I will be perfectly honest with you. I have a deep love for Michael Penix Junior. In fact, I haven’t been this attached to a football player in the PNW since Russell Wilson’s rookie year in Seattle. I think he’s special.

I think he has enough physical traits to transition well into the NFL. I believe his arm is elite, and with massive hands, he can absolutely spin it, and he throws one of the prettiest deep passes you will ever see, but I think it is what is inside him that makes him truly special.

His teammates refer to him as the Quiet Assassin. He’s not a demonstrative personality, and maybe sorta prefers to allow his calmness and his actions on the field to do the talking, but make no mistake, he is regarded as the unanimous leader of the UW locker room. He is the alpha dawg. For me, I think there is a greater reason for this particular Penix calm and reserve, and it is that very thing that fascinates me most about him as a player, and person.

People can say whatever they want about how Washington got to their lofty 12-0 status. They can say they haven’t won as dominantly as Oregon, and Penix struggled more in the second half of the season than in the extremely high clip he was playing at during the first half, and, of course, they can say UW should have blown out the pesky Washington State Cougars, and whatever else whatnots.

For me, when I look at Washington, I see a ton of resiliency, and it starts with their quarterback. It’s a fool’s errand to walk away in dismissal of the awesome intangibles of high resiliency.

You want to talk about what it takes to play quarterback in the highest level, how about talking about the inner strength needed to fight through extreme adversity. There is not a single quarterback on this planet who has fought through more adversity than Michael Penix Junior has right now. Penix is a resilient mother fucker, and I would absolutely take him as QB1 for the Seattle Seahawks.

His injury history while he was at Indiana is famous. In four seasons, he tore his ACL in his right knee twice, had his left shoulder separated, and he had a dislocated the sternoclavicular joint in his right arm. There was a point in which he almost walked away from the game. Instead, he entered the transfer portal and joined his old coach Kalen DeBoer in Washington, and the rest is history.

What DeBoer and Penix have done together in leading a Washington football program that two short years ago was an absolute dumpster fire into instant prominence is nothing short of remarkable. This year, Penix leads the nation in passing yards in a system that asks him to make a lot of difficult sideline throws. They trust him that much. If they go on into the playoffs, I think a strong case can be made for Penix to be the GOAT Husky quarterback, and there have been some good ones over the years long before him.

Anyone who says that Penix can no longer run is full of horse crap. He’s plenty athletic, and can easily extend plays whenever needed. I think because of his prior injuries, he much prefers to beat you by throwing instead of running much like CJ Stroud did recently at Ohio State. In fact, Stroud is my exact NFL comp for Penix. I think he’s left handed CJ Stroud, and as a Seattle Seahawk fan, yes, please sign me up for that.

If Michael Penix Junior clears medicals during the draft process (as I suspect he ultimately will), I would wind sprint to the podium for him next Spring if he were sitting at my pick. His story arc in college football has shown me everything I need to know about him as a player and person.

On the other side of this writing, I have grown to become a HUGE Bo Nix fan. Given the fact that my wife is a Duck, I watch more Oregon football than probably most casual Husky fans, and I have sorta grown to adopt this program (don’t judge me, my wife is awesome). Bo Nix is the most impressive quarterback I have seen at Oregon in a long time.

I’ve been more impressed by him than I was with Justin Herbert, and I kinda might like him more than even Marcus Mariota who I thought was awesome in that old Chip Kelly system. Box Nix is leading the nation in quarterback efficiency for a reason.

Some might be dismissive about him and his extremely high completion percentage, and say it’s the system that he plays in which calls for the easy short completions. I say that is lazy thinking, and I don’t think that should be used as a deterrent towards thinking that he can’t have great success in the NFL.

Bo Nix makes every throw needed for Oregon. He can throw deep outs, he can throw intermediate, and he can throw short. He can fit it over defenders and between defenders, and he has wheels that him a genuine threat to take off and run. He throws with great anticipation and awareness. Bo Nix has a lot of fun playmaker in his game.

Of all these exciting draft eligible college quarterbacks this year, in a long list that includes Caleb Williams, Penix, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, JJ McCarthy, Jordan Travis, and Cameron Ward, I think Bo Nix might be the safest pick for a NFL GM out of any of them. With over fifty starts in college football, I think he has, by far, the surest floor. In short, that absurd amount of playing experience is going to have some NFL organizations drooling.

I firmly suspect that Seattle is quite high on Bo Nix because of this experience along with his maturity, productivity, and above all, his crazy good efficiency numbers. The last time Seattle drafted a quarterback they thought could be their franchise guy it was the nation’s leader in efficiency in one Russell Wilson out of Wisconsin in 2012. So yeah, I can completely see Seattle being deeply into Nix.

The truth is for me, as a Seahawks fan, I would do cartwheels down my sidewalk if Seattle drafts either one of these two quarterbacks next Spring. The one silver lining I see to them having an unexpected down season is for them to be in position to do just that.

Some might think that I am being Anti Geno Smith by writing this, but that is not true. I have been a staunch Geno Smith supporter, and remain so. I just see certain writings on the wall for this team moving forward beyond this year.

They are going to be super tight against the salary cap in 2024, and here is the list of players who’s contracts are about to expire; starting defensive tackle Leonard Williams, starting linebackers Jordyn Brooks and Bobby Wagner, starting tight end Noah Fant, starting left guard Damien Lewis, and starting center Evan Brown. Three starters on defense and three starters on offense and Seattle currently does not have the cap space available to even sign back two of these players.

Bringing back Leonard Williams is an absolute must considering what Seattle gave up to acquire him and the level of which he still plays at as an interior pass rusher. Jordyn Brooks is a near must as I suspect this is maybe Wagner’s last year playing in the league, and I think, at the very least, Seattle needs to bring back one of Damien Lewis or Evan Brown in order help the continuity of their offensive line.

The easiest and simplest way for Seattle to keep the veterans they want to retain, and to also make another much needed splash signing in free agency next year would to move off of Geno’s contract. They could sign a journeyman vet like Gardner Minshew or Jacoby Brissett, and then take advantage of this deep quarterback class in 2024. This is the conclusion I have reached watching this season unfold the way it now has.

If Seattle hangs onto an expensive Geno Smith, and allows most of these guys to walk, and tries to fill holes cheaply through free agency and the draft, I think Seattle will most likely remain San Francisco’s punching bag for years to come. That is the sobering reality that I see under this scenario.

If Seattle had more younger bright talent on rookie contracts filling out this roster, I would feel much better about continuing to pay and play Geno. They do not have this, even with two pretty good back to back draft classes. The cupboard was that bare when they traded off Russell Wilson.

I think, given the way this roster is set up with contracts about to expire, the team likely thought this was going to be their year to truly take a much bigger step forward competing for the division. So far, that doesn’t look like the case at all, and that is why I think they structured Geno’s contract as they did last Spring by giving themselves a clear financial out at the end of this season. In short, if they don’t achieve what they hoped for with Geno as QB1, they don’t have to stay trapped in that deal, and they can move on.

That was a smart clause they placed in Geno’s contract. Cold blooded for sure, but smart.

As for Geno, if they do move on from him, I think he can be a quality starter on a decent team with less holes on their roster than Seattle. He could move onto Cleveland if they move on from Deshaun Watson in the offseason (I think they might). He could go to Tampa, or Minnesota, or Atlanta, or even Pittsburgh who all have nice rosters and just need a stable starter at QB.

This is sorta what I think is going on for Seattle right now. I think we are fully entering an evaluation phase as we head further into the toughest part of their season.

These tough games coming up will tell us a lot about the team and Geno Smith. If he can turn it on against tougher competition, and get some quality wins through this tough stretch of games, then I think that tells the club he’s worth continuing to build around. If it’s all really rough and Geno basically continues to look like he did against San Francisco and LA even with better play calling (that’s another topic for another piece), then I think fans of this team should really start looking at some of these young bright quarterbacks in college because one of them could more likely be coming here.

As it stands now, I think the Seahawks are probably looking very hard at both Bo Nix and Michael Penix Junior as possible long term solutions to their quarterback position. I think they rightly should be doing this regardless of how Geno plays.

With Penix, I think he’s a player who likely fits what a coach such as Sean McVay loves to do in attacking the deep middle of the field behind the linebackers and in front of safeties through play action. Penix can launch a ball with ease downfield on a boot leg, and he has the special arm talent to drop it into tight windows. My fear as a Seahawks fan is that McVay is also very keen on him.

Bo Nix feels like he could work wonderfully in a Kyle Shanahan offense getting out on boot legs, getting the ball out quickly and accurately and into the hands of playmakers, and just commanding the whole offense like a point guard. I think Bo Nix is very much a Brock Purdy type player but quicker and with better overall athleticism. I see a little Dak Prescott in his game, as well. Just like Prudy and Prescott, I wouldn’t be shocked if he got drafted and found quick success as a rookie.

So, given all of this, it’s going to be this really interesting bittersweet watching of this last and final PAC 12 Championship Game. On one hand, I am still super bummed out over the PAC 12 dissolvement, but on this whole other hand, holy shit is this conference ever going out with the bang!

It is beyond fascinating to see these two bitter rivalry schools battling each other for a chance to go the college playoffs with each school being quarterbacked by a dude who could win the Heisman Trophy next month. Hollywood could not script this scenario any better.

