It’s official. The 2021 Seattle Seahawks suck.

They are an endurance test to watch.

For another year in a row, and with two different teams, career NFL backup quarterback Colt McCoy has looked better than Russell Wilson in a start against them, too. I cannot shake that gross reality.

It sucks. Colt was accurate, athletic, and decisive. Russ was still rusty, indecisive, and had scatter-gun accuracy with his short throws.

People are going to now take more shots at Russell Wilson and be more vocal about trading him next off-season. They will say Seattle can win with any old quarterback, if we can build this team up enough. It will be faulty logic, unless you want to see this team become the Chicago Bears for the last several decades; a team that occasionally makes a playoff appearance because it’s “built up” enough with talent but never advances far because it doesn’t have a franchise quarterback.

If the Seahawks had a fraction of the talent across their roster as the Arizona Cardinals have, Russell Wilson would have out dueled McCoy in this one, even with all the rust. The problem is that this team isn’t very good, and it isn’t coached very well, either.

Also, if a healthy Kyler Murray had played in this game, it would have been a beat down, and the game would have been over with early. I can’t honestly tell if that would have been worse than what we all watched this Sunday.

After a hand full of games of playing better ball, the Seahawk defense underwhelmed mightily with its lack of quality pass rush and coverage. McCoy was able to successfully game manage a simple plan with the host of weapons that Seattle didn’t have enough answers to slow down.

The Cardinals are a well oiled system on both side of the ball. The Seahawks are still trying to figure out theirs, after ten games. I put that on the coaches.

It was frustrating to watch Ken Norton Junior send two pass rushers at McCoy and drop nine into coverage and see McCoy still find easy completions. When Seattle was able to disrupt, they sent extra defenders, and it looked effective, but then Norton would back off.

Norton’s defense has reverted back to being confusing to the eyes.

What are they as a defense anyways?

I can’t tell if they are a 4-3, or a 3-4, or a Bear front, or what. It looks like the defenders have problems figuring it out, as well.

I miss the days when this defense was coached by Dan Quinn and even Kris Richard. It was a basic tilted 4-3 that could rush effectively with four and drop seven into coverage. They weren’t ever trying to reinvent the wheel with anything, and were mostly a tough out for many teams, even after the Super Bowl years.

And another thing. I’m far from a Russell Wilson apologist, but I don’t know if Geno Smith would have fared against this Arizona defense much better. Yes, Russ was sporadic with his short throws again, but he also made beautiful deep passes that would have been unlikely for Smith to make, and in all three of his starts, Smith never seemed to evade pressure very well and took his share of unfortunate sacks. I actually believe starting him could have made this game uglier watch, and then how does that sit with Russ?

But I fully understand the sentiment with some fans asking for Geno Smith. Russ wasn’t good enough for the second week in a row. He came back from injury earlier than I thought he should have, but I also think that can of worms had already opened, and you might as well keep rolling with him until he’s able to shake off all the cobwebs to his game.

The Ghosts Of The 2008 Seahawks Are Haunting Me

I will say it as simply as this. These Seattle Seahawks this year remind me of the Seahawks in Mike Holmgren’s last year coaching in 2008. They look old, slow, injured, not talented enough, and largely overwhelmed.

In 2008, the Seahawks were a battered old team that finished 4-12, and their legendary coach was cooked. Then owner Paul Allen knew this, and likely ushered Holmgren to step down, at least that was my feelings on the situation.

I now think if these 2021 finish 6-11, that would be a minor miracle. They look that bad.

Pete Carroll looks tired and stressed, and Russell Wilson looks confused and frustrated, and Jamal Adams looks..

.. I don’t even know how to finish that thought. I guess the best way to put it is that I think Jamal Adams has the makings of being a really good run and chase linebacker for a defensive coordinator who wants to use him that way.

On the whole, I think this Seahawks team is a loss at Washington on MNF next week away from needing to play the young guys on the roster to see what they have to work with next year on a major overhaul of the roster. I would start Deejay Dallas at running back, and use Alton Robinson ahead of Carlos Dunlap and Benson Mayowa, and LJ Collier over Kerry Hyder. I would consider playing Colby Parkinson more at tight end, and I would even consider playing the rookie offensive tackles more if I thought it wouldn’t put the health of the quarterbacks in further jeopardy.

I’m not convinced Pete Carroll will see it that way. I think he will favor his veterans and try to win every meaningless game he can. If will want to fight it out to the very end, and I suppose he deserves to do that, but I cannot shake the following thought.

I feel Pete Carroll is well past done in Seattle as a head coach.

I don’t anticipate owner Jody Allen will be willing to trade Russell Wilson for a bunch of first round picks, either. I suspect she is a couple more losses away from beginning the coaching search to find the next head coach with fresh eyes to reset set this whole team around Russ. For all we know, she and her group is working on that now.

However this season goes, I am here for this team. I am with them in all games, good and bad.

This is a tough stretch right now, but I think they are one off-season reset away from being a strong contender again sooner than some will think.

Despite his recent play, Russell Wilson is still an elite quarterback, and DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett are still top end receivers. There is young talent on the roster that can be starting fixtures on their defense in Darrell Taylor, Jordyn Brooks, Jamal Adams, Tre Brown, Poona Ford, and Alton Robinson. The cupboard is not bare on this team. They just need more, and they probably need fresh eyes to lead it.

That’s how I see it, anyways.

Go Hawks.

The conclusion of this piece is going to be illogical, and maybe stating that isn’t this best way to start a football game preview, but I feel compelled. After all, the NFL has not been kind to logic this year.

Many fibers that make my brain function tell me that the Arizona Cardinals should come into Seattle, and absolutely smoke this struggling Seahawks team. Even though they got beat up soundly by a struggling Carolina Panthers team last week, up until that game, I’ve been thinking that these Cardinals have been the best team in football.

This is year three for Kliff Kingsbury’s system down in the desert, and I completely underestimated what that could mean for the Cardinals heading into this season. In a nutshell, it means that his core players know that system inside and out, and they can all function together at a fast and furious style of play on both sides of the ball. They are potent, and they know it.

Think of year three for Pete Carroll in Seattle which was Russell Wilson’s rookie year in 2012. In that season, Russ was not the straw that stirred the drink for this club, it was Pete’s defense that had officially evolved into the Legion of Boom, and it was complimented by a power run offense that featured Marshawn Lynch and Russ’s play-making style. Out of nowhere, those Seahawks surprised the masses by beating a handful of good teams, and they became a tough out in the playoffs.

2019 was also year three for Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco and that club completely shocked and dominated the football world, narrowly losing to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. In that season, I thought, without a doubt, they were the best overall team in football.

This year, I look at the Cardinals, and I see a team that has a very 2019 49er feel about them. They are young, talented, well coached, and they are playing in their systems offensively and defensively with a ton of confidence. They sense this is the year for them.

Conversely, the Seahawks feel like they are on the opposite side of the spectrum. While, they have some nice parts in Russell Wilson, DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, and their defense has turned around towards playing good ball lately, on the whole, this team has a bit of a worn out vibe to them.

Duane Brown no longer looks like a top tier left tackle. Damien Lewis has struggled to pick up playing at left guard and probably feels more comfortable at his natural right guard spot. Chris Carson appears broken at running back. Carlos Dunlap has disappeared as a pass rusher. These are players that, at the start of the season, were thought to be impact players Seattle could ride with, and they simply haven’t been.

When you put that together with the fact that GM John Schneider neglected to upgrade their weakness at center, the fact that their top pick in slot receiver Dee Eskridge got injured early and missed a ton of games, the fact that Ken Norton Junior failed to start his defense with a scheme that made sense to the players, and Russell Wilson finally got injured to the point of missing games (and his probably still figuring out the offense with his new coordinator), these Seattle Seahawks appear to the a team that is old, injured, not super talented, and not playing well together in any complimentary way.

They are what their 3-6 record says that they are. They aren’t a good club right now.

Even if Colt McCoy plays this game in place of superstar QB Kyler Murray, these Seahawks are a team that these Cardinals are probably pretty poised to beat. After all, McCoy led a much less talented NY Giants team into Seattle last year, and soundly outplayed Russell Wilson and beat him, when Seattle was the much better team. This year, he is a backup on a team that is a clear Super Bowl contender, and Seattle is a shadow of the team it was last year.

It makes all the sense in the world to predict that not only will these Cardinals beat Seattle this weekend, it also makes sense to predict that they will bury this team. They are the vastly better team and they are probably coming into Lumen Field pissed off from their own disappointing loss over the weekend.

Make no mistake, this game is the Arizona Cardinals’ “get right game.” They are in a tight battle for the NFC West title with the LA Rams, and if they beat this struggling Seahawks team this weekend, they extend their lead in the division. A loss to Seattle would drop them to only having a half game lead over a very talented Rams team that traded their entire 2022 draft to go all-in this year.

These Arizona Cardinals, with or without Murray, are looking at putting Seattle away in this one. Pete Carroll knows this, too.

I watched his press conference this Wednesday, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him so testy with reporters and nervous when talking about the strengths of an opponent. It wouldn’t shock me if he looked at the tape of AZ and thought to himself afterwards that perhaps Seattle had a better chance of winning in Green Bay than they have against this Cardinal club when now Duane Brown has a tender groin, Chris Carson is still in doubt, and Russell Wilson is probably still trying to shake off the rust after missing a month of football.

