There’s about a 60 percent chance Russell Wilson will throw an interception Saturday against the Carolina Panthers.
Why? It’s just how his clunky season has gone at the Clink.
When it comes to passing, Wilson has been as bad at home this season as he was on the road as a rookie — believe it or not.
Some of it has been him, some of it has been the game plan and plenty of it has been offensive line problems.
The Seahawks have had a tumultuous season at tight end, so why stop now?
Zach Miller has been on IR since midseason, and Tony Moeaki and Cooper Helfet have been taking turns sitting out games for the past month — leaving Luke Willson to alternate great weeks with horrendous ones.
Expect more of the same.
If you ever wondered why the Seahawks prefer veteran defensive linemen to ones they draft themselves, just take a look at the current roster.
Entering the season, the Seahawks had four home-drafted linemen and five outside acquisitions on the active roster. With Jordan Hill heading to IR this week, the only ones still standing are the guys they got from other teams: Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril, Kevin Williams, Tony McDaniel and O’Brien Schofield. (Bruce Irvin is now a starting linebacker who rushes in the nickel, so we’re not counting him as a lineman.)
Contrast the D-line with the defense’s back seven, which is entirely comprised of Seattle draft picks (including Irvin).
Pete Carroll and John Schneider seemingly have always preferred veteran defensive linemen — holdovers Brandon Mebane and Red Bryant, trade acquisition Chris Clemons and free agents Alan Branch, Jason Jones and the current quintet.
It might be because they prefer to play veterans who know all of the tricks, and it might be because they haven’t hit on many linemen in the draft.
Pete Carroll can identify with Ron Rivera’s Carolina Panthers.
Four years ago, the Seahawks were in the same spot: a sub.-500 division winner that won its home playoff game and advanced to the divisional playoff round.
Now the Panthers are trying to do what the Seahawks and five other teams without winning records failed to do over the past decade: Win in the second round.
Since the NFL realigned in 2002, seven teams have made the playoffs at 8-8 or worse, and six have advanced to the divisional round. But none have won.
Like this Carolina-Seattle matchup, each of the five previous games has been a rematch of a game played earlier that season. And, in all but one of those cases, the team that won earlier in the season won the playoff meeting comfortably at home. (Seattle beat Chicago earlier in the 2010 season but lost 35-24 in Chicago in the divisional round.)
As if Carolina didn’t already have enough going against it Saturday.
Dan Quinn reportedly had interviews with five teams lined up.
Darrell Bevell and Quinn both reportedly interviewed with the Bills this weekend. Bevell previously talked with the Raiders, too.
Quinn seems to know who he wants to work with if he gets a top job.
Three Seahawks were named to the No. 1 All-Pro team, and two are on the second team.
Bobby Wagner was named NFC defensive player of the month.
Hugh Millen explains why the Seattle offense had trouble in the first half against the Rams but fared better in the second.
Pete Carroll was miked up for Sound FX, which let us hear a conversation he had with owner Paul Allen.
The offense set records this season despite changing drastically after the Percy Harvin trade, Bob Condotta writes.
Harvin will make a little extra money if the Seahawks win the Super Bowl again.
Former Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren says he has “gotten a couple of inquiries” from teams in search of new coaches.
When a team is in the position the Seahawks are in, waiting for their playoff opponent to be determined, plenty of people get caught up in the “whom to root for” game.
We have always said: If you can’t beat them all, you obviously don’t deserve to win it all. Pete Carroll goes by the same philosophy: “It’s all about us.” The opponent does not matter.
So, don’t worry whether the Hawks end up playing Carolina, Arizona or Detroit next weekend — or Green Bay or Dallas in the NFC title game.
If the Hawks are good enough (and they are) they will beat whichever team advances to meet them.
Here’s a quick look at the three teams the Hawks might face next week:
As Pete Carroll’s assistants interview with various teams this week, plenty of fans are wringing their hands at the prospect of losing them. But there is no reason to fret.
Defensive coordinator Dan Quinn reportedly is on interview lists of San Francisco, Atlanta and the New York Jets. Carroll said offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell already has interviewed with the Oakland Raiders. And Tom Cable will talk to the Jets as well this week.
In fact, Jets owner Woody Johnson reportedly is going to pull off a trifecta interview session in Seattle, talking to Seahawks pro personnel director Trent Kirchner about replacing former general manager John Idzik. Apparently Johnson is not put off by the idea of hiring another Seattle executive.
It seems very unlikely that Bevell or Cable will be hired away — even though they orchestrated the franchise’s best rushing offense ever (the third-best in the NFL since 1985, according to the team).
Continue reading Hawks would be fine even without Quinn, Cable, Bevell
It was easy to fall into the trap thinking: The Seahawks’ offense had put up 35 points against a tough Arizona defense, so they should be able to score two or three touchdowns against the St. Louis Rams, right?
Not so fast.
Russell Wilson and company moved the ball pretty well at times, amassing 354 yards, but they turned the ball over twice and otherwise shot themselves in the foot as they were blanked on the scoreboard in the first half for the first time since 2011. They needed some help from the defense in the second half, too.
A week after rushing for 267 yards on 34 carries, the Hawks tallied just 132 on the same number of runs vs. St. Louis. And Wilson, who was sacked just once and hit a mere four times by Arizona, was sacked three times and hit seven by the Rams, not including a big hit he took on a first-half run.
So, it appears the Arizona game was an anomaly, and the true Seattle offense remains the one that struggles to sustain drives and score touchdowns. In three of the six wins to close the season, the Hawks scored just one offensive touchdown.
But Pete Carroll is not concerned, especially when the Hawks faced Arizona’s No. 5 scoring defense, San Francisco’s No. 10 scoring defense and St. Louis’ red-hot unit, which ranked second to Seattle in points allowed since Week 9 thanks to consecutive shutouts of Oakland and Washington.
Continue reading There’s still hope for inconsistent offense
For the second straight year, the Seahawks are the No. 1 seed in the NFL — and this time, no one should be questioning whether they can use that home-field advantage to win the Super Bowl.
Not after they did it last year.
Forget the fact that no Super Bowl champ has won a playoff game since 2005, when New England did it, and no champ has repeated since the Patriots did it in 2004.
Forget the fact that four teams have not even made the playoffs the next season or that four were bounced in the first game.
Pete Carroll didn’t want to hear it after the Hawks beat St. Louis at home in the season finale for the second straight year to secure the top seed. It’s the fourth time in Carroll’s five seasons the Hawks have beaten the Rams in Seattle in the season finale — three of those wins resulted in NFC West titles.
Continue reading No. 1 defense/seed combo is nigh unbeatable
If you want to know the secret to Seattle’s uncommonly dominant defense, all you have to do is go back about 40 years to the Purple People Eaters.
Before the Seahawks — led by the Legion of Boom — capped a three-year run as the No. 1 scoring defense Sunday, the last defense to accomplish that feat was the Minnesota Vikings, from 1969 to 1971. Led by one of the NFL’s legendary lines — Alan Page, Carl Eller, Leonard Marshall and Gary Larsen — they were known as the Purple People Eaters.
It might not surprise you to learn that those Vikings were coached by Pete Carroll’s mentor, future Hall of Famer Bud Grant. (To add to the historical symmetry, Grant’s D-line coach was Jack Patera, who later became Seattle’s first coach. And Eller finished his career with Patera’s Hawks in 1979.)
Continue reading Carroll’s Legion of Boom channels Grant’s Purple People Eaters
CHAWK TALK: Everything being said about the Seahawks 