For me, I won’t lie about it. I am as fair weathered of a Husky fan as any alum could possibly be. I have always been more of a Seahawks fan than a Husky one, but because of Michael Penix Junior, I badly want the Huskies to win this game. I want his unique story about overcoming adversity to end with him winning the Heisman, and leading his team into the college playoffs.

As I said in the beginning of this piece, Penix is my guy. In his two years here in Seattle, I have come to appreciate him in ways I have only appreciated a few other athletes in this town. I have appreciated Steve Largent this way, and Sue Bird this way, and for a while, Russell Wilson. For me, Penix is that type of special. If that makes me more of a homer, then so be it. Homer me up.

I also really truly dig on Bo Nix a lot, too, and if the Huskies were to lose this historic game against Oregon, the sting of it would be taken away a tad by knowing that Bo Nix won. I think Nix is a pretty solid dude who had battled his own sets of adversity at Auburn, and found his rebirth here in the PNW. His story is a pretty cool one, and he’s a worthy guy to root for, and I enjoy watching him play.

In the end, if I can’t get the UW victory for Penix, I want an epically fantastic game for both of these special quarterbacks. I want this to be a game remembered for its greatness and not any sort of lopsidedness. It’s exciting to think about it in that way.

For all the back and forth pettiness that Duck fans and Husky fans probably have about these two quarterbacks, I think it is pretty silly for a fan of either program to dismiss the talents of the quarterback of the other. I think if Michael Penix Junior was QB1 for the Ducks, the entire state of Oregon would be absolutely gaga over him, and if Bo Nix was the Husky quarterback, almost everyone in the 206 would be talking about how much the Seahawks need to draft him.

But this is the dumb stupid petty nature of college football rivalries. Neither side wants to admit that the other is pretty even though both of them very much are.

This is where I will be more than happy to say that, in my own fandom, I am better than that. I despise the San Francisco 49ers with my whole entire being, but I fully recognize the specialness in Brock Purdy, and his likability. It’s fully possible to hate on a program and organization and think to yourself ‘but that player is pretty fucking cool.”

On my end, I just here for both of these quarterbacks. I am into them, and I want one of them on the Seahawks roster next year. Either one of them, or Jayden Daniels from LSU who looks like the second coming of Randall Cunningham, and his story is another pretty damn good one.

Go Hawks.

Congratulations, San Francisco 49er Fans. Your team is finally, regularly, kicking the snot out of the Seattle Seahawks. It took your team long enough!

Even when Pete Carroll’s Seahawks were showing signs of decline with Russell Wilson, and your team was on the rise to become the prize of the conference, the Seahawks were at least good for laying a big old frustrating bucket disappointment on your Sunday afternoon. Now, it appears the tide has finally turned, and I think with it, maybe Seattle ownership needs to consider the bigger picture more after the season if these Seahawks end up with a losing record. After all, this is what San Francisco decided to do years ago when it was clear that Pete Carroll was making Jim Harbaugh his personal pool boy.

I love Pete Carroll as much as the next fan, and, emotionally, I don’t want him gone, but I also don’t want to continue watching these Seahawks looking more and more like the clueless clown of the division whenever playing the Rams and 49ers. This team spent over $130 dollars in this past year to better compete with these power house 49ers, and to be honest, they look worse than they did last year playing them. That’s not a good thing

Seattle added to it’s defense Leonard Williams, Dre’Mont Jones, brought back Bobby Wagner, added Julian Love, and drafted Devon Witherspoon, and they have Jamal Adams back, and still this defense has no real answer for Kyle Shanahan’s offense. That’s a bad look.

Personally, I think Seattle’s usage of a 3-4 defense against the Shanahan scheme is a dumb idea, especially considering how well Carroll’s old 4-3 front played against it even in the Ken Norton Junior years. Why Carroll has been persuaded into shifting away from his 4-3, I will never understand, but on the replays of Christian McCaffery banging it up inside for big gains, it clearly shows each time how there’s not enough big bodies in gaps up front and it puts more stress on the linebackers.

I officially hate the 3-4 defense. I think this whole idea of how much more “exotic” defenses can be with it is vastly overrated. There’s a few teams in the league that run it well, but the great defenses of San Fransisco, Dallas, Philly all operate more out of 4-3.

I was writing about this stuff a lot last year at this time, and after last night’s game, emotions have boiled over. I hate that Carroll has shifted away from his 4-3 stuff that he knows inside and out. Sure, there’s some nice pieces in place, but I think think they would work better in the older scheme.

I don’t even know what to call this defensive scheme, either. It’s not even a true 3-4, and it certainly isn’t a 4-3. It’s like they are being multiple in their fronts just for the sake of it.

As an actor, if I were to go into an audition for a national Ford commercial with the intent of doing a lower class Brooklyn accent one minute, and then shifting into a British accent the next just to be multiple, the well paid casting director would most likely never call me in again.. ever. That’s how I feel about this Clint Hurtt defense for Seattle.

As for the offense, I don’t know where to even start. I think everything going on right now sucks, and I will take a very unhip position of believing that Geno Smith is not the problem of it.

I think Shane Waldron is really struggling to come up with anything that they can hang their hat on, and I don’t think he’s nearly as creative as others in the league as coordinators. I also think he has been doing a really lousy job adjusting to how defenses adjust to his play calling, and too many times he’s calling long developing patterns against a strong pass rush with no outlets for the quarterback to go towards.

The best two things Seattle did on offense last night were stretching the defense on an incredible one handed catch by Jaxon Smith Njigba that was all about the player and not the play caller, and then a nifty jet sweep by Dee Eskridge. That jet sweep reminded me how much of a staple that play is in a Sean McVay offense, and isn’t that the offense we are supposed to now have here?

With JSN and Eskridge on this roster, the jet sweep should be ran at least four to five times a game in order to keep defenses thinking. Right now, defenses don’t have to think when playing against Seattle. It’s like they know everything Waldron is going to throw at them. That’s not a Geno Smith problem. Drew Lock isn’t going to fix that. Neither will Michael Penix Junior or Bo Nix.

I hate it all so much that I officially don’t want Waldron back next year. Unless he miraculously turns this offense around during the toughest portion of this season, nothing is going to move this needle for me.

This offense has way too much talent to be playing this poorly. My one shiny silver lining to Seattle now having a down year is for them to have a high enough draft pick next Spring to potentially draft one of the many talented quarterbacks in college right now, but if they did that, I wouldn’t want that rookie walking into this situation with Shane Waldron as his OC.

Seattle clearly needs a new OC, and if they continue a long stretch of losing games badly like this, I think it’s entirely fair for Jody Allen to consider how much longer Pete Carroll should be running the show, as well. After all, it was Pete Carroll who decided to bring in Waldron when he had no coordinating experience at any level, and it was also Pete Carroll who promoted Clint Hurtt to defensive coordinator over bringing in a proven coach at the position.

If Carroll was persuaded to change to a Vic Fangio 3-4 defense, why didn’t he just go after Fangio who was available? And while we are at it, why didn’t he pursue Dan Quinn after he was fired from the Falcons and bring him back home?

If Pete Carroll’s mantra is “to always compete,” don’t you think part of that should be going out and getting the best coaches out there for his staff? I would think that would absolutely be essential to that.

I don’t know if there’s a lot of good coaches on this staff anymore. I’m sure that there are a few. Andy Dickerson seems to be a fine OL coach. Greg Olson is a well respected quarterback coach and a former coordinator. They hired a fancy pass rush coach this offseason and Boye Mafe has developed nicely. I just look at this situation and feel like Carroll could have done a LOT better putting together the best staff possible.

This makes me literally start to question how much longer Carroll should be going at this. He is in this fourteenth year as the HC and VP. Only legendary Husky coach Don James has coached longer in this market than Carroll has, and not by much.

Pete Carroll is 72 years old and has been coaching for 50 years of his life. Coaching is an incredible grind, and he’s been grinding at it for almost as long as I have been alive.

Mike Holmgren went about ten seasons here and was exhausted at the end, and needed to step aside as a much younger man than Carroll is right now. His team had quickly gotten old and injured and it was clear that they needed a reset. He was too tired to do it, and he knew it.

When I watched how this team gave away the game last week in LA, got blown out a few weeks back in Baltimore, and blown out at home against a dreaded 49er team, I see a young Seattle team with enough talent to be playing better than they have. Ultimately, the buck should stop with Carroll.

I don’t think Seattle is a juggernaut contender, either, but they should be playing better than this. They should be smarter, and more disciplined on both sides of the ball. That is a coaching issue, plain and simple.

So, we will see when this goes in the next month and a half. They have a ridiculously tough stretch that they are in the midst of right now, but so what. Life is not fair, and as Chuck Knox used to say as the Seahawks coach, you have to play the hand you’re dealt.

If they get blown out like this in each of the next three games, I think Jody Allen needs to consider moving on from this entire staff, or maybe Pete Carroll should consider doing what Holmgren did, and just step aside. Maybe take a year off and go grab one of the So Cal coaching gigs, and bring his career full circle.

I say this all being a huge Pete Carroll fan, but first and foremost, I’m a Seahawk fan, and if what this team needs most moving forward now is fresh eyes on the program, then I’m for it. Having said that, if Carroll is able to clean it up, and get this ship sailing right again, I fully support him finishing this out right.

Time will tell us soon enough how this 2023 Seahawk ship sails, and damnit all towards the high heaven if these waters aren’t about to get crazy ass stormy over the next month. Hang onto your butts.