Carroll knows that this is a game where these Cardinals can take advantage of his struggling club. That coupled with the fact that his star quarterback put unprecedented pressure on his club to win this year, yeah, I get why Carroll might have been testy in his response to the reporter question of dealing with pressures to turn this thing around.

So, as I add all these things up in my mind, I feel like I have reached a very illogical conclusion when I say that I predict that Seattle will win this game on Sunday, 28-23, over the soaring Cardinals.

I’m not going to go into any great depths as to why because, truthfully, I don’t think that there are any great depths to it. There’s just so much weirdness in the world right now.

This 2021 NFL season is incredibly weird. The woeful 49ers steamrolled what should be a dominant Rams team on the most recent MNF game. A horrible Jaguar team embarrassed the Super Bowl contending Buffalo Bills, and a bad Dolphin team beat a good Ravens one.

This is as weird of a football season as I can remember, and in a league that prides itself in parity, yes, absolutely these Seahawks can beat these Cardinals.

If Shane Waldron can dip into his Rams offensive playbook a bit more by scheming creative uptempo run with pass combos, Russ might have shaken just enough of the cobwebs off in Green Bay to have a decent bounce back game in this one. This could be a game where Seattle uses AZ’s aggression against them. They love to blitz, and generally, Russ is good against the blitz.

If Seattle can simply get this W, their schedule softens up to where a four game win streak is not out of the realm of possibility, and if that happens, sitting at 7-6 would make it feel like perhaps that seventh playoff spot is there to go get. So, as much as Arizona has every incentive to win this game, Seattle has more.

I think, as hobbled and distorted of a club as they are right now, Seattle has just enough talent to catch Arizona off guard in this one. Thus keeping all the weirdness of the 2021 NFL season alive.

Whenever my team isn’t doing very well, I always take joy in rooting for chaos. I see a lot of chaos happening in this one. I don’t know how Seattle manages to get to 28 points scored, it might take a defensive score to get there, but I sorta feel it happening.

I think this is gonna be a fun one, and I’m here for it.

Go Hawks!

In the dark depths of Mordor, Aaron Rodgers prays to his dead Sith grandfather, Darth Magneto.

“Grandfather, I didn’t take that stupid vaccine, just as you would have refused, and the woke mafia has made fun of me for ten days because I lied about my status, just as you would have done, too. Please let me beat that woke ass wuss, Russell Wilson, and his bleeding heart senile coach. I fucking hate those guys. Grant me this victory, and I will kick a puppy dog for you afterwards.”

And gosh darn it all if Darth Magento didn’t listen to his miserable grandchild. Fucking Aaron Rodgers has beaten Russell Wilson once again in Green Bay, and in the final moments of the game, his arrogant smirk was a mile wide for all the cameras to catch.

This was as ugly of a game for Russell Wilson as I’ve ever seen. It’s a reality that you can’t side step.

It’s probably mostly due to the fact that he rushed to come back from injury. I’ve said it on a podcast a few weeks back, I thought coming back for the Green Bay game felt too early. He and Pete Carroll claimed that he didn’t have a problem throwing with his finger, but to my eyes, he didn’t look sharp enough, and at times, looked way too hesitant. But then again, there have been other games in Lambeau where he’s looked like that, as well.

This was a game that I was anticipating would be a loss before his injury, so I’m not overly upset. Healthy Russell Wilson have yet to have a good game in Green Bay.

Still, this felt like a game Seattle could have won, especially had it not been for his two interceptions in the end zone that felt ridiculously forced.

I love Russ as much as the next Seahawk fan, but I gotta be honest, this is a loss that felt like it was mostly on him. I can’t see it otherwise.

There will be takes about this loss that it was Pete Carroll’s fault and/or Shane Waldron’s fault, but Russ again chased after deep passes instead of taking other options that were wide open to him, like Freddie Swain was wide open when he threw into deep couple coverage to Tyler Lockett in the end zone. Maybe it was out of frustration in how Green Bay’s defense had been stymieing him, and some of his throws were out off wack, but Russ has been a starting quarterback in this league for ten years now, and these are throws he shouldn’t be forcing at this point of his career, and good luck arguing against that fact.

When Russ is struggling, these sort of bad decision throws tend to creep up on him. Given the fact that he has always struggled in Green Bay, and he was likely going to be rusty due to his time away from the game and figuring out how to throw with a taped up finger, this game was not a soft landing for his return. I personally saw this coming a mile away.

Part of me thinks Geno Smith might have given them a better shot at winning this, and that’s a really weird thing for me to type. Honestly, I’m not convinced playing him instead would have made that much of a difference. Some of his throws might have been crisper, but I doubt he would have scrambled to extend out of Green Bay’s pass rush as well as Russ did at times. It could have been a really ugly one for Geno, as well, or even worse.

Here’s some other notes.

The Good

Jamal Adams had, by far, his best game of the season, and he was impactful against the run, pass, and as a pass rusher. It seems like during the bye week, Seattle decided to allow him to do what he does best and they unleashed him as a pass rusher. It was nice to see this, and it was really nice to see him pick off Aaron Rodgers in the end zone. When that happened, it gave me a temporary feeling like Seattle could pull this game out in the second half when the score was still only 0-3.

Up through the third quarter, the Seattle defense, as a whole, played a pretty darn solid game. It’s unfortunate that the box score won’t reflect that enough, but because Seattle’s offense was so inept, this defense was forced to play waaaaaaaaaaaay too many minutes of action in this one. They weren’t the reason Seattle lost this game, however.

I thought tight end Gerald Everett had a very strong game, and Will Dissly got into the action on a nice run after catch chunk yardage play, as well.

The Bad

If I were the coach of this team, I probably would have held Russell Wilson back for another week. By all accounts of how long it takes someone to recover from this type of finger injury, Russ probably came back two weeks early. I admire his dedication to get back from injury and rehab, but for my money, it wasn’t worth the risk of him getting it hurt again or struggling to gut out a game that he might have felt better about in another week or two.

Seattle isn’t likely a playoff team this year, and Russell Wilson is the team’s best asset. I would have been more protective and rolled with Geno, and if Russ were to be unhappy about that, I’d deal with that.

The result is Russ having probably his worst performance as a pro in a hostile house that he has always struggled in, and his teammates clearly showing their frustrations as the game wore on. We can argue as fans who would have given this team the better chance at winning, Russ or Geno, but that matters very little in the bigger picture. What matters more is what the players on the field with Russ felt, or the players on Seattle’s defense, who fought valiantly, felt.

I’m telling you all right now, if there exists players on this Seattle roster who felt Geno would have given them a better chance in this one, that’s a bit of a problem, and Russ probably shouldn’t have been starting.

The other thing that, of course, sucked royally was all of the officials being either huge Packer fans, or part of the Anti-Vaccine Movement in America, and thus feeling solidarity with Aaron Rodgers. I’m not even going to list all the fucked up calls in this game that went against Seattle because they all did.

The Ugly

I’m officially starting to worry about what is going on with DK Metcalf. His grabbing the face masks of Chatty Cathy defenders and shoving them in the final moments of the offense being on the field was a very weird melt down to watch unfold. His lack of composure in certain games is starting to become more and more unsettling. Perhaps there is frustrations mounting for him with the play calling, or the quarterbacking, but something doesn’t seem right with him right now.

It’s entirely understandable that he would be upset about this outcome, but he’s got to lay off mixing it up with defenders when the going gets tough because the league has the memo out on him now. He loves to talk trash on the field, but can be gotten to when he is struggling. Defenders are looking for that opportunity with him now. He might want to start slowing some of trash talk down a bit for a while, and just focus on being the best receiver and teammate he can be.

Moving forward

I wasn’t expecting Seattle to win this one. I also had tempered expectations about Russ returning against Green Bay, and I was skeptical how the defense would hold up against Rodgers. I was actually pleasantly surprised about the defense hanging in as tough as they did.

But I gotta be honest. I look at this team right now, and I don’t see playoffs. I don’t even see them climbing much beyond eight wins, even if they do play better ball down the stretch. Even if they are able to beat Arizona next week, those feelings aren’t likely to change, either.

Part of me wants to see Carroll starting to go more with the young players on this roster. Maybe start Alton Robinson and Darrell Taylor more at defensive ends. Start looking at Cody Barton more again. Mixing in DeeJay Dallas more at running back. Starting Tre Brown at corner.

Carlos Dunlap, Benson Mayowa, Al Woods and others aren’t the future of Seattle Seahawk football right now. Tre Brown, Robinson and Taylor, and maybe Barton are. I honestly don’t understand why we didn’t see more Dee Eskridge in this one, either.

But I don’t see Carroll doing that, and I don’t know if I blame him. Even thought this team is now sitting at 3-6, Carroll won’t abandon his optimism that his team can quickly turn it around and make some magical playoff run. He will see that if they can just beat Arizona, the schedule suddenly gets much softer, and perhaps a winning streak awaits.

I can’t honestly fault him for that, but my goals for this team are likely more different than his right now. I see an team that needs a major reset this off-season.

But beating Arizona this Sunday will make things feel better. Maybe, right now, that’s all we need to feel as fans.

Just beat those damn Cardinals.

Go Hawks.

