I can be really proud to root for.

This year, I have really struggled to find that sort of pride for the Hawks. Deep down, I punted on this season the moment we got swept by the mediocre Rams and had to then face the dominating 49ers twice. I am positive many other fans did, as well.

If these Seahawks were more like the Ravens, however, I would deeply feel pride. I think most other fans would, as well, and perhaps Lumen Field would be better packed with Seahawk fans instead of traveling ones. This whole enchilada would be fun again, instead of an exercise of constant, unrelenting frustration of bad football fundamentals, bad clock management, and bad schematics.

It is just a thought, anyways.

Go Hawks.