Go Hawks.

Also, fuck George Kittle.

Drew Lock might be a really cool person, and he seems like a likable enough guy. He might even have some talent that could make one believe that he could be a quality NFL quarterback someday, maybe.

He’s tall, he moves quickly, he’s got a big arm that can easily fling the ball downfield. He’s the person that you look at with all the ideal measurables where you could convince yourself that “this is what an NFL quarterback should look like.”

Here is something that I feel very certain about Drew Lock as it stands right now. Drew Lock is not a good quarterback. He’s bad. I’m not sure he’s even he’s a decent backup, and I was sorta surprised when Seattle brought him back on a one year $4 million deal to backup Geno Smith again this year. I kinda thought, if he came back again, it would be for a lot less, and kinda in the $1 million dollar range Seattle paid Geno yearly when he was the backup for Russell Wilson.

But Seattle must really like Drew Lock to be paying him this exorbitant amount to enter into the second half of the game to take the place of injured Geno Smith, and throw two completions on six attempts for a grand total of three yards and a dumb interception. They must really believe the sun shines brightly out of his buttocks ripe with potential.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing personal against Drew Lock, and if he has to take over for Geno for a few games, I will root hard for him. I just do not believe he’s very good, and I will never, for the life of me, understand the demographic of Seattle fans who believe he’s more talented and has more upside that Geno Smith does. He does not.

You know how I know this?

Two years ago, when the Seahawks were playing the Rams in LA, and Aaron Donald knocked a struggling Russell Wilson out of the game, one lowly regarded amongst fans Geno Smith stepped in and almost guided Seattle to a win. He played better than Russ that day, in fact.

Two years later, this time around, when Aaron Donald knocks out Geno Smith, Drew Lock came in and threw ridiculous hero balls deep downfield, and looked clownish doing it. No sense of down and distance, and it was so bad, Geno Smith had to enter the game at the end to give Seattle a chance to win, and gosh dang it, if Geno Smith didn’t almost pull it off like he did last week against Washington, and last month against Cleveland.

Geno Smith might not be the greatest quarterback on the planet. A lot of people want to call him mediocre, and that’s fine, if they want. I think this league is full of mediocre mid tier-ish quarterbacks, and Geno is no worse than any of them. Geno Smith is not a bad quarterback, though, and he’s not a backup, either. He’s a starter.

Drew Lock might well have proven in this game that he’s not even be a good backup. If Seattle honestly thought his upside was higher than Geno’s, he would have been made the starter last year. They do not, and he didn’t.

The people who’s mantra has been “Geno Smith has always been a backup for a reason” while clamoring for Drew Lock must be one step removed from being flat earthers. How else can their lack of logic be explained?

I got news for them. If Geno Smith had not gotten knocked out of this game midway through the second half, I think Seattle most likely would have won this game. Yes, he wasn’t perfect, and yes, there were some shitty penalties called against Seattle that benefitted LA, but I think Seattle would have overcome those, and got it together more in the fourth quarter just like they did last week.

You know why I kinda feel this way? Because that is how Seattle has been playing a lot lately with Geno Smith. He’s been a fourth quarter guy.

Drew Lock? Please. I’m honestly kinda glad this whole thing happened so everyone got a good old dose of Drew before Geno game back in to almost save the day.. yet again.

And while I am on this peppery tangent, how annoying is Shane Waldron’s play-calling still, and all these dumb procedural penalties and lack of proper execution? Who the fuck knows if Waldron was calling those down field YOLO balls for Lock when he went in, or if Lock took it upon himself to throw at guys who weren’t the primary receivers that the plays were drawn up for, but there were plenty of other times earlier where I was scratching my head when Geno was in the game.

Seattle is now ten games into their season, and they are still playing way too sloppy on offense, and this offense is still tough to figure out what they want to be. There is not nearly as much commitment to the run as there should be, and there is way too much sloppiness, and lack of awareness of down and distance at times is almost comical.

Geno takes a dumb delay of game in the red zone, doesn’t spike the ball in the final moments of the game to preserve more time for another play or two, someone isn’t lined up right another time, Will Dissly drops a ridiculously catchable ball, someone false starts, who the fuck even knows what Lock was doing. It’s nice to see the screen game actually working for once in a Pete Carroll offense, but there is still way too much slop going on.

As I watched this game unfold, it dawned on me that we never see this type of slop from a McVay coached offense, or from Shanahan’s, or even a Kevin Stefanski one. When Seattle gets blown out by the Ravens, I feel like it’s just one of those days, and I can easily move on, but when they lose a winnable game like this one, I look at the slop, and all the inconsistencies, and I just start to really wonder how much of this is on just the coaching.

I love Pete Carroll. I remain one of his biggest fans, I love that he’s a master motivator, and culture builder, but I think sloppiness kinda follows his teams a bit. This team, however, I think is especially sloppy, and particularly on offense. Shane Waldron has been a punching bag for me a lot lately, but shouldn’t it ultimately be up to the head coach to make sure things get better ironed out?

I watch the Cleveland Browns this year, and I am truly impressed with the job Kevin Stefanski is doing as their head coach. They have an extremely unsettling quarterback situation, and yet they are still finding ways to win.

I think Stefanski runs a very well defined offense that doesn’t try to out scheme you so much as they try to out execute you. I think that helps his players play better together as a unit, and it becomes more plug and play when injuries happen.

I also think he’s hired a very strong coaching staff full of quality proven coordinators. Jim Schwartz has been a quality defensive coordinator for years and was a head coach for a while. Bill Callahan has been a top offensive line coach for decades and was a former head coach. Alex Van Pelt has been a well regarded quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator.

Stefanski has surrounded himself with quality proven coaches, and he is maximizing the talent on his roster. Now, I don’t think that Cleveland is a true Super Bowl contender, but damn it if they aren’t impressing the shit out of me with the adversity that they have been fighting through.

Why hasn’t Pete Carroll done this in Seattle lately?

He plucked Waldron from the Rams, who had never coordinated before, and it was an assumption that he hired him because he was Russell Wilson’s preference after Brian Schottenhiemer was fired. I gotta be honest, though, we are two and a half years into the Waldron offense, and I think Schotty did a better job in Seattle. I think his offense had a much stronger identity, and while more predictable, played with better consistency. I think Darrel Bevell has been the best OC under Carroll.

Here’s the rub in this though. Schotty and Bevell both came into Seattle with coordinator experiences. I don’t want this piece about yet another annoying loss to the Rams be about how much Waldron sucks, but it’s kinda getting harder for me not to do this.

I know Waldron is a smart coach, but something is preventing him from taking the next step as a coordinator, and it is starting to cost Seattle games. What is it?

And why hasn’t Carroll stepped in more with demands for establishing the run more when it is clear that Waldron isn’t doing it enough?

I don’t know what this offense wants to be. I have no idea what the identity of it is. They are neither a great pass team or run team. They lack balance, and I have an overwhelming sense that the root of it is that Waldron wants them to do too much, and therefore, they master nothing.

It’s not just Waldron, either. Pete Carroll could have brought back Gus Bradley or some other experienced defensive coordinator out there a couple years ago, but he decided to promote Clint Hurtt who also had never coordinated before, and I still can’t totally tell what kind of defense it is that I am looking at.

I appreciate that Hurtt has made decent strides in his second year as DC, but they are starting to show signs of not being able to contain outside runs again, and that should be a fairly basic thing to stop, and too often linebackers look absolutely lost in coverage.

I kinda sense the chinks in the armor this defense more with each game. There are nice pieces on it right now, but I don’t know if they are being schemed the right way, and like Waldron, I fear Hurtt has them doing too much in their various looks and fronts.

On one hand, I think it’s commendable that Carroll wants to use his platform to give young coaches opportunities to advance, but on the other hand, I think it would also be awesome to see Carroll just bring in as much good experienced coaching talent as possible like Stefanski has in Cleveland. As it stands now, I look at this team, and I don’t feel as bought into these coaches as I would like to be at this juncture.

I also have this sinking feeling like the coordinators here have gotten progressively worse over the years. At some point, isn’t Carroll to blame for this?

Now before you start accusing of me trying to usher out Carroll for a Kevin Stefanki type, just know that I don’t want Pete Carroll fired. I just want this team clicking better. I need to see things cleaned up, and I think the coach should be subject to blame as much as the players, if not more in some ways.

Even if Drew Lock has to start a few games in place of Geno Smith, I just need to see better execution from those around him to make his job easier, and hopefully he can play within himself better than whatever it was he was trying to do against the Rams. I need to see players getting it, and executing it on both sides of the ball. Ten games into this season, and things should not be this sloppy still.

If this is not to be a playoff team this year, so be it. I just need to feel like this team as the right coaches in place to move forward next year. I know the quality of coaches in San Francisco and in LA with the Rams.

This game brought me back down to Earth with this team. All is not lost, and there are still a lot of games left to play to get it right, but damn it if we don’t need to see better, and better best come sooner than later with this tough stretch of games.

At least some more of us now know that Drew Lock is not the answer over Geno Smith. So, there’s that.

Something tell me that there will be still some Drew Lockers dug in, though. When someone vehemently believes the Earth is flat and science is lying to us, don’t hold your breath arguing with them. Just have a chuckle and move on.

Go Hawks.