Let me start this off by saying that I have been more critical about the Seattle Seahawks this year than I have in probably well over a decade. These 2021 Seahawks have been a challenging team for me to root for in many respects.

I thought we were supposed to see a quick tempo offense that was going to lean into Russell Wilson’s strengths as a thrower.

I thought we were going to see Russ routinely deliver quick passes instead of chasing after deep ones on third and short plays.

I thought I was going to continue to see Jamal Adams used as a third down pass rush specialist, which I thought was the main reason why they traded two first round picks for him.

I thought I would see John Schneider make a trade for Stephon Gilmore, and/or possibly sign Richard Sherman to fix obvious holes at corner.

I thought I would see a healthier and more impactful Chris Carson.

I thought we would finally see tight ends more involved.

I thought this defense was going to be good.

I thought that they were going to be able to persuade Odell to join Russ, but instead he joined the fricking Rams, even though Seattle supposedly offered more money. I don’t think we can say any longer that Pete Carroll is some master recruiter for available free agents, and that kind of blows.

Yeah, this has been a tough watch for me as a Twelve as these many things unfolded. The only thing that has kept me watching every play of every game is my relentless love of this team, and the fact train wrecks are kind of enthralling watches sometimes.

But screw Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay F’ing Packers.

Seattle must go into a stadium that they haven’t won at since 1999 this Sunday, and they must throttle this team and quarterback. It goes well beyond football, and it’s the right thing to do.

Aaron Rodgers is rotting chode of a human being. He’s as big of a know-it-all prick as you will find, and the worst kind of know it all prick is the one who is a high profile quarterback.

Aaron Rodgers has been thinking that the sun shines out of his butt hole since the peewee coach pointed at him and said “you play quarterback.” I have absolutely no doubt about that.

And apparently that Cal Berkley education of his has made him smarter than all the doctors and scientists that work for the World Health Organization, the CDC, and the FDA when it comes to vaccinating in order to curb Covid. Good to know.

I am not going to go deep into all the reasons why it is important for every eligible person with no preventing health condition to vaccinate against Covid. All the experts that work for these organizations listed above have stated very plainly why this is so important, and if you care, you can read up on it yourself from the experts in the field, or listen to them talk about it.. and not listen to some podcasting know nothing on YouTube share their views.

But quickly in a nutshell, if you have read along this far; we want to vaccinate to protect those most vulnerable against a disease that can mutate into more dangerous variants if it finds large breeding grounds of unvaccinated people to thrive in and get smarter. We vaccinate to protect children under the age of 5, and we vaccinate to protect people with underlined health conditions. In the bigger picture, we vaccinate so that we can get beyond Covid, so that it will eventually die off to a safe enough extent, and thus we can eventually return to more normal living.

But a super smart guy like Aaron Rodgers doesn’t get that, or more likely, doesn’t fucking care.

Why should he? He doesn’t have any young kids of his own. And if this dude has shun his own mother in Northern California, why would he ever give a shit about your vulnerable older family members?

The answer is simple. Aaron Rodgers doesn’t care, and really, apparently neither do the Green Bay Packers. The real rub in all of this recent gaga about him lying about his vaccine status is that all parties knew it was wrong all along. That’s why he misled and why the organization buried their heads in the sand.

Rodgers had every opportunity to be open and honest about his position on the vaccine like Carson Wentz did, Kirk Cousins did, and Cam Newton also did, but he chose to mislead. My best guess as to why is probably, most likely, vanity.

He’s engaged to a Hollywood actress, and he had a stint as the Jeopardy host in the off-season. He might see working in “the Industry” as something in his future beyond football, and I’m going to guess that hosting Jeopardy and taking a horse de-wormer to protect against Covid probably isn’t a great look in the minds of Hollywood power players who, you know, follow the advice of the CDC experts. So, he chose to lie in front a camera when pressed about it.

What really impresses me in the way that he went about it was the condescending way he called out others in the league for choosing to stay unvaccinated (as if he was). That’s some Grade A manipulation stuff right there.

And let’s be clear on this, taking a de-worming pill does not make you vaccinated against Covid. Saying that you are “immunized” after taking the stupid thing means diddly swat to containing the virus and slowing the spread. That’s why the experts who are studying the disease are saying to vaccinate, and don’t take the fucking de-wormer.

And let’s be clear on another thing. The league is not forcing players to be vaccinated, they are just making the unvaccinated persons go through extra hoops to make sure that everything is as safe as it can possibly be. Rodgers just didn’t want to go through those extra hoops. Instead, he is choosing to act like a Grade A Karen about it all to anyone who will listen.

Listening to him go from condescending and ultra defensive egotistical prick in interviews last week to some woe-is-me victim this week after Terry Bradshaw called out his bullshit on a NFL FOX broadcast is some serious Karen-esque privileged bullshit we’ve been seeing unfold in real time. There is no way for him to walk that stuff back now.

So, fuck Aaron Rodgers.

I hope he plays on Sunday and I hope Darrell Taylor hits him so hard on a pass rush that he shits himself right in the middle of Lambeau Field. Afterwards, I hope he pisses blood for a week, and I hope the Packers get their asses kicked at home in front of a sold out crowd by a Seahawks team that hasn’t been very good this year.

This isn’t about me being a part of cancel culture or the woke mafia, either. I’m about as much of a bleeding heart as Slayer is elevator music. There is nothing woke about following the urging of world renowned scientists. It’s the most practical thing to do.

But because some certain high profile dumb ass narcissistic political leader in a high office chose to create a pissing contest with these scientists, we unfortunately live in a society where doing the most practical thing against this disease is, in fact, fully politicized. That fucking sucks, and now Aaron Rodgers has kicked that whole hornets nest again.

Listening to him going on a media tour defending his actions is a total joke that, unfortunately, way too many listeners are going to buy into. Now science has to deal with Rodgers being a major miss-information spreader. Fantastic.

“Why should I follow the leagues rules when I don’t agree with them” is not a functional defense no matter how much of a condescending wise ass you come across saying it.

The Green Bay Packers should beat the Seattle Seahawks this Sunday if Aaron Rodgers plays and Russell Wilson plays. They are the better team, and they have a dominant home field advantage. Russell Wilson as always struggled there, even when healthy, and with better Seahawk teams around him. Before the season started, this is the game that I looked at, and thought it would probably be a pretty ugly one for Seattle. I wouldn’t be shocked if it proves true this Sunday.

But Good Christ in Heaven, the Seattle Seahawks absolutely must kick the holy living snot out of this team and quarterback this Sunday, if he’s playing. God yes. It’s the right thing to do.

So, go do it, Seattle. Kick their asses.

Peace.

Go Hawks.

I gotta confession to make. I’m a middle aged dork who still plays Madden.

I do other things that make me somewhat more cool. I drive a cherry red F-250. I sport a handsome pair of sideburns. I expose my preschooler to hip sounds of The Who, and The Flaming Lips. I listen to NPR, do yoga sometimes, and watch shows and films by Taika Waititi.

But I still play Madden, and apparently, I also use a lot of Star Wars analogies, as well.

Eight games into this 2021 season with the Seattle Seahawks has shown me why I still play this goofy game. It’s an okay game to burn a few hours on when you’re home by yourself, but it becomes considerably more enjoyable when the team you passionately root for sucks, and you have become exasperated to a point of wanting to just rip it all apart, and start new. That’s when off-season mode becomes intrinsically the most enjoyable part of the game.

I honestly wonder what the percentages are with all those Anti Pete Carroll types on Seahawks Twitter who also happen to be full blown Madden addicts? It wouldn’t shock if those numbers were actually fairly high (I see you people).

In my latest attempt on simulating through this 2021 season of Madden, I decided to go about it in Owner Mode. I, Curtis Eastwood, thus became owner of the Seattle Seahawks. How I got to become owner of the Seahawks is a backstory I hadn’t figured out. I just accepted it as true, kinda like how I just accepted that normally meager sized Mako sharks suddenly became gigantic (bigger than Jaws), in the cheesy 1990’s flick Deep Blue Sea. It just happened. But I digress.

Going back to Madden, the game reminded me of a few things true about the Seahawks as it pertains to the league. First and foremost, it reminded me that Russell Wilson is an incredibly talented quarterback. Secondly, it reminded me that, apart from a couple nice receivers, he isn’t surrounded by much premiere talent, particularly on the offensive and defensive lines, and at cornerback, and that all kinda blows.

Being weaker inside the trenches and on the perimeters of the defense generally is not considered good roster construction. This really needs to stop in Seattle starting in 2022, and it’s going to be a challenge to fix because Seattle, for the second year in a row, won’t have a first round pick to acquire top end draft talent for the trenches, and if they manage a second half turnaround, they likely will be picking later in round two before they finally select a player. Thus, the pickle of the situation.

However, when you consider that Seattle can roll it’s currently comfortable amount of cap space into 2022, another off-season strategy becomes more obvious.

If Seattle is to finally invest into their trenches and get back to winning games more at the line of scrimmage again, spending in free agency potentially becomes pretty enticing, especially considering the amount of younger defensive line talent that could emerge as free agents. If Seattle can just be willing to be a bit bigger buyers than they’ve shown in a while, their defensive line issues could quickly get turned around and fixed for the longer haul. That opens up the draft to address the offensive line, and maybe other positions.

It’s worth noting that Seattle should have a good amount of cap space available next year to be this sort of shopper, if they choose. By making a few roster moves to cut some older more expensive vets, they can easily create even more space.

That could help going a longer way to making Russ happy, but it likely won’t be nearly enough.

Time To Fully Commit To Russell Wilson

Russell Wilson has been pretty loud the last few years with what he wants. Let me remind you the ways.

He has been loud about wanting an aggressive up tempo offense for years now. He very likely feels most confident as a passer in hurry up mode, where defenses can’t as easily sub out. He has been asking for this for years, and even with play-caller Shane Waldron coming in from the Rams (a team well known for hurry up), we have yet to see this become a staple of the offense this year.

Personally, I think it probably flies in the face of what Pete Carroll wants in terms of ball control and keeping his defense more fresh, but facts remain facts. The star quarterback has been annually asking for this to be a thing for him.

In 2020, Russ stated at the pro bowl that what he wanted in Seattle was to be “surrounded by stars.” What Seattle chose to give him was a geriatric Greg Olsen at tight end. He then lobbied hard for them to bring in Antonio Brown, and they put forth a very light effort, for reasons probably fairly obvious. Think what you will about AB, but I don’t think Russ particularly enjoyed watching Tom Brady win that Super Bowl in Tampa passing to Brown. Just my hunch.

The lack of aggression from the front offense to surround Russ with as much star power as possible may annoy him even more than the lack of willingness from Carroll to coach an uptempo team.

Speaking of which, I love Pete Carroll. I think he’s a great head coach, and I will take his culture building strengths over clock management and modern day football analytics anytime. I won’t be shy about my feelings on that either.

I actually suspect Pete is going to have the Seahawks playing competitive ball during the second half of the season, and I can easily see the potential of a 9-8 finish, or better, if they get a healthy Russell Wilson back soon enough. I think they can make a decent run at that final playoff spot, and possibly even snag it. It would be remarkable if they did, and I think it would be a testament to Carroll’s coaching, and Russell Wilson’s rare abilities as a gritty play-making quarterback.

I also think that, even if they did make the playoffs and did a little damage there, it is highly unlikely Russell Wilson will want to return as the starting quarterback for the Seahawks in 2022, if Pete Carroll remains as head coach. I think that is especially true if he sees a more realistic window to get traded to a team like New Orleans who has a roster that’s ready built to win now, and has an offensive minded coach who would probably be pretty willing to adjust his scheme to fit what Russ does best. I can hope I am wrong on that, but I don’t think I am.

I think the only way Seattle can hang onto Russ longer term, and make him happy is if there is a total philosophical regime change at the top and it all starts with Carroll, who isn’t just the head coach, he’s also the vice president of the whole team. For Russell Wilson to want to remain in Seattle under Carroll, I think Carroll would have to completely abandon his philosophy in how to win games, and he might also have to give up more control to John Schneider make roster decisions.

He would have to be willing to have an uptempo wide open offense that would operate more out of spread formations.

He would have to be willing to give total autonomy of the offense to Russ and his play-caller.

He would have to be willing to accept that interceptions are an inherent part of that style of that style of offensive and not dial it back when a pick or two are thrown in a game.

He would have to be willing to accept that quick scoring will likely gas his defense and it’s going to be that much harder to have a statistically top ten defense.

He’s going to possibly have to stay out of way the general manager on draft day, if, in fact, it was him insisting that they take LJ Collier and Rashaan Penny with their first picks a few years ago.

Would Carroll be willing to do all this to accommodate Russel Wilson?

I have my doubts, but if I am Jody Allen, and I am looking at all the weirdness that went down with this team last off-season between Pete and Russ, and I’m also looking at how prices of game day tickets are suddenly in free fall with how this team started the season coupled with Russ’s injury, I am making a very easy decision in my mind. I’m telling Pete Carroll and John Schneider that they need to do everything they can to make Russ happy, and they won’t, I’m going to find another coach and GM team that will.

Part of me wonders if she has already given them this exact vibe.

Here’s how I made Russ happy as pie in Seattle in Madden

Going into Madden off-season mode in 2022, I asked Carroll to step aside, even though we finished as a playoff team.

I replaced him with an offensive minded coach from the Andy Reid tree because I believe that is very specifically the wide open style of offense Russell wants to see himself running during the second half of his career.

I also paired this coach with a defensive coordinator who embraces a more attacking 4-3 defense that puts emphasis on rushing with four defensive linemen. This is really getting back to what Carroll’s defenses were before Ken Norton Junior took over as DC. You rush four and drop back seven, and you rely on a deep defensive line rotation (maybe Seattle should simply bring back Gus Bradley or Kris Richard).

I traded Bobby Wagner to the Jets for a third round pick, I slid Jordyn Brooks to middle linebacker, and I made Jamal Adams the weak side linebacker in this new scheme with the idea Adams to function more as a blitzer and a third down rush specialist. Ideally, I would have looked to have dealt Adams, as well, but his salary was cost prohibitive to deal, and I needed as much money as possible hitting free agency.

I cut expensive older players such as Chris Carson, Carlos Dunlap, Kerry Hyder, and Benson Mayowa. I freed up space to bring in two young every down defensive tackles on multiple year deals to blend inside with Poona Ford to give me a young and rich defensive tackle rotation. I added another younger edge rusher to mix in with the promising talents of Darrell Taylor and Alton Robinson.

I spent extra cheddar to add a younger vet at corner, and kept Sidney Jones who proved to be cheaper than DJ Reed. With Tre Brown in the mix, I felt I could let Reed go, and I felt better about corner, but still considered it a target with the draft.

I signed younger mid level players with some upside on the offensive line for left tackle, right tackle, and center.

I bargain shopped for a couple somewhat proven veteran running backs.

The only veterans (outside of Sidney Jones) I re-signed off my 2021 Seahawk roster were Qunadre Diggs, Ryan Neil, Gerald Everett, and Will Dissly. I felt good about locking up safety and tight end.

With one pick in the second round and two third round picks, I drafted for offensive line, defensive line, taking a center, tackle, and adding one more young piece to my revamped defensive line. The rest of the way, I drafted for depth at running back, corner, and receiver, and more offensive line.

When I looked at this roster construction, the only position that I felt iffy about was left tackle by not bringing back Duane Brown, but I liked the general competition there with the mid level free agents mixed in with maybe some upside with Stone Foresythe.

Is it a risk not bringing back Brown and going with marginal talent at a critical position? Absolutely, but this is the real life game of Tetris that most GM’s have to play annually, especially with rosters such as Seattle’s where their appear to be so many holes.

I chose to attack the market and draft in the areas where the talent was best, instead of overpaying for marginal talent to fit needs and reaching in the draft to fit other needs. With a team that has so many holes, you can’t hit it out of the park with each free agent signing and draft pick, so I just went to for positions that appeared to be clear upgrades. Free agency showed me that there was better talent at defensive line, so I splurged there. Even though I signed a veteran free agent that I liked at center, I saw a player in the draft that I thought was better, and took him.

But how I mainly chose to make Russ happy was pairing him with a head coach who will devote building an offensive attack catered to all of Russ’s strengths, and adding to the defense a better pass rush to take advantage of teams throwing more in games to play catch up. This was my sole strategy.

This is probably what Seattle will have to do next off-season. It’s not just going to be about making a coaching philosophy change. It’s going to have to be adjusting philosophy in the front office. This could mean that Jody Allen might have to make a tough call on John Schneider as well if the current GM is tied to a risk adverse approach, and doesn’t want to budge off it.

The reality of making Russ happy in Seattle and staying a contender

Call me crazy, but I don’t think Russ cares much for risk adverse coaching or front office dealings. I think he’s a total ‘no risk it, no biscuit” guy.

He wants a front office to be aggressive in bringing in star talents like Drew Brees has had in New Orleans, and Brady now has in Tampa, and what Philly has so often done. He doesn’t want to see Schneider make bottom market deals on former first round pick flame outs to see if their is still something there to uncork that another coaching staff didn’t. That’s not going to cut it for him.

He obviously wants a better commitment to the offensive line, but he probably also wants to see a better pass rush, as well. I think most of us can relate.

There appear to be numerous younger defensive linemen set to hit free agency next off-season that Seattle could go more aggressive for. That would fix one major need, and lock it up for seasons down the road.

They could easily address offensive line holes in a combination of free agency and draft. Nothing wrong with a two headed approach.

In my opinion, they need to stop putting expensive resources into positions that don’t involve the line of scrimmage. They need to stop giving big money to running backs, and safeties, and middle linebackers.

The only way I can see justifying Jamal Adams on this roster is by making him a full time pass rusher because that is what is salary calls out for. I would not have him be a coverage safety. I would use him solely as a pass rushing linebacker, and maybe paired with Darrell Taylor on third downs on opposite ends. That could be enough for Seattle to become a top end pass rush team again.

But really, I think the biggest issue with Russ is devising an offense that will play to what he does best, and that is likely an up tempo attack who’s play caller is unafraid of scoring quickly and often. I’ve watched every single game Russell Wilson have played in Seattle. He is, without question, at his best in hurry up mode. Defenses can’t as easily key on him.

It doesn’t mean he has to throw it all over the place to be happy either. He can hand the ball off uptempo just like the Oregon Ducks did to great success under Chip Kelley some years back. He just likely wants to be the aggressor. He wants to be the hunter instead of being the hunted.