The NFL now has a 17 game season. It’s stupid.

If these money grabbing owners need to make more cheddar, have two preseason games, make the season 18 games, give the teams two bye weeks, and play the damn Super Bowl in the middle of February. This Get Off My Lawn moment of mine is brought to you be Stihl; the maker of quality German engineered backpack blowers to annoy white privileged urbanites every Autumn during leaf season.

At any rate, as it stands now, it’s weird to determine what the mid point of the season is so that a middle aged blogger such as myself can issue grades out to his favorite team. I was going to do this last week, but I decided to write about why it’s dumb to bench Geno Smith right now, instead.

At any rate again, here are my grades for the 6-3 Seattle Seahawks. Read them and weep.

Quarterback: B-

Last year, at the time, I probably had Geno Smith down for an A-. He surprised everyone with his high efficiency play, and was throwing one of the very best deep balls in the game before his play fell back down to Earth more in the second half of the season. I love me some Geno Smith, but I gotta keep it real.

This season hasn’t gone nearly as well. Thus far, his touchdown numbers are down, and his interceptions are up. While I don’t believe he’s been helped by the play calling, I think he’s pressed a lot more, forced the ball into bad situations, been more skittish, and hopefully this cleaner game against Washington is a sign of better things to come.

His completion percentage is still pretty good, though, and out of three of these six wins on the season, he has guided this offense to come from behind wins against the Lions, Browns, and Commanders. In short, I think he’s doing his job good enough for this team to be solidly in playoff contention, but he can be a lot more consistent.

Running Back: B

Seattle has the potential to have an outstanding running back situation with the one two punch of Ken Walker and Zach Charbonnet, but I don’t think they are taking enough advantage of what they have with these two. Finally, they got them more involved against Washington, and it paid off in a big way. This grade, in my opinion, should be a solid A, but because they haven’t been the focus enough, I can’t grade them this way, yet. Hopefully, that changes by the season’s end.

Wide Receiver: B-

Kinda like the quarterback situation, I think Seattle’s receivers have underwhelmed from where they were at this point last year. People want to trash on Geno, but I think it is up to these receivers to be more consistently on the same page with him, so I am giving them the same grade.

This is a highly talented group led by the consistently great Tyler Lockett, but I want to see better chemistry with the quarterback from others. If they can do this, they have the ceiling to be an A+ unit at the end of the season.

Jaxon Smith Njigba is starting to become more of a factor now, DK Metcalf has been calming himself down more, and Jake Bobo is a fun folk hero. So, at the very least, there are signs of this unit treading upwards. I got my fingers crossed for them.

Tight End: B-

Kinda like the running backs, I don’t think the tight ends are being used enough as they should be used. They were very active in September, but play caller Shane Waldron went away from using the multi TE looks in October, and they have since been less involved. When they are more of a focus, they are a talented group who can deliver as pass catchers and run blockers.

Offensive Line: C+

The offensive line has been pretty banged up throughout most of this season, and has seen so many different lineups that it has been tough for them to gain consistency and continuity. For far, they are gutting through it, and hopefully with promising right tackle Abe Lucas coming back, they can start rolling better during this tough second half of the season.

Defensive Line And Edge: B

Seattle lists their personnel as if they run a 3-4 defense, but I don’t think that is what they really are. I think they are mostly a modified 4-2-5 scheme that uses two defensive tackles, two stand up ends who will drop into coverage on occasion, and two off ball linebackers with three safeties on the field. Therefore, I am including their listed outside linebackers in this group with the interior defensive linemen.

Boye Mafe is the breakout star of the defensive front, breaking a franchise record for seven sacks in seven consecutive games. He is an ascending talent who have HUGE upside to his game. The edge rushers behind him are hanging in there after the season ending injury to Uchenna Nwosu. Rookie Derick Hall is strong against the run, Darrell Taylor provides a decent pass rush, and Frank Clark provides good depth.

Seattle’s DT types have played pretty solidly. Jarran Reed has been a real force at nose tackle, and Mario Edwards and Dre’Mont Jones have flashed at times. Leonard Williams as the new primary three technique played fierce against Washington, and should be a huge boost to this interior unit for the final stretch of the season.

Middle Linebacker: B-

Bobby Wagner has been outstanding versus the run, but I fear he’s becoming a bit more of a liability in coverage, although Pro Football Focus appears to love his play. Jordyn Brooks has been the more explosive player of the two. I think they are both fierce run defenders who are hanging in there in coverage.

Devin Bush has been a bit of a disappoint as a hyped up free agent signing, and I think Jon Rhattigan is just a dude. The depth of this squad has me nervous and I feel like this is an area of need heading into next offseason.

Cornerback: A

I think Seattle has one of the top cornerback situations in the league again, and they are the clear strength of the team. They are four deep in quality starters.

I think Devon Witherspoon is a superstar cornerback in the league right now, and should win Defensive Rookie Of The Year, but probably won’t because the league hates Seattle. In all my years, I have never seen a cornerback like him. He’s a mixture of Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman.

Riq Woolen is surprisingly overshadowed by Spoon, but is still a top end young corner in the league, and nobody else playing the position is built like him and has his type of world class speed. Tre Brown has provided scrappy good play as an outside corner in the nickel, and Mike Jackson is a quality depth player who probably starts somewhere else.

Safety: B

I think Seattle’s safeties are really good and are overshadowed by the corners. Jullian Love has been a really solid addition to the team, and Quandre Diggs has remained reliable enough.

Jamal Adams remains the team’s chosen X factor chess piece, playing a lot of safety, and linebacker, and even edge rusher. I think his play has been more up and down, but he is tasked to do a lot more than others. He will make splashy plays against the run, but he will also miss a tackle going for the knockout instead of slowing down to wrap up. My guess is that he is still working himself through the serious leg injury he’s coming back from. I would still take an up and down Jamal Adams on this defense, though.

Special Teams: A-

Jason Myers is a great kicker. Michael Dickson is a solid punter. I really like DeeJay Dallas returning kicks and punts now.

Coaching: B-

I am a HUGE Pete Carroll fan, and because of him, I want to grade this area higher than I have, but I can’t. I think Pete is still a tremendous leader and Seattle is lucky to have him still here, but I haven’t loved a lot of the play calling on offense this year, and this have been the big sticking point for me.

If feels like Shane Waldron really wants his three receiver passing attack to be the bread and butter of this offense with the addition of rookie Jaxon Smith Njigba to his squad. Don’t get me wrong, I love the potential of JSN, and I think he’s going to be special in this league, but with all the injuries that have occurred to the offensive line, I think tight end heavier formations along with more run plays, and play action, has probably been the better recipe for this offense with Geno Smith at quarterback. I think Geno is a much better play action QB than a straight drop back passer, and Waldron has taken that away from him for whatever reason.

I think Clint Hurtt has done a solid job modifying his defense to better fit the principles that have worked well for Seattle over the years. I think he’s steered away from some of the stuff he was trying to get do last year, and it’s been a return of tilted even front for the defense where defenders are better able to defend the A and B gaps. All this football jargon just means is that he has simplified his front seven, and has made their jobs a lot easier. Bravo.

Thoughts Moving Forward

At this point in the season, I would say that the defense is ahead of the offense, and.. well, that sorta does feel like maybe this team is, in fact, returning back to Legion Of Boom form. I wouldn’t say that this defense today is at that level yet, but I think they have the youthful upside to be close down the line, perhaps by next year.

Offensively, this team has been much more of a disappointment. Heading into the season, I expected the additions of Jaxon Smith Njigba and Zach Charbonnet to really open things up for Geno Smith.

Instead, the Seahawks have been dealing with a tattered offensive line right out of the gates, and with all the constant shuffling mixed with suspect playing calling, and inconsistent quarterback play, this entire side of the ball has been kinda just been hanging in there.

They haven’t been bad, but they haven’t been great, either. They have the talent to be great, and they are going to need to really get it together in this second half of the season when the schedule gets a lot tougher.

I would love for this team to really take it to the Rams this weekend down in LA and beat the snot out of them, but I think that’s going to be yet another tough matchup. The Rams are rested out of their bye week, and are getting Matt Stafford back. We will see how well Stafford is healed up, but Sean McVay as a head coach absolutely has Pete Carroll’s number. So, Seattle is going to have to play very disciplined ball to get this W. I think they can, but it’s up to them.

I think this is how the second half will go. Seattle is far enough into their season where the expectation is for them to be more disciplined and consistent.

Geno Smith needs to be a good distributor and not get caught up in hero ball. Jamal Adams needs to go for the proper tackle and not the knock out blow. DK Metcalf needs to keep his cool while maintaining his physical edge. The defense cannot afford to blow coverages much.

If this team stays fierce on defense, and plays more consistent on offense, they should be able to get through the remaining schedule and earn double digit wins, if they stay healthy enough. Pro Football Focus projects them to have a 83% chance at the playoffs with these tough remaining games.

In short, despite the inconsistencies on offense, this team is pretty much where we want them to be. Of their six wins on the season, I think they beat three quality opponents in Detroit, Cleveland, and Washington, and they took care of business against three other lesser opponents.

The Seattle Seahawks have the fifth youngest roster in the league and out of the five youngest teams, they are the only ones with a winning record. I think we should be pretty damn excited about that as fans, but way too many folks seems dead set on trashing on Geno Smith. That’s a shame, in my view.