I would love for Pete Carroll to see that light and embrace it as a head coach. I think he has been the best head coach Seattle has ever seen as a sports town. I think this idea from some that he is washed up as a coach is ridiculous, too.

Watching Tennessee physically beat down the Rams on SNF by playing Pete Ball solidifies it in my mind that the league hasn’t completely passed over his preferred style of winning. Far from it.

With all the analytics that are out there, football will always be football. The teams that block better and tackle better will always be more built to win. Tennessee shows us that, even without their superstar running back. So, yeah. I’m still a Pete Carroll believer.

But I also have a really hard to seeing him willing to adjust his philosophy to fit the marquee quarterback in this town, and that’s the rub.

As much as I love Pete, if I have to choose between the franchise player and the head coach, I have to go with Russ. It’s taken me a long while to reach this conclusion, but having Russ out during this stretch of games is very likely the difference between Seattle being 3-5 (which they are), and being 5-3 and in firm control of being a playoff team.

Simply put, Russell Wilson is Seattle’s best asset in professional sports. You don’t typically trade off your best asset. You build around it.

This is how I would cook if I owned the Seahawks.

That said, if all I think is true between Russ and Pete like I think it is, and Seattle chooses to go in a different direction this off-season, and Pete remains, and Russ moves on, I won’t be too overly upset. If Pete still has the culture of this team riding high and has multiple first round picks to play with, I’d be intrigued to see what shakes out of that. I just have a harder time seeing it going down this way.

Of course, there does exist the possibly that I completely overestimated the tensions between Pete and Russ, and they find a way to work it out and stay together. This could happen, and it wouldn’t be the first time my intuitions have been off the mark, but then, again, it’s probably not going to make off-season mode in Madden nearly as fun.

And really, football should be about fun.. I think, anyways.

Go Hawks.

I’ve seen a lot of things with the Seahawks in my life.

I’ve seen a 2-14 Seattle Seahawks team have a top defense in the league in 1992 only to prove that defenses don’t win championships, much less three games in a sixteen game regular season.

I’ve seen a Seahawk quarterback throw five interceptions in a NFC Championship game, and still figure out a gutty way to win it in overtime, and get his team to a back to back Super Bowl.

I’ve seen another Seahawk quarterback say loudly into a mic during a playoff overtime coin toss “we want the ball and we are going to score” and then proceed to throw a game losing pick six once he gets the ball.

I have seen yet another Seahawk quarterback back in the late 1980s get sacked an NFL record seven times in a game by the same player, and in what should have been sack number eight, he miraculously slipped out, and toss a game winning touchdown.

I’ve seen a Beastquake.

I’ve seen a SharpieGate.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player pick up an onside kick and run it in for a touchdown to ice a game in the final minutes 31-7, but thanks to Travis Homer, I have now seen that, too.

The Seattle Seahawks didn’t just beat down this Jacksonville Jaguars dog of a team this Sunday. They kicked the dog in the stomach while it was laying all over the Lumen field artificial grass. I wasn’t upset about that, either.

Here are my thoughts.

The Good

After spending the week lamenting why Pete Carroll chose to shut down his offense in a tight and very winnable game against the Saints on Monday Night Football, it was refreshing to see him give the keys back to offensive coordinator Shane Waldron more in this one. I thought Waldron, for the most part, called a pretty good game. Plays looked varied, it didn’t feel like Alex Collins with getting charged with the task of running into brick wall on third and two, and there where various ways players were getting the ball. This felt like a modern day NFL offense in this one.

It was joyous to see Geno Smith look more like a capable quarterback in the league in this one, as well. He’s a far cry from Russell Wilson, but when drives were clicking, he got the ball out on time, at times down field, and he hit several receivers in stride to provide a run after catch opportunity. Even though he took more sacks than he might should have, this was a solid game for him, as he provided three of Seattle’s touchdowns.

And you want to talk about quarterback efficiency? Geno completed just over 83 percent of his passes in this one. That’s a stat line any top end quarterback would gladly take. Geno Smith should be proud of himself.

This was another overall good game out of the defense. Safety Ryan Neil had a nice game, as did the corners, and safety Quandre Diggs. I thought Ugo Amadi showed as a nickel DB. Seattle only got one sack, but they pressured and hurried Trevor Lawrence pretty much all game long. Darrell Taylor had another nice game.

I think what I liked most in this one was how the Seattle corners played tighter at the line of scrimmage. They were going to give Lawrence quick and easy completions. This is a far contrast to the first month of defensive football Seattle has played. Let’s see if this continues against teams with better offenses like Green Bay, and Arizona.

It would, of course, be horrible if I didn’t give proper shout out again to Travis Homer for scooping up that onside kick and take it to the house. Ain’t never seen that before, and glad I did.

The Bad

I feel terrible putting Jamal Adams in this section. By all accounts, he had a respectable game.

He had five solo tackles, and to my eyes, he didn’t look terrible in coverage. If it wasn’t for the fact that he is now making over $17 million a year to play a strong safety role that hasn’t, to my eyes, been impactful, I wouldn’t think to be writing about him here.

The cold hard facts remain cold and hard.

Jamal Adams is being paid a ton of money, and really has yet to show what he’s anything close to being worth it this season. Through eight games, he has yet to produce a single sack. He’s been in position to pick off a pass and was looked inept at being able to do it.

This is not good for a safety who is viewed as the best pass rushing safety in the league, and is supposed to be a ‘defensive weapon.” Now, his backup in Neil has more sacks than he does.

What does Seattle do with him?

Do they keep him as a safety, or do they try him as a linebacker?

It was interesting to note that when in nickel defense in this one, Neil was playing WILL backer and Jordyn Brooks was pulled off the field. Why not put Adams there, and have Neil at safety in those situations?

Neil looks and plays like a very capable safety. Adams strengths are best suited for being in the box.

Right now, this whole Adams deal feels like a massive busted flush for this team. If Pete Carroll were to lose his job at the end of this season, it would feel like the Adams trade would be a main catalyst for his removal.

And this has absolutely nothing to do with whether Adams is a good or bad player. I actually still believe he is a top end talent. I just think how he is being used in this defense is wrong.

He is being paid pass rusher money. He earned that by collecting 9 sacks in twelve games last year. He should be used as a main pass rusher for this team this year, again.

If this were my defense, I would have him lined off the corner on most third and longs. I would even consider using him much like Rufus Porter was used in the late 1980s to mid 1990s. Older Seahawk fans will know what I am talking about here.

Porter was a small linebacker/edge rusher. He actually made this team initially as a special teams ace, but then head coach Chuck Knox saw a use for his speed on third downs, and he quickly became an aces third down pass rush specialist. He instantly became a fan favorite.

Porter was initially playing at a petite size of 6-1 and 210 pounds. He looked more like a DB than a LB. Eventually, he added another ten pounds or more, but never lost his speed.

Adams is listed at 6-1 213 pounds. He’s a bigger safety, and isn’t that far away from being a light WILL linebacker like Porter was, and a few are in this league.

If I were coaching this team, I’d shift him to linebacker. I think this would be my best way to make the most out of him.

I would trust Ryan Neil to make better plays on the ball at safety, and I would use Adams’ speed and aggressive in the box and at the line of scrimmage. This idea is screaming out loudly to me like the idea I had about marrying my wife. It’s a no brainer. You do it.

But, they probably won’t do this because Jordyn Brooks was last year’s first round pick and he has been playing WILL. They probably don’t want to diminish his game by only having him on the field thirty percent of the time at strong side (SAM) linebacker, but I think it is what they should consider. After all, if they created a plan for Ryan Neil to play WILL on third downs in this one, and have Brooks off the field on key passing downs, why not just do this for Adams?

This is the conundrum Seattle is in with Adams and this defense, and I don’t think it’s fair for the fans, nor the player himself, to continue not using him enough in ways in which he is most dynamic.

Hopefully, Seattle figures something out with him as they go into this bye week.

The Ugly

I was actually going to list this in the Good section, but Good Lordy, did I ever have belly laughing fun watching Urdan Meyer’s disgusted face during the second half of this game, and especially after the recovered onside kick was taken in for the final score.

This could not have been what he envisioned when he took this Jaguar gig, thinking he would be the savor. LOL!

What a maroon.

I’m still laughing as I type this up. It looked like he smelt his own farts all game long, and then someone else’s stinky gas bomb at the end.

Meyer is a joke of a human being. He deserves to get canned tomorrow.

Part of me wishes Jacksonville will keep with him the full season, but that’s only so that he can continue to embarrass himself. I feel bad for his players who have to look at his face on the team flight home and in the team meetings this week. I feel worse for Jacksonville fans.

What a human joke. It’s completely fair to make fun at this douche, too.

He has left piles of crap around him wherever he has gone in college football, collecting national championships. I think he turned a blind eye to a lot of heinous behavior out of his players and coaches, and this whole getting caught on film grabbing ass shit he did at some club in Cincinnati shows us all exactly who, and what he is.

He’s horrible. All those Pete Carroll hating Seahawk fans should be grateful about the person Pete Carroll is, at the very least, and that’s the truth.

Sure, Carroll can be guilty of piss poor game management, and playing things too conservatively in this modern wide open era of offensive football. That’s fair, but Good God, I would gladly take ten more years of Carroll the human being over one season of a putrid person of a coach in Meyer any time. It’s no contest.

Also, careful what you ask for if you’re the sort that wants Carroll out. I fully get all the reasons why, but the fact remains that Pete Carroll is a master culture builder, and that is a huge deal in the world of professional sports, and this whole Urban Meyer saga is a huge reminder of why.

Moving Forward

Seattle is now 3-5. That’s not good, but it doesn’t mean their season is a total loss, even though it sorta feels like it is. We are still in a weird spot as fans.

On the plus side, I was expecting the Jaguars to make this one a go of it, and Seattle whooped up on them pretty good. If they get Russell Wilson back shortly after the bye week, I think a 9 game winning season is still possible with how this schedule breaks down the road. That’s probably not going to get it done to be a playoff team, but it can make for a more respectable year in which Russ missed multiple games for the first time in his career.

This has me wondering if Pete Carroll does give John Schneider the green light to go for a splash trade, possibly for a big name pass rusher, corner, or even a running back with Chris Carson now appearing to look more and more done for the year.

How much better would this offense be if there was a featured back who defensive coaches feared some?

How much more of an improvement could this defense be if there was more of a lock down corner presence on it, or a pass rusher who demanded extra attention on each passing down?

Last week, I was thinking they should be sellers leading up to the trade deadline. A big part of me still believes that is best for the long term health of this club. It still feels like some rebuild is necessary in 2022.

But I am starting to doubt that the Seahawks are going to see it this way under Carroll, and I don’t know if I can fault them for it. If they can turn around a 2-5 start to the season into another 10 game winning season, that would be pretty remarkable.

There are still sure to be many Twelves thinking that Carroll should go regardless, but I would suspect that more than a few fans would jump back on his bandwagon, if he pulls that off. I’m going to guess the Seahawks are going to see it that way, too.

As of now, I’m thinking that they will be buyers to try to salvage this thing. Pete Carroll is not going to quit on this team being a playoff contender. He won’t want any part of that energy, and I respect him for it.

Tuesday is going to be a very interesting day with the trade deadline ending at 1PM Pacific time.

What should these Seattle Seahawks do?

It’s an interesting question.

Go Hawks.

Band Of Brothers is my all-time favorite mini-series. I’m going to guess that most who have watched this HBO show recounting true life events of a group of US infantry soldiers in Europe during WWII will know what I am talking about.

War is hell. That is mostly all that my father, a veteran infantry solder of the Korean War himself, would ever say whenever I would ask him about his experiences. He never wanted to talk about it.

One time, when I was much older and had a better sense of his perspective on the topic, I asked him what was the hardest part of being over there. Given the fact that he suffered severe injuries from hand grenade shrapnel, I anticipated he would open up about the day he received those injuries in combat. To my surprise, he opened up fairly easily to that question, but where he vividly went was somewhere I hadn’t considered.

He talked about when he earned enough combat points to finally be able to be sent state side for the remainder of his duty. At that point, he had gone from lowly private rank to being a squad leader sergeant, and he had to be replaced by another squad leader in order to leave. Squad leaders, apparently, were something hard to come by, and this process of finding a replacement for him took over a month.

In that period of wait, still serving at the front lines, the war became a psychological hell for him. He had never considered that he would make it out alive. Then he was faced with what could become a reality, but only if the US army could just find his replacement in time. Every day, things put him more on edge while he was responsible for leading young men against hostile enemy fire.

War is hell.

It is also extremely silly to use any war analogy with the game of American football, even though, undeniably, it can be an extremely violent sport. So, I am very aware that I am treading on thin ice when I’m about to use a sequence in Band Of Brothers as an analogy to compare it with these 2021 Seattle Seahawks, but here we go, anyways.

At a later point of this Band Of Brothers mini series, Lt Buck Compton started to psychologically reach his breaking point. The soldiers of Company C had endured a lot of combat against the very dug in Nazi forces, and a momentum shift towards the Allies still hadn’t been fully realized by the men tasked to fight at the front.

Buck reached a point where he simply didn’t want to see more of his men needlessly lost. It was an extremely relatable sequence to watch. He would visit each of his soldiers hunkered in their fox holes, have a quick check in, and he would finish by reminding them to make sure they “don’t do anything stupid.”

Part of me wonders if Pete Carroll has been legitimately suffering from some form of PTSD for years with the results of Super Bowl XLIX. Part of me wonders if this is why he has seemingly gotten more risk adverse year after year. It would honestly make a lot of sense to me. It was such a gut wrenching way to watch your team lose, and he was on the headsets allowing that particular pass play to happen.

So, honestly, I kinda think something like this came out of his mouth in the second half of the MNF game against the Saints: “Hey Shane, I know it’s third and two and we should probably throw it, but let’s not have Geno do anything stupid here. Let’s just run it, anyways.”

I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.

“Please don’t do anything stupid” is a fair thing to request, but living in that fear, man, I don’t know if that’s what you want out of the leader of your organization.

Eventually, in the Band Of Brothers, Lt Buck broke down. He needed to be pulled off the front, and be replaced. He couldn’t function. Not a person alive in Company C faulted him for it. He was a good dude, a good leader. They loved him. He just saw too much.

But how about this game against these lowly Jaguars?

Seahawks win this game by..

Trusting Geno Smith enough to run some form of a modern style offense against a Jacksonville defense that isn’t very good and gives up passing yards. I think Pete took the offense out of Shane Waldron’s hands as a play-caller against the Saints on Monday night. He was having his Lt Buck moment by the third quarter, and it cost this team. Running the ball up the gut of a top defense on third and two was a coward play-call. There can’t be any excuses for it.

And it can’t happen again.

There should have been something in Waldron’s playbook that would have been an easy play for an NFL quarterback to run, even if he is a rusty backup. Pete’s got to let his men carry forth an effective game plan against a defense that is not great against the pass nor the run. Just get the fudge out of the way and let his play-caller dial up a modern offensive.

Play smart defense. This Jacksonville offense also isn’t very good. They are a bad passing offense missing their star receiver, but they have a great running back, and he can be a problem (sounds a lot like the Saints, honestly). The Seahawks defense could have a decent game again in this one, if they play smart. Don’t draw unnecessary penalties, don’t blow coverage, recognize the screen play, and stop James Robinson. If manage all this, Seattle can get this win.

Seahawks lose this one by..

Playing stupid and coaching cowardly.

Predictions

In an adventurous outing, the Seattle Seahawks stave off the energized and refreshed Jacksonville Jaguars, winning this one, 24-21.

This won’t be a game that will give a lot of Seahawk fans much hope for this team to turn this ship around and make any late season playoff push. The Jaguars are coming into town rested off their bye week and they are smelling blood in the water where the Seahawks are swimming in a desperate attempt to get back on their life boat.

Seahawks need this win, and the Jaguars are playing with house money. I see the Jaguars giving this a good go. Trevor Lawrence was the top overall pick for a reason. Yes, he’s a rookie, but he’s better the Geno Smith. Urban Meyer is going to trust him more than Carroll will likely trust Smith. I think they score, but I also see them giving up the ball, and could easily put Seattle in easy scoring situations.

I see Seattle sneaking out this win, but I don’t see it as anything that will give the fans much hope for this team after the bye, especially if Russell Wilson won’t be ready, which I doubt he will be. This could feel like a win that will have a certain amount of fans thinking it would be better to have lost for better draft position next year. I can totally understand that reasoning.

But I’ve been dealing with my own set of Lt Buck Compton issues lately as a Twelve.

Go Hawks.

I’m going to be honest with you readers. I’m not hopeful about these 2021 Seattle Seahawks making the playoffs this year.

Not that I wouldn’t enjoy watching this team somehow miraculously rally themselves out of a 2-5 hole to go on a month long win streak to have themselves in playoff contention in December. That would be fun.

I just don’t see it happening, and suddenly, I’m not even sure I see them having it enough within themselves enough to beat the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars next Sunday.

Even if they do, and they get Russell Wilson back after their bye week, do you honestly have any real faith that Russ is going to win a shootout against Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay, and then beat Kyler Murray’s red hot Cardinals the week after? Russell Wilson, when healthy this season, could not out dual Ryan Tannehill and Kirk Cousins.

Personally, I have little faith he is suddenly going to out dual two legitimate MVP quarterbacks in mid to late November. Not with the way this offense can’t ever seem to get any consistent flow or rhythm in any single game so far this season, and the fact that he is more of an off script quarterback trying to function in a timing offense.

Even if this defense continues to play better, I just don’t see the makings of a winning football team this year in Seattle. I hope I am wrong, but I don’t think I am.

This game against the Saints validates one of my main growing concerns.

I believe Pete Carroll doesn’t want to take risks on offense, and that is crippling the chances of this new offense under Shane Waldron to grow. I think Pete wants to coach this team as if he still had the Legion of Boom on his defense, but he doesn’t. This defense of his will not win Seattle games like the defense he had 2011 through 2015.

Even with the better play they have shown against Pittsburgh and New Orleans, they still couldn’t stop those offenses enough when needed. In this game against the Saints, the game plan was obvious. It was to stop Alvin Kamara running the ball, and to force Jameis Winston to beat them with his arm. It made sense. The Saints were severely limited at receiver and Winston can be a streaky passer.