Therefore, what I am really rooting for is for Geno to flip the narrative about him in this second half of the season. There’s a lot of anticipation from the fans that Seattle could be drafting a quarterback next Spring to be the future starter, and that could prove true.

Having said that, though, I think Geno Smith controls the narrative here. If we see more consistently good Geno during this final stretch when the games get tougher, and he leads us to the playoffs again, I think he more than earns the right to be QB1 again next year, even if they take a QB high in the draft.

My prediction for this team is that they finish this season at 10-7, and they are a wildcard playoff birth. Of these remaining games, I think it’s likely that they beat an opponent that few are expecting them to beat, and they drop a game that many will probably think that they should have won because that is just the nature of NFL football.

I think we do see more consistent and better play out of Geno Smith and the offense. The team is getting right tackle Abe Lucas back soon and I think that’s going to be a boost for the unit. I think we see start to see better play calling from Shane Waldron, and I like what he’s starting to do with the screens to JSN and getting the quick passes going.

I think it’s possible that we could see the defense taper off a bit, and that is just because of the daunting matchups that they will face against the explosive offenses of 49ers, Dallas, and Philly. I think the loss of Uchenna Nwosu is significant and maybe preventative of this side of the ball from truly reaching elite status this year, but we will see.

I don’t see this team going far into the playoffs. Not unless they really start to whoop up on some really quality in late November and in through December.

I think it’s fine if their post season is short lived again. I know a lot of other fans won’t like that, but I’m going to be more patient with these young cats. It is more important for me that they build this young new nucleus right, and in that, they take whatever lumps come their way so that they feel it together and learn together.

The Legion of Boom did not happen over night, or even through the course of a season, or two. It was a three year process for them to grow into what they became. I think it’s reasonable to be patient with this franchise to expect a similar three year process of building back up to a true contender again post Russell Wilson.

And if by chance the wheels come off this cart during this final stretch, if injuries to key players mount, and they miss the playoffs, well, that just means higher picks in next year’s draft to further fortify this rebuild. In that sense, I see little scenarios where Seattle isn’t winning out in the bigger picture.

I think the future is bright for this club, either way.

Go Hawks.

I woke up Sunday morning with perfect clarity in anticipation of the game between the Seattle Seahawks and Washington Commanders. I wanted the Seahawks to win, and I wanted Geno Smith to have a really good bounce back game.

Washington, I feared was going to be tougher than many the casual fan would anticipate. They hung tight with Philadelphia, and it felt like they were on a bit of a roll, but these were my two big asks for the day; a Seahawks win, and Geno playing well. I am happy to write that I got them both.

Fans are kinda funny, and handle wins and losses differently. After all, we are all our own individuals, and we each handle failure and success in different ways.

For myself, I just want the job to get done, and I don’t need style points on how to accomplish the task at hand. During the Seahawks road to the Super Bowl in 2013, the Seahawks won a number of games ugly, and I was good with it. “Just get the W” is sorta my mantra.

So, when Seattle sputtered a bit, offensively, in the first half of this game, I had this feeling like they were going to get it together more in the second half. I saw receivers coming open in coverage where the passes from Geno looked off, but also maybe the receivers didn’t adjust their patterns the way he was anticipating. Seattle runs an offense that is a bit more dependent on timing, and receivers making adjustments to coverages. To the naked eye of the casual fan, it can look like the quarterback made a bad throw, but in reality, it was up to the receiver to break to that spot.

This is what I think many inside the anti Geno Smith portion of the Seahawk fanbase don’t understand. For them, Geno Smith has next to no margin of error, either.

In this game, he threw for a career best 369 yards, 2 touchdowns, no picks, and he completed over 65% of his passes. That is a good day for any NFL quarterback, and on the team’s social media post, I commented that is was a superb bounce back game for Geno. Here is how one gentleman chose to respond this Geno Smith affirming comment of mine.

“.. are you high or drunk? Both? Nice stats maybe, but that doesn’t tell the truth of how he played. He’s a terrible QB and if you think he gives this team a chance to win against the 49ers or any team vying for a championship, this team will have a repeat of last weekends game. He was s backup for a decade for a reason. We are seeing why. But hey, he didn’t have a turnover today.”

So, first off; no, I was not high or drunk. I actually haven’t had a drop of alcohol since 2010, thank you very much.

Secondly, those are actually pretty darn good stats.

Thirdly, this guy’s typos are every bit as bad as mine.

Lastly, wow. I don’t know the mental or emotional state of this dude, but I hope he’s not the type to backhand a young child across the face for spilling milk at the breakfast table because the vitriol he chose to go after me and dump on Geno Smith makes him come across as a total dickhead in life.

But this is the type of vitriol that I think Geno Smith kinda has to deal with as QB1 of the Seattle Seahawks with a loud, angry minority portion of the Seahawks fanbase on social media, online team fan-pages, forums, and on sports radio. For them, I think it pains them to pay him any sort of compliment, and when someone else does it, they must be a moron. They want to over inflate any mistake he makes, and deemphasize anything positive he does. He cannot possibly be the long term starter for Seattle. That guy is either Drew Lock (?!), or someone playing in college right now.

Geno Smith may or may not be a long term answer at quarterback for the Seahawks. I am not here to say that he is, or isn’t. I’m here to say that he is the guy they have now, so why beat him down?

He’s not a terrible quarterback. I think he’s a decent mid tier starting quarterback in the league, a solid Alex Smith, if you will. He’s a quarterback who guided Seattle to the playoffs last year, and was voted into the Pro Bowl by his peers in the league who probably know a lot more about quarterback play than some angry dude who needed to come at me on the internet.

Presently, Geno Smith has quarterbacked Seattle to a 6-3 record, and has led them to two come from behind victories in the past month. Excuse me, if I choose to have his back as the starting quarterback of my favorite team, and decide to heap some positive praise on the fella whenever he does good.

On the whole, I think Geno played pretty well in this one. He was clutch when they needed him to be, he didn’t turn the ball over, he threw the ball away when he needed to do it, and he was generally pretty accurate when the timing was right with his receivers. He managed the game as Pete Carroll would have him, and Pete said as much as that in his post game presser.

The only blemish on his day was the intentional grounding penalty he took towards the end of the first half that took a field goal opportunity away from the team to potentially put them in the lead. Outside of that mishap, I thought he delivered the game I wanted to see from him. Bravo.

The other offensive guy much maligned by fans who had himself a big game was DK Metcalf. When this team desperately needed someone at the end to come up with big time catches, it was this guy.

DK Metcalf is a force of nature. There are not a lot of living breathing human beings on the planet built like this guy playing wide receiver in the NFL. His catch and run at the end of the game, barreling over defenders was one of the most beastmode things I have seen out of a Seattle Seahawk player since Beastmode himself circa 2014. Seattle had mere seconds left on the clock at the midpoint of the field, no timeouts left, and they needed someone to haul in a pass and get it close to the thirty yard line for a chance at a game winning field goal. DK caught the pass at around the Washington 37 yard line, and barreled people over for superhuman YAC to the Washington 23 yard line for a much easier game winning kick by Jason Myers. Tyler Lockett, and Jaxon Smith Njigba, as good as they are, do not make this play.

If it wasn’t for Geno Smith, who some fans need to trash on, and DK Metcalf, who some fans want to deal away, the Seattle Seahawks probably do not win this game against the Commanders. Sam Howell started finding success against the Seahawks defense late, and with that, Washington felt like the team with the momentum to win. In many ways, as I watched in the stands, it felt like it was going to go down like that annoying game against the Raiders last year when Seattle blew a lead late, and gave the game up in overtime. Geno Smith and DK said “fuck that” though, and took this game over at the end for the win.

In the spirit of Bill Maher, I have two new rules I would like to put forth to Seahawk fans. One is to stop talking about benching Geno Smith for Drew Lock, and the other is to stop the trade DK Metcalf rubbish. The Seahawks have a decent starting quarterback, and they have a freak of nature receiver. Teams do not bench decent quarterbacks when they have a winning record, and good teams generally don’t trade away rare offensive weapons and get better. How is that trading away of AJ Brown working out for the Tennessee Titans these days?

Onto other great bright spots in this game.

Seattle has two super cool young running backs, and Shane Waldron chose to finally get them both involved more than in recent weeks, and I think that paid off pretty well. K9 had the flashiest play of the day with a big time NFL catch and touchdown run for 64 yards, and Zach Charbonnet provided explosive inside running for 44 yards and a 7.3 yard average. Getting these two more involved makes life easier for Geno, so keep doing this Shane Waldron.

Boye Mafe collected another sack and now has set a franchise record for seven sacks in seven consecutive games. Much of the fanfare around this defense is directed towards rookie corner Devon Witherspoon and rightly so, but Mafe looks like he’s on the verge of stardom. This is a huge deal for the future of this franchise of this proves the case.

Speaking of Spoon, the dude was a playmaking machine in the secondary against Washington. He kept Terry McLaurin fairly quiet, had multiple passes defensed, created pressures on blitzes and forced a fumble. Spoon plays football like Adam Sandler’s Water Boy character. He’s a 6-0 180 pound holy terror on the football field, and he’s just getting started. I’ve never seen a cornerback like him, and I find that the so damn exciting.

It was also cool to see newly acquired Leonard Big Cat Williams get his first sack as a Seahawk. It was also really cool to see Dre’Mont Jones get a sack, as well. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love it when defensive tackles get sacks. It just makes my heart go pitter patter extra.