But what happened here is that Jameis found Kamara in the pass game early and often enough for big plays to made the difference. Seattle had answers for stopping the run, but they didn’t have answers for Kamara on screens and in the flats. New Orleans’ head coach Sean Payton likely stayed patient with his plan knowing that Seattle has not been good defending the screen pass all season, and that was enough in this one.

So what did Carroll have his offense do to respond? He had them run Alex Collins up the middle of a defense that is near tops of the league against the run on third and two. No play action boot leg for Geno Smith to try to find Will Dissly on a short out pattern for an easy gain, which is the touchdown throw he tossed against Pittsburgh last week. Just Alex Collins up the gut against one of the stoutest defenses in the league.

Not very inspiring play calling. I seriously doubt that was Shane Waldron’s go to play there.

Pete Carroll is a good coach. He can get his team to rally through all sorts of adversity, and I wouldn’t be shocked if he has this team rallying to make things interesting in December. I suspect we will continue to see better defense played throughout the season (especially when the schedule softens more), but probably not anything close to a top ten defense.

I also think once he gets Russell Wilson back, he will be willing to open up his offense more than the ridiculous play calling that happened against these Saints.

But will that be enough to make the fans and Russ happy?

I don’t think so. I think Pete Carroll is perfectly comfortable dialing things back offensively when he knows his defense is playing well enough that they can pull out close wins. I think he is perfectly comfy in those scenarios, and I think he was attempting that against these Saints.

I think he believed all he needed was his kicker to make the necessary field goals to win a tight match, and that would be enough with a backup quarterback playing in only his second start in several years. In his mind, it made sense.

Unfortunately, this was not the night for Jason Meyers. One could argue that the logic of a relying on a kicker during an windy night might be a bit faulty, but this is what happens when you fear your quarterback will make mistakes, and you don’t mind winning ugly. You would rather trust your kicker with cray winds than Geno Smith.

It’s a shame because there were so many good things that came out of this game in a losing effort for Seattle, especially on the defense. Second year linebacker Jordyn Brooks, by far, had his best game of this year and looked worthy again of being a first round pick. Defensive tackles Poona Ford and Al Woods had strong games. Jamal Adams had his best game of the season in this one. I thought second year defensive end Alton Robinson had a good game.

I can’t really dish out tons of praise for the offensive effort, however. Even that dynamic catch and run score by DK Metcalf to start the game feels like there should has an asterisk next to it. It was a good throw and catch, but Marshon Lattimore lost his footing in coverage, and had he kept his feet, frankly, Seattle might not have seen the end zone for the entire game, and this one wouldn’t have really felt as close as it was.

So, yeah. I look at this team and it’s remaining games, and I kinda see a 8-9 finish for this club, at best, and that’s assuming Russ comes back and plays through most of these matches.

That’s okay for me, and here’s why.

The Seattle Seahawks need a massive shake up

I think it’s time for large scale change for these Seattle Seahawks. I don’t really care how it happens, I just know it needs to.

Pete Carroll is coaching into his twelfth year with this club and that is a pretty long time by NFL standards. In a league of 32 teams, only Sean Payton, Mike Tomlin, and Bill Belichick have coached longer with their clubs than Pete has with the Seahawks. I won’t be upset if he decides to step away after this season, and I have always been a big Pete Carroll fan. I also won’t be upset if he is graciously shown the door.

Russell Wilson is in his tenth year as the Seahawks starting quarterback. That’s as long has Matt Hasselbeck played for Seattle, and Dave Krieg stayed twelve years in Seattle but was only a starter for nine. If Russ decides that, after this year, he would like to refresh his career playing somewhere else, I wouldn’t be upset, and Russ has always been one of my favorite Seahawks of all time. I would feel the same way about him wanting to leave as I did with Ken Griffey Junior. I would get it.

And if John Schneider wants to seize an opportunity to become the new general manager of the Green Bay Packers, I would hardly fault him for that. Of these big three figure heads for this organization, I probably trust him the most, and he is probably the one I would least want to see go, but I would get it.

I’m honestly very indifferent to who stays of goes for this club. The one thing I know, deep in my gut, is this team needs a rebuild, if not a massive overhaul.

I see a team that hasn’t drafted enough good young talent to find a new young core, and is relying on a lot of older players to hold up and play well through a long grueling season. I see all the other teams in the NFC West division with younger and better overall rosters.

As much as I would like to say that it is time for Pete to leave and bring in a new coach with a fresh perspective, I see Russell Wilson as this team’s greatest chip to play for this overhaul. If Seattle can get three first round picks and decent change for him, I would be good with that.

If Pete Carroll wants to be part of a complete rebuild at age 70, I can be cool with it, so long as he gives John Schneider more reign over player acquisition decisions and the draft because I seriously doubt that it was John Schneider’s decision to trade two first round picks and a third for Jamal Adams, and I doubly doubt it was Schneider who wanted to take LJ Collier in the first round back in 2019. I sorta feel like Schneider has had to grin and bear a lot of Pete’s requests and demands over the years. He is the guy I feel least willing to criticize in this current mess.

That said, if Pete and John were to go, and Jody Allen decides she wants her team to build around Russ with an offensive minded coach, I hope that they pick the right one, and not just some patsy for Russ because I think that could be disastrous.

I have been a diehard Seahawks fan since the early 1980’s. The best moves that this organization have ever done is with their coaching hires. It was hiring Chuck Knox in 1983, hiring Mike Holmgren in 1999, and bringing in Pete Carroll in 2010. These were the best eras of Seahawks football, and each of these coaches decided who their own quarterback would be to lead this club, eventually.

This is why I feel like, if Pete Carroll needs to go, this team needs to nail the next head coach, and if that person is really good, they should be the one who decides who the Seattle Seahawks quarterback should be. This is what is best for the long term health of this club.

It shouldn’t be about who the team chooses to coach Russ because, frankly, I don’t think Russ is the ideal flavor at quarterback for a lot of coaches out there. I think he is a very acquired taste and he needs to be paired with a head coach willing to adjust scheme to fit his unusual talents. I actually think Sean Payton in New Orleans would make a ton of sense for him.

So, I am going to keep a very open mind to all of this, and how this team could go about any rebuild or reorganization.

All I want to see happen is for this team to commit to getting more dominant at the line of scrimmage on offense and defense with younger talent that will be a part of this thing long term. That’s how I want to see them built.

I also want to see them play smarter on both sides of the ball, and with schemes more willing to embrace more of the modern trends of the game, especially on offense.

I look at these Seattle Seahawks and I see old players on the offensive and defensive lines that will need replacing, and you generally don’t draft starting left tackles beyond round one.

This team needs so much, and hanging onto expensive older players because we are emotionally attached to them doesn’t make practical football sense in a situation like this one. I would rather part ways with them now, and let younger players get a shot at it.

Who is the young nucleus of this team beyond DK Metcalf? I can think of Darrell Taylor, Jordyn Brooks if he continues to play better, maybe Damien Lewis at guard, maybe Poona Ford.

Do we think Jamal Adams is a young core player? Are we convinced he is worth that contract?

Are we trusting Tyler Lockett can stay healthy for what is now a 17 game season?

I see a team with so many holes and longer term questions. I see a quarterback who is going to be 33 and is possibly looking for greener pastures elsewhere, and I see a head coach who will be 71 next September.

I see a lot of star aligning for sweeping changes.

What would I do if I was owner of the Seattle Seahawks?

If I am Jody Allen, and I had to chose which direction to go with this all, I am probably prepping to get ready to ask John Schneider is he wants to tough it through a rebuild. That would be the person that I would most want to gauge

Because, if I am owner of this team, I’m not willing to go through another off-season of Russ wanting out, and Pete wanting to hang onto Ken Norton Junior as defensive coordinator again and wanting to bring in more older players for his defensive line because he doesn’t want to bring along younger players. I’ve seen that, and done that enough.

If I was owner of this club, even if Pete and Russ were to turn this ship around mid season, I would be willing to part ways with both next off-season. I would ask Pete to gracefully step aside. I would entrust John Schneider to pick his next head coach, and I would empower him to make his own moves with this roster without any coach meddling in the draft room, or in free agency.

If John decides he is willing to work with Russ’s very difficult agent, it would be his choice. I seriously doubt he would. I kinda think John’s sniffing around other quarterbacks in recent drafts is an indication he would rather have some other general manager in the league deal with the wackiness of Mark Rodgers.

Whether Russ stays or goes, I am very indifferent. All I know is I’m ready to start hearing the winds of change.

Sing it, Klaus!

Go Hawks.

I will be blunt. The Seattle Seahawks can ill afford to muck around against these New Orleans Saints on Monday Night Football. If they want any shot at digging themselves out of a 2-4 hole and be in playoff contention by December, each Seattle player better bring their A game in this one.

A loss against these Saints will put them at 2-5 in a division that has the Arizona Cardinals currently at 6-0, and the Rams at 5-1. Best of luck catching either team moving forward, especially if both win this Sunday (Cardinals get the Texans and Rams face Detroit).

So, as I look at this match up on Monday night, I very much see a “do or die” game for Seattle. They have to beat these Saints. It’s a must.

A win against these Saints will put them at 3-4 with a really good shot at being 4-4 by next Sunday when they face Jacksonville. Then they go into a bye week with a small chance at getting Russell Wilson back against a very tough Green Bay team and then an even tougher Arizona squad, afterwards. The remaining schedule will offer more “winnable” games, but will also offer tougher matches within their own division.