Also, also, Jason Myers is a football kicking Jesse!

What I didn’t love seeing was the long gains up the sidelines that the Seahawk defense gave up to Brian Robinson catching in the flats. Whatever the defense was doing on those plays, don’t have them do it again, Clint Hurtt! Fix this issue!

How good are these Seattle Seahawks for real, though? Is this the question you are asking?

I think they are a really promising young team. I think they have a lot of young talent who are showing signs of being really quality players in this league, and that is exciting. I don’t think they are built up like San Francisco is, or Philly, or Baltimore, or even Dallas. Those are strong veteran teams with great players in their primes. I think Seattle is probably another year or two away from that, if all continues to trend well through draft and development.

The agro keyboard warrior who responded to me about Geno pointed out his grave doubts about how Seattle (with Geno) will match up against some of these teams on the remainder of the season. I think the truth is, if you put Brock Purdy or Dak Prescott on this Seahawk team, they would probably still be sitting at 6-3 today, and folks would be saying how Seattle doesn’t have a great quarterback situation, and the schedule looks daunting. If think if you put Geno on the 49ers squad, they would still be torching through the league.

But I am more patient about these Seahawks than some others. That is how I deal as a fan. I am seeing young promising talent develop, and that is a good thing for me. I see Geno doing enough of what he needs to do to run this offense right enough for them to win games, and I am good with that.

Before the season started, I saw a potential 10-7 team. I still see them as such. Of the eight remaining games they have left, I feel like they have a really good shot at getting four more wins, and if all break well for them, maybe more Ws.

I don’t care how those wins happen, either. I don’t need style points. Finding ways to win is how to develop a strong winning mindset for a promising young collective. That’s what is more important to me at this stage of the team’s post Russell Wilson rebuild. Anything more would be bonus.

Win or lose, though, I am here for them, either way.

I got your back, Geno Smith. You, too, DK.

Go Hawks.

The Seattle Seahawks are 5-3, and they are tied with San Francisco for first place in the NFC West. At the start of the season, if someone from the future were to have said to you that they would be in this position by early November, would you have gladly taken that news well?

I would have received it with joy. I’m going to guess that a lot of Seahawk fans would have, too.

Funny what a beat down on the road will do to a lotta fans, though. It’s annoying to write my thoughts about this subject matter, but since this debacle of a game in Baltimore, every time I turn on sports radio, or glance through Twitter X, I seem to be hearing and seeing a whole lotta whether or not the Seattle Seahawks should bench Geno Smith right now. So, here I am, again, writing my thoughts about why the Seahawks should not do this.

Geno Smith has had a rough four game stretch where he has turned the ball over eight times. The Seahawks have just played the top two NFL defenses in back to back weeks, and the Bengals defense isn’t any slouch either. Geno struggled against the Bengals, Browns, and had a really rough game against Baltimore, and yet he played fairly good against the Cardinals. The Seahawks are 2-2 in this stretch.

I don’t think Geno Smith has been helped by the play calling of Shane Waldron over this month, and I have been pretty outward about my thoughts on that. Waldron has shifted away from a lot of the multiple tight end looks and play action plays that were very successful in September. Why he has done this, I do not know. If I were to guess, I would suspect that those formations and plays have come at the expensive of getting Jaxon Smith Njigba more involved in the offense as its slot receiver.

On top of that, there has been a sharp imbalance between the run and pass. The other week against Cleveland the team ran 18 times to 37 passes. Against Baltimore, they ran 15 times to 28 passes. With no real commitment to the ground game, and a sharp deviation away from what was working well during the first month of the season, this whole entire offense lacks an identity.

Therefore, what I suspect we see Seattle attempting to do over the next few games is to correct course with Geno Smith. Pete Carroll has already started sounding the bell about getting the run game going more, and doing things as coaches to further help Geno out. I think the plan moving forward is to do everything they can to get Geno playing better, and more confidently. I think in those plans could be a return to things that worked really well for him, getting the tight ends more involved, getting the ground game going to build play action off of, and having better check down options available.

Benching Geno Smith now before giving him a chance to work himself out of this rut with more supportive play calling, when this team is tied for first place in the division, would be a potentially devastating move impacting the chemistry and culture of this team. He is a beloved member of the locker room, and he is a team captain.

If Carroll were to be the hard ass coach that some of the more toxic members of the Seahawks fanbase would like him to be, and bench Geno now, right in front of two winnable games, for Drew Lock, and if Drew Lock were to play not as good as Geno, and Seattle were to lose both of those games, you can bet every last dollar in your savings accounts that his coaching decision would set a gasoline fire to his locker room culture. No way could he be able to look his players in the eye with his “always compete and win forever” messaging, and be taken seriously. No sensible head coach would risk doing that, and the ones that would generally find themselves fired at the end of the season.

I get why some fans remain more intrigued by Drew Lock, too. He’s younger that Geno Smith, and he’s more athletic. His launch points would probably be more extended in roll outs, and he can probably make some fun plays with his legs. Here’s the reality, though, if the Seattle coaches and players felt that Drew Lock would give Seattle a better chance to win over Geno Smith, Drew Lock would be the starter. They don’t, so he isn’t. It is as simple as that.

While we are on that subject of Lock, let’s be real about what Seattle’s likely plans are for their long term solution to the quarterback situation. Drew Lock was probably brought back to get a further look at how he is picking up the system, but there is a DEEP quarterback class laying ahead in the 2024 draft.

Seattle probably opted not to draft Will Levis this past Spring because they know what lies ahead. There could be as many as ten quarterbacks taken within the first two rounds of next year’s draft, and that is not an exaggeration. It is very possible that Seattle sent their second round pick to the Giants for Leonard Williams knowing that it isn’t necessarily going to harm their chances of drafting a young passer that they really like.

So when I look at these quarterbacks in college and I see Drew Lock, I just see a much greater likelihood that there is going to be some young cat on a rookie contract next year that folks are excited about than I see Drew being any sort of real heir apparent to Geno Smith. I think the only way Drew Lock really becomes The Guy moving forward is if Geno Smith doesn’t play better with adjusted play calling, they lose the next handful of games, and then they decide to run with Drew just to see what’s there, and he miraculously balls out in the final month of December. Either that, or Geno gets knocked out for the season, and Drew comes in under that scenario and balls out, as well, but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for either scenario to occur.

So my advice to you, if you are a Twelve clamoring for Drew Lock is to do the same as I, and do not hold your breath. Breathe, and see how Geno Smith responds over these next few games with better play calling, and maybe getting Abe Lucas back finally at right tackle. If Geno Smith stinks it up under those circumstances, then we can have a more proper discussing of seeing with Drew can do.

Until then, just breathe.

Go Hawks.

I had a weird feeling Sunday morning that defied a whole lotta logic. I woke up feeling the Seattle Seahawks were going to pull out a victory in Baltimore against maybe the hottest team (and player) in football right now.

I don’t know why. They narrowly beat the Cleveland Browns at home who were starting a backup quarterback, and Geno Smith has been a turnover machine recently.

I just felt that on that Sunday, Seattle was going to shine on the road. I thought Geno was going to play a clean game, and they would get the run game going, and the defense was going to hold Lamar Jackson in check with all their flashy playmakers.

Holy fuck balls was I ever wrong. It’s probably all the cough syrup I’ve become dependent on lately mixed with daylight savings time, and three quarters of a pot of coffee downed by 8:30.

Well, shit. The Seahawks got slaughtered on the road by a Ravens team that could be the best team currently in the AFC. What can I say? Sometimes, shit goes South in a hurry.

This was not the game for Shane Waldron to call 14 runs to 28 passes, and of those pass plays, most of them were direct drop backs against perhaps the best pass rushing team in all of football. No creativity with those drop backs, either, might I add.

This was not the game for Geno to force yet another pass to be double coverage for an interception, and cough up yet another fumble. Eight turnovers now over the last four games is almost certainly going to make fans cry out for Drew Lock.

This was not a game for players like Jamal Adams, Jordyn Brooks, Bobby Wagner, and Quandre Diggs and others to miss tackles against a fantastic rushing attack. It is tough to criticize this defense when the offense decided not show up, but stellar is something these tacklers were not.

It would have been nice to see Waldron stay a bit more stubborn with the run and to get play action going off of it, but instead, he would call a run play that would earn positive yards, and then go directly into an empty backfield. Am I the only person who sees the lack of logic with that?

Geno Smith has been one of the best play action quarterbacks in the league for a while, and yet Waldron seems intent on going away from that. I would love to know what his strategy is.

Also, where are all the multiple heavy tight end looks that were working well in September against teams like the Lions, Panthers, and Giants? Has Seattle shifted away from all of this just to get Jaxon Smith Njigba more involved? If so, please shift the F back to it.

Look, I know I am about to come across as a Geno Smith apologist after he struggled in this game, but I just don’t see how he’s being helped out by the play calling right now. Geno’s strengths, in my mind, are centered around the tools he has to be a good play action passer. Get the defense thinking about the run, then beat them with the play fake passes just as Geno did when he hit DK Metcalf on that beautiful deep crosser against the Ravens vaunted secondary. Why are there not more of these plays being drawn up?!

How much longer is Pete Carroll going to allow this drop back pass happiness to continue?

That’s the question for me. That’s the issue that I think they need to resolve in order to make this season a special one.