In short, even if Seattle manages to get to 4-4 by their bye week, any road to the playoffs won’t be an easy one, but at least it won’t be an entirely closed off one, either. After all, we’ve seen these Pete Carroll Seattle Seahawks rally before. Multiple times, in fact.

But they have to take care of business first this Monday Night against a Saints team that is 3-2, and in possession of one of the very best defenses in all of football right now. Given that these Saints are currently in a dog fight for their our division with the Super Bowl winning Tampa Bay Buccaneers, this game in Seattle is also a very big deal for them, as well. They will want to bury these Seahawks on Monday Night Football, and make a statement to the league that they are a major force to deal with this season.

People are free to laugh at Jameis Winston as their QB1 right now, but Winston has been pretty efficient this season playing within himself completing over 60 percent of his passes for 12 touchdowns and only 3 interceptions in a ball control offense that would make Pete Carroll gleam with pride, if he were coaching it. There is some thought from those who cover the Saints that Sean Payton is starting to open his offense more for Jameis now as they are getting further into the season. One would think that against a bad Seattle defense, Payton might decide to let things rip even more.

Ironically, in many ways, these 2021 Saints have a look about them that isn’t too far off from Carroll’s Seahawks circa 2013-2014. Ball control offense built around a premiere running back and efficient quarterback play, and a top rated defense.

It’s also worth noting that former Seahawks defensive coordinator Kris Richard is currently the Saints pass defense coordinator. Given all the lamenting over current Seattle defensive coordinator Ken Norton Junior still being employed, knowing Richard was available last off-season for a potential return to Seattle, I’m sure is going to sting for a lot of frustrated Seahawk fans. It stings a lot for moi.

But enough of that.

Seahawks win this game by..

Playing significantly better on defense than they have at any point this season to take the run game away from a very talented Alvin Kamara, and forcing Jameis to beat them with his arm the whole game. Right now, Sean Payton has sorta been nursing Jameis along as his QB1. For most quarterbacks not named Brady or Mahomes or Rodgers, the run game is their best friend. If Seattle can manage to deal with Kamara enough to get Jameis in third and longs most of the night, surrounded by a hostile environment during a nationally televised game, maybe they get Jameis to revert back towards his turnover machine days. Turnovers could give Geno Smith more shorter fields to work with, and that would be a pretty significant advantage.

Geno Smith playing enough within himself as QB1, but not so within himself that he becomes a “Check Down Charlie” against the Saints. Geno is not nearly as talented as Russ. He’s probably not a quarterback who can function well off-script like we are so used to seeing Russ do against tougher defenses. That said, he has an NFL caliber arm and he can throw a nice looking rope down field when he has the play action working. We saw him do this last week against a good Pittsburgh defense. At some point in this game, Geno has got to dare this defense enough to keep them honest. If he doesn’t, the run game won’t likely function, and it’s going to be a long night as a Seahawk fan.

Rashaad Penny looking like a running worthy of a first round pick. The depth of running back for Seattle is starting to look flimsy with Chris Carson on IR, and Alex Collins banged up coming out of Pittsburgh. I’ve thought all along that Collins has been Seattle’s best runner this year. Even if he is good to go against this Saints defense, I’m not feeling great here.

What would really help Seattle out in this one is Rashaad Penny coming in fresh and breaking out with some big explosive runs. For as much of a bust as he has appeared to be as a first round pick, there is no other back on Seattle’s roster capable of taking it to the house like Penny. If we get an explosive night out of him, Seattle can win this game.

Seahawks lose this game by..

Not being able to establish the run enough to give Geno Smith a chance against one of the best defenses in the league. A working run game is going to be Geno’s best friend in this game. If the Saints stout front seven takes that run game away, Geno will be tasked to play hero ball, and it won’t likely be pretty.

Seahawks failing to stop the run game, and that allows the new and improved Jameis Winston to throw darts down field attacking the areas where Seattle’s coverage as been its weakest. I’m almost certain that Seattle needs to use Jamal Adams in and around the line of scrimmage most of this game to slow Kamara, and also send pressure towards Jameis. It’s going to have to be the dice Carroll and Norton Junior are going to have to be willing to roll because teams are figuring out ways to counter Adams on the blitz, and Seattle has not done a great job responding.

I think we could see early success with Seattle playing Adams down low, but I continue to believe that Seattle’s greatest weakness is its depth at defensive tackle. It feels like, as games wear on, these big fellas inside wear down. When that happens, big runs happen. When big runs happen, it all gets pretty ugly afterwards. The Saints have a pretty talented offensive line and a premiere runner. If I am Sean Payton, I am testing Seattle’s abilities up front to hold up for four quarters, and I am looking for ways to take advantage when they send extra to stop the run. Basically, I am licking my chops as a play caller.

Prediction

Oooooooooof.

This one isn’t going to be pretty, and afterwards, I think there’s going to be a lot of chatter about how Sean Payton has turned Jamies Winston around and is making him the top contender for the NFL’s Comeback Player Of The Year award. I kinda see him becoming Ryan Tannehill 2.0, and this might be the game to really put him in that discussion with the nation watching.

I’m feeling a lot of folks favoring the Seahawks in this one. It makes me question a bit what I’m seeing, or not seeing. My Dorks On Sports podcast pals all like the Seahawks in this one. The guys on KJR 950’s Seahawks Round Table, who all generally seem more willing to show skepticism with the Hawks than perhaps some folk over on 710 who cover the team, seem to favor these Hawks, as well. Perhaps it’s slow start to the season that the Saints’ offense has had with Jameis, and the fact that they are playing without their star receiver in Michael Thomas (and their starting left tackle and center) that has many feeling confident about the Geno Smith led Seattle Seahawks in this one.

I’m looking at the fact that over the last couple games, Jameis has been putting up bigger numbers, though, and that has me quite a bit more nervous. Last week against Pittsburgh, Seattle faced a geriatric quarterback who doesn’t have the arm he once had to test a defense down field, and he chose to dink and dunk against their struggling defense, and it worked enough to get the win. Even without Michael Thomas, Jameis has the top level arm talent test Seattle deep, and even if he doesn’t hit all those passes, that arm talent of his can work to soften up Seattle’s efforts to stop Kamara.

Therefore, I just see the New Orleans Saints riding this one to an easy 35-17 victory over the Seattle Seahawks. I got that kinda gross feeling about this one.

Ironically, this loss will come against a team that is built to win in a way that Pete Carroll would likely greatly appreciate. They are built to win at the line of scrimmage on offense and defense. They can run and take away the run. They have a big strong armed quarterback who can make chunk plays down field with play action. They can get after the quarterback on defense, and they can take the ball away. I suspect that this is how they will beat these Seattle Seahawks in this one.

What’s also going to be ironic, is that these Saints are one of the four teams that Russell Wilson made public that he would be winning to be traded to last Spring. I am positive that will be made mention on ESPN a time or two as this game wears on. It will be hard to image that Russ won’t be looking at the Saints’ sidelines with his own envious eyes as this game wears on. That’s likely to spark interesting sports talk next week, as well.

Which brings me to my closing question to you all right now. If these Seattle Seahawks sit at 2-5 next week, with the trade deadline a few short weeks away, do they become buyers to try to salvage their season, or to they become sellers to acquire the draft capital needed in order to commit to a roster rebuild in 2022?

If they lose this game to the Saints, I think this is the question all fans should maybe start asking. This is why this game is do or die.

Go Hawks.

Howdy 12th Life Readers

Here’s the latest episode of our podcast Dorks On Sports where we discuss lots of Seahawks, Kraken, Nick Rolovich WSU fallout, and the wonderfully hilarious comedy show Only Murders In The Building staring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez. Please hit us up. I enjoyed recording this episode in particular.

Also, I just wanted to share some thoughts I’ve been having about my Seahawks lately, and I wanted to throw a question out to you all.

These are interesting times for our Seattle Seahawks. A month and a half into the season, sitting on a 2-4 record with Russell Wilson on the IR probably isn’t what we were anticipating. Yet, here they are, facing a what looks like a strong New Orleans Saints team at home on Monday Night Football next week.

If our Hawks fall to these Jameis Winston led Saints, Seattle will be dropped to 2-5, and it will take an incredible effort for them to dig out of that hole into playoff contention by December.

Curiously, these Seahawks have been sitting on nearly $11 million in available cap space to make a splash addition (or two) to their team. With clear needs on the defensive line, and needs at corner (even though rookie Tre Brown played well against the Steelers), and now possibly other spots with injured running backs and spotty receiver depth, now would probably be a good time for Seahawk GM John Schneider to wheel and deal if Seattle wants to get back into the playoff race.

I would have liked to have seen some urgency come out of the front office after the loss to the Rams, but alas, we got diddly squat. Now, sitting in a hole at 2-4, well behind Arizona and Los Angeles in this tough division, I’m not even sure if I want them to be buyers at this point, and I am almost more welcoming a bit of a fire sale in order to get out in front of what feels like a much needed rebuild.

My simple question to all of you readers is this. Would you rather see John Schneider be a buyer to save the season, or a seller to usher in a rebuild for the longer term health of this team?

Feel free to leave your answer in the comments section for prosperity purposes.

Go Hawks