As it stands right now, this offense lacks any sort of identity. They are neither a great passing team or a great running team. For me, I think the path is clearer for them to be a great running offense. This should be their identity.

They have two dynamic young runners in K9 and Zach Charbonnet, and they aren’t being used nearly enough. Why the fuck would you spend high second round picks on both of these guys if they are not more of the focus on offense? It makes no sense, and Payton Manning is not something that Geno Smith frankly is.

For the first time since Geno Smith was made the starter over a year ago, I thought he should be pulled out of the game, and it had nothing to do with believing Drew Lock would have likely done anything better. I thought pulling him would have been a mercy move once the game was clearly out of reach.

Fans, of course, are going to blow this game way out of proportion. I already see the agro tweeters out there calling the Seahawks frauds, and saying that Geno should be benched, Carroll doesn’t know what he’s doing, etc.

I get it. It isn’t fun watching your favorite team getting its ass kicked on all levels like that. People need to deal with disappointment however they choose so long as no family members and loved ones are harmed in the process. Taking to Twitter X and calling the Seahawks frauds and calling for Drew Lock is perfectly acceptable after a game like this.

Seattle got their butts kicked on all levels, end of story. They were vastly outplayed, and vastly out coached, but this is nowhere near the end to their season. It is well within the Seahawks to correct course and turn this ship around, and it can start this week at home against the Washington Commanders.

The Commanders aren’t going to come into Lumen Field and lay down for the Seahawks. They can be a dangerous team, and got a good win against the Patriots. That said, this should be a great opportunity for Seattle to have a get right game at home.

Let us remember, for as bad as this beating was, the Ravens did the same exact thing to the very good Detroit Lions a couple weeks back. They are talented enough and schemed well enough to do that to probably many good teams out there.

So, for the Seahawks, I think maybe just maybe this is the ass kicking what they needed, and the Commanders are the right kinda team for them to face to get things right. They need to be very honest with themselves this week, though, about what they want to be.

They just traded a second round pick for a big defensive tackle in Leonard Williams to fortify their playoff push. Now is not the time to fuck around on offense through the remaining portions of a tough schedule.

What type of team do these Seahawks want to be? Do they want to further be a pass happy attack with all the fancy wide receiver weapons, or do they want to be a physical running team that uses those weapons as complimentary pieces with play action?

They have the defense built up enough now that if they just went back to a more balanced attack, used those multiple tight end looks more, they can still be a dangerous factor for the remainder of the season. They are tied for first place in their division.

Time to get it straightened out. Be honest about what Geno Smith does best, and put him in the best positions to do that.

Play to your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.

Claim your identity and then own it. Do it.

Run the fucking ball!

Go Hawks.

I gotta be honest. I didn’t foresee the Seahawks making a big move before the NFL trade deadline. In fact, I didn’t really want them to.

For me, I have been singularly focused on this team continuing to build through the draft, and I wanted them to have a bunch of picks to select from next Spring. Specifically, I would love to see them add more to the offensive line, maybe add more at linebacker, defensive tackle, tight end, and definitely be in the market for drafting and developing a young quarterback.

When the team signed Frank Clark last week to replace the injured Uchenna Nwosu, I thought that was going to be the final piece for this defense. Apparently, I was grossly mistaken.

Pete Carroll isn’t in the mood to be fucking around with a methodical rebuild anymore. He wants this team competing for the division right now. That’s what this splash trade with the New York Giants for Leonard Williams means to me; a big ol’ war daddy DT affectionately known as The Big Cat.

With injuries and losses mounting for the San Francisco 49ers, and injuries and losses mounting for the Los Angeles Rams, Pete Carroll is an old tiger shark smelling blood in the waters of the NFC West. His defense is already looking pretty good these days, but adding Leonard Williams up front gives it a chance to be elite this year, if not wholly terrifying to opponents.

In Carroll’s own words, Big Cat is described as a classic three technique defensive tackle who is talented enough to play multiple positions on the defensive line, and is a player he has been monitoring for a long time. At 6-5 and 300 pounds, he as the length, strength, and athleticism to make life very difficult for pass blocking offensive linemen. He is one of the best interior pass rushers in the league, and he’s a big ol’ bad ass against the run, as well.

Adding Williams makes Seattle’s defensive line rotation significantly better, and it was already playing pretty decent with Dre’Mont Jones, Jarran Reed, and Mario Edwards. Now, Seattle has four quality veterans to rotate in with. I have been waiting for this sort of defensive line rotation to happen in Seattle for years, and it appears to be here now (I almost crapped myself with excitement writing that).

Seattle can now do pretty much whatever they choose to do with their defensive front. They can further feature the 3-4, if they want, and they can also shift back into Carroll’s big bodied 4-3 whenever they so choose. All four of those defensive tackles can play multiple positions. This is a huge benefit to the linebackers and edge rushers on this team.

I firmly believe that with Seattle making this move, Boye Mafe is probably going to get 15 or more sacks this season, if he stays healthy. He has been flirting with that trajectory prior to this trade, but I think Williams is going to solidify that likelihood. I think others on going to feast on this defense to because of The Big Cat, too.

The only downside to this trade is that Seattle gave up a second round pick in 2024 and a fifth round pick in 2025, and Williams is set to be a free agent after this season. That is a ton to give up for a ten game rental player, but I suspect that Seattle is fully intending to work out a long term deal with him.

Given the fact that he has played with both Julian Love and Jamal Adams on both New York teams, it’s reasonable to suspect that Seattle has pretty good intel on him, and I doubt they make this move if they don’t feel they have a pretty strong chance at keeping him around for the longer haul. If I am to guess anything, I think they have a good idea about Big Cat’s character, and they believe he will a great addition for years to come.

If he is signed to a three or four year deal, this trade will be a bargain. Williams is a rare game wrecking DT in his prime, and you aren’t likely going to find a player like him at the bottom of round two. Pete Carroll has never had a three technique of his caliber in Seattle before, and his long term addition would allow Jarran Reed to stay at the nose tackle position, and allow Dre’Mont Jones to further play on the edges as a five technique defensive end.

If he isn’t signed to an extension, however, and he walks after the season, the best that Seattle can hope for is probably a fourth round comp pick in the 2025 draft. That’s the risk this team is willing to take, and even with that, I think there is something exciting about that risk.

The bottom line is that these 2023 Seahawks are not content with competing for a playoff birth. They want to win the division this year, and host playoff games at Lumen Field. That is what this move means. They are going for it.

For this, I applaud the Seahawks. I don’t think they necessarily needed to add another defensive tackle, but if they feel like they are close to really kicking major ass this year, and a really good one is on the market, then I totally get it.

They did just that. Bravo. This is exciting stuff!

Onto Baltimore.

Go Hawks.

I decided days ago that nothing was going to rain on my parade when I got to Lumen Field to watch the Seattle Seahawks take on an intimidating Cleveland Browns team. Rain or shine, win or lose, it was going to be a special day.

The Seattle Seahawks used to wear the best uniforms in the Nation Football League.

Nope! Strike that. The best football uniforms on Planet Earth.

From 1983 to 2001, the Seahawks donned a bitchin’ sweet silver helmet, silver green and blue pants, and a sweet ass blue and green jersey, and the rest of the league looked like professional bugger eaters next to them. Sure, the 49ers and Broncos might have been way better teams, but their uni’s sucked donkey nuggets.

I understood why the team changed up the look in 2001. Paul Allen had now owned the team and built a brand new stadium. The nineties Seahawks had a stigma. They were run into the ground by a horrendous previous owner, and they were almost moved to Los Angeles. Allen stepped in, and bought the team with a promise by local leaders that a new stadium would be built.

I think Allen wanted to turn the page from the Ken Behring years as much as he could. A new stadium, along with a new look for the team felt completely understandable. The thing of it was, though, the Seattle Seahawks in the 1980’s, when the Nordstrom family owned them, were a lot of fucking fun, and this region loved them passionately,

As a young teen in 1983, I fell in love with them when Dave Krieg took over at quarterback for Jim Zorn, and guided them to the AFC Championship Game. I have been hooked on them ever since.

And I have been waiting for years to see them back in the uniforms that I loved watching every Sunday as a teen and then as a young adult. The Cleveland Browns could have come into Seattle and boat raced them, and I would have enjoyed seeing the team in those magnificent colors again.

Fortunately, that did not happen. Nay, the Seahawks managed to prevail during this long awaited day. It wasn’t easy, and I think they made it harder on themselves than necessary, but at the end, they made more of the better plays, and Cleveland did not.

I suspect much is going to be made about Geno Smith on local sports radio and on that X thing formerly known as Twitter. Many people on knee deep stuck in their priors about him, and are pining for his replacement. I am not one of them, but in my view, even I would say Geno had a sporadic day.

During the first few offensive series, I thought he looked great, and he eventually had a beautiful roll out touchdown pass to Tyler Lockett. He also threw an interception close to the red zone that prevented Seattle from scoring more right before the half, and then tossed another pick later in the game. Additionally, he threw another ball that could have easily been a pick six had the Cleveland DB held onto the pass.

The picks weren’t even the most concerning thing for me. From my nose bleeder vantage, I saw him give up on receivers who looked open a few times, and he was weirdly off on his accuracy at other times.

I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he was facing a top defense against the pass, and maybe that was leading to some erratic decisions and accuracy issues, but I will also say the a $30 plus million dollar a year quarterback needs to play better. I will also further say that when the defense came up with a HUGE in the final minutes to get an interception off of JAMAL ADAMS’ HEAD, and got the ball back for the offense, I felt that Geno Smith was going to guide this offense for the go ahead score, and guess what?

Geno Smith marvelously guided Seattle for the go ahead score with some sweet ass passes.

So, you can criticize him all you want to about playing poorly during portions of the game, but you have to also praise him for how he finished it off. He engineered a come from behind win in the closing seconds that was capped by a fun screen pass score by Jaxon Smith Ngijba led by a fantastic block by DK Metcalf. Bravo.

Also bravos go out to the Seahawks continuing to win with young player stepping up. JSN had 3 catches for 36 yards and a score. Jake Bobo had two grabs for 23 yards, and a fun rushing score early in the game to further solidify his cult hero status. Boye Mafe got another sweet as sugar pie sack in the game making it five sacks in five games in a row for him now, and cornerbacks Riq Woolen, Devon Witherspoon, and Tre Brown all had solid games.

The young corners are playing so well together with the safeties now, you have to wonder where quarterbacks are apt to go to with the ball. This bodes really well for this defense moving forward. Cleveland is a really good team, I think, and Seattle’s defense made it hard on them even though they allowed themselves to get burned by the screen pass a few times.

The icing on the cake for the youngster participants in this contest, however, was the running back tandem of Ken Walker and Zach Charbonnet. K9 had 8 carries for 66 yards, and Zach had 5 carries for 53 yards, and caught a couple nice passes. For as loaded up as this offense is at receiver and tight end, it’s the backs who really get my juices flowing when the get going. With these two guys, I think Seattle has the potential to have the best backfield in the league in a short amount of time.

Their production on the ground begs the question, yet again, why offensive coordinator Shane Waldron did not dial up more play action for Geno Smith? It seemed like the vast majority of his 37 pass attempts were off of straight drop backs. This has kind of become an odd trend, lately, considering how well Geno had been playing off of play action earlier in the season. With these two backs, and Geno being pretty good at it, you would think play action would be more of the focus of the attack.

But like I said, nothing was going to rain on my Seahawk parade in this one. It was beyond fantastic to be at the stadium for this game. It was great to see the team play in those fabulous old colors, it was fun listening to all the nineties and eighties music that filled the air, and the crowd was electric.

There was an air about the place that felt like the high points of Seahawk football in the old Kingdome. It was loud, and proud. The whole place went holy bat shit when that pass bounced off of Jamal Adams’ glorious silver helmet, and into the loving mitts of Julian Love. I knew then and there that we were going to score and win the game.

It just had that old special Kingdome feeling.

I’m so glad that I was there for this game. It wasn’t the prettiest win, but it was a very Seattle Seahawk-y win.

I won’t lie. I also want to see this team return to these uniforms permanently. Enough time has gone by from the sad sack Ken Behring ownership days. As this young team moves further away from the historic Legion Of Boom Seahawk team, let them have their own look. I suspect many of these young guys would love to make this uniform look regular.

And why wouldn’t they? They looked great in them!

After all, it’s the dopest look in the league and it isn’t close. See, I’m a Gen X’er who uses the term dope. That’s bitchin’ rad.

Go Hawks!

I love what Pete Carroll and Clint Hurtt are brewing up with this new Seahawks defense. It’s way different than what they ran last year. It’s faster, they attack the gaps harder, and it feels more multiple as it ebbs and flows between 3-4 and 4-3 variations.

On early downs, you might see something that resembles a 5-2 look with three big bodied men inside, and two book end linebacker/end types at the line of scrimmage (shades of the 3-4). More often, you see a nickel defense with a nose tackle and defensive tackle controlling the A and B gaps inside and two ends (shades of the old LOB 4-2-5 defensive front).

Sometimes you get variations of the 4-2-5 nickel where either both the ends are standing up, both have their hands in the dirt, or one is in a standup posture while the other guy is in the three point stance. Constantly out of this front, you see all kinds of designed twists and stunts and blitzes happen, and almost every guy on the defensive line seemingly has multiple roles that they are capable of playing.

Dre’Mont Jones is a great example of this. He listed as a defensive end, but he can be seen making plays in the backfield firing out of the nose tackle position lined up between guard and center. He can also do standup stuff like a rush linebacker. Functionally, he’s as close to a thing as Michael Bennett that Seattle has had since, well.. Michael Bennett.

The reason why these guys have so much thrown at them is that Clint Hurtt wants to attack the offensive line as much as possible, and the way he is coaching these guys up is to know and understand multiple positions, and be able to play them at a high enough level whenever called upon. He wants confusion to occur with the blockers. He wants to send blitzes and stunts, and he doesn’t want to stay in the same looks over and over again while doing it.

This is a very different scheme than last year when Hurtt had the defensive line trying to read in and react in a very predictable and passive way. That may have been more of the Vic Fangio thing he was trying to install, but it wasn’t working, and it was a really difficult thing to watch on Sundays.

This new thing? It feels like Carroll’s old defense if it had melded into more 3-4 stuff than they did back in the day.

In fact, you could say Uchenna Nwosu has often been playing the Cliff Avril rush end role, and also playing the Bruce Irvin like SAM linebacker. Paired with Boye Mafe as the other hybrid linebacker/end, Nwosu has seemed like an essential player who Seattle could ill afford to lose.

So when news broke Monday that his season was over with a pectoral injury, my first thought was “oh, shitters.”

Then, after I collected myself, I thought about Frank Clark a lot, and I was like “pretty, please go get him.”

Needless to say, I dig this return of Clark to Seattle. I’m not expecting him to be a star player again, and I don’t think I need him to be that. What I think he can be is an important, steady, veteran piece to this versatile defensive scheme.

For one, even if he’s not the same sack master that he once was, he will set a strong enough edge against the run whenever he’s on the field. If Seattle pairs him with Boye Mafe on run downs, I will feel confident about this defense continuing to be a top ten unit against the run.

Boye Mafe is an ascending talent on this defensive line, and may very well be on his way to becoming Seattle’s next star player there, but he needs a mate on run downs. I don’t think Darrell Taylor is steady enough against the run, and I feared Seattle trying to pair him with Mafe as soon as news broke about Nwosu’s injury. Rookie Derick Hall is an interesting player, but is still probably pretty raw. Frank Clark, however, has all kinds of seasoning.

He’s savvy, aggressive, strong, and mean. He can play linebacker, end, and he’s big enough to slide inside, if needed.

He will bring an attitude for others to play off of, and he also has great chemistry with the resurgent Jarran Reed. Whatever is needed to keep the steady rotation going, and to give offensive linemen more to think about, I think Clark is capable of providing.

Darrell Taylor is a perfectly fine player to have as a rush end on obvious pass rush downs, and should probably stay at that spot. Let him excel at getting sacks. Just let Frank be the one mostly setting the edge against the runners.

The player who might be the biggest beneficiary to Frank’s presence could actually be Derick Hall, in my mind. He’s built very similarly to Clark, and has a similar violent style about him. Frank Clark is exactly who I thought of when Seattle drafted him last Spring. Now, he gets to learn from him.

Perhaps the biggest reason why I love this move is that it didn’t involve any sort of splashy trade for a big named player on another team. I didn’t want to see Seattle trade DK Metcalf for Brian Burns, or send a high round pick to Washington for Chase Young.

I need to see Seattle stay firmly intrenched in a draft and develop mode of operation for a while longer. I need to see this team hit on one more draft class in 2024 to finish out this rebuild post Russell Wilson. Now is not the time to trade high picks away for other teams’ players. Now is the time to develop Boye Mafe and Derick Hall into stars, and draft one more kick ass group next year to finish this out correctly.

This team has spent two high second round picks on edge rushers in back to back years, so develop them. Bringing in Chase Young and paying him a boat load of money is practically giving up on the guys you just drafted.

Adding Frank Clark, however, is adding a veteran player good enough to play a factor in the rotation, who has a history here with Hurtt and Carroll, and a chemistry with Bobby Wagner and Reed, and he is not going to hinder what they just invested high picks in. When you factor that he didn’t cost any draft pick vital to fully building up this team right, while it might not be the sexiest move to make, it feels the smart move.

And let’s be honest about another thing.

Frank Clark is a bit of a wacky pit bull, right? Like, he might not be the guy you want to sneak up on in an alleyway after dark.

Well, the team just brought this pit bull back into the fold of pit bulls that include Jarran Reed, Devon Witherspoon, Jamal Adams, and Jordyn Brooks. That is a whole lotta nasty dawg on the field together. These are players perfectly willing to do a fella ugly whenever they got the ball in their hands.

Something tells me this could become a whole lotta something fun down the stretch when the schedule gets tougher. Frank Clark may not be the same player he was when he last played here in 2018, but you can’t discount just how tough and fiesty that dude probably still is.

Nah, I like this move a lot. I want to see this defense turn into something nasty and fearsome again.

When Carroll broke up the LOB by cutting Richard Sherman, and trading away Michael Bennett, he has spent years trying to recapture the essence of what those guys brought to the field along with Kam Chancellor and Earl Thomas, and others. Now, it feels like it’s finally coming back. Frank Clark was there with them, and so was Bobby, and Jarran.

Welcome home, Frank Clark. I’m glad you’re back.

Go Hawks!