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CHAWK LINES, Week 17: St. Louis
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CHAWK LINES -- Merry Christmas!

Bobby Wagner’s surprise Christmas present: a Pro Bowl nod.

Russell Wilson was NFC Offensive Player of the Week.

Rams coach Jeff Fisher on Wilson: “The best way to describe it is that he’s an extra player on offense. They’re playing with 12, and that’s very hard to defend.’’ So, Wilson is a 12th man, too.

Marshawn Lynch was fined $11,050 for grabbing his crotch during his backward dive into the end zone on his 79-yard run vs. Arizona.

Curious about what Lynch and Ricardo Lockette were saying into the microphone boom during the game in Arizona?

The Seahawks needed Jordan Hill to replace Clinton McDonald as the inside rusher, and he finally has, with five sacks in the past five games.

Week 16: At Arizona

Penalty ‘chasm’ is becoming absurd, but Carroll embraces it

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Penalties thru 15 gamesYou know the
Seahawks are a dominant team when they end up with an 11-1 disparity in penalties and three missed field goals and still win by 29 points.

Steven Hauschka’s misses in Seattle’s 35-6 win over Arizona were uncharacteristic, but the penalties — and the ridiculously lopsided nature of them — were a continuation of a theme.

The Seahawks came into the game with 1.9 times as many penalties as their opponents — the worst factorial since the 1953 Cleveland Browns, according to NBC’s stats folks. It only got worse as the Hawks were called for 11 and the Cardinals were assessed just one. Now the Hawks’ penalties outnumber their foes’ by an even 2-1.

Pete Carroll has decided to embrace the obvious bias of the officials.

“I’m not griping about it,” he told 710 ESPN on Monday. “Matter of fact, I kind of like … the (penalty) chasm. Let’s let the chasm continue to broaden for the heck of it and see what happens.”

Continue reading Penalty ‘chasm’ is becoming absurd, but Carroll embraces it →

Week 16: At Arizona

Offense sets records & Carroll has a blast

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Luke Willson makes a catch over Arizona linebacker Larry Foote (AP)Few doubted the Seahawks would beat the offense-challenged Arizona Cardinals on Sunday night. The only question was whether Seattle’s struggling offense would manage to score any touchdowns.

Russell Wilson and company answered that emphatically, amassing a team-record 596 yards and scoring five times in a stunningly offensive 35-6 victory that served notice to the entire league that the Hawks are poised to run over anyone in their path on the way to another Super Bowl title.

Wilson played perhaps his best game of the season, throwing for a career-high 339 yards and two touchdowns and running for 88 yards and a score. He and Marshawn Lynch both turned in mindboggling TD runs — juking, stiff-arming and overpowering Arizona defenders — to put the game out of reach in the fourth quarter.

Combined with a defense that expectedly shut down the Cardinals — 216 yards, just 29 rushing — it was Seattle’s most complete, dominant victory since the opener against Green Bay. And it was Arizona’s first loss of the season at home.

It gave the Seahawks control of the NFC West and the inside track to the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs — both of which can be theirs with a home win over the St. Louis Rams next week.

Continue reading Offense sets records & Carroll has a blast →

Week 16: At Arizona

Nothing against Lynch’s awesome run, but Beast Quake was better

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Beast Quake and Desert StormIn the heat of the moment, plenty of people are calling Marshawn Lynch’s career-best 79-yard touchdown run Sunday the best run of his career. It certainly was another unbelievable effort by Beast Mode, but those people apparently have short memories.

While Lynch’s cutback dash past and through the Arizona defense was a sick run, especially for a guy who had a queasy stomach early in the game, it was only his second-best run ever. His 67-yard Beast Quake run against New Orleans nearly four years ago still stands as the superlative play of his career.

That is not to diminish the Beastly beauty of this latest run, which was remarkably similar to the one that sealed Seattle’s upset win in the 2010 playoffs. On both runs, he started left, cut back right to the sideline and then knocked down a defensive back (or two) on his way to the end zone. And he also finished each run with a satisfying backward dive into the end zone.

Continue reading Nothing against Lynch’s awesome run, but Beast Quake was better →

CHAWK LINES
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CHAWK LINES -- Seahawks at Cardinals

Have the Cardinals replaced the 49ers as the Seahawks’ top rival in the NFC West?

Jerry Brewer is correct when he says the Seattle offense “has to become more sophisticated,” but how can it when the offensive line is such a mess?

I was going to write about the importance of a quick-hit passing game, but John Boyle did a nice job of it.

With the underwhelming Ryan Lindley starting for Arizona, Kenneth Arthur of Field Gulls attempts to foreshadow his performance by looking at some of the worst games by quarterbacks in NFL history.

A preview of the game from The Sports Xchange.

Field Gulls takes an early look at the Seahawks’ 2015 schedule as we know it so far.

Contracts, The roster

All rainbows: Defense set to dominate through 2017

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Double rainbow at Seahawks headquarters
A double rainbow at Seahawks headquarters in Renton on Friday was quite apropos considering K.J. Wright and Cliff Avril got their pots of gold.

The Seahawks’ deals for Cliff Avril and K.J. Wright had been in the works pretty much all year, so it was no surprise they got them done before the end of the season.

It takes away the top two players from Seattle’s sizable 2015 free-agent list and means Seattle now has all but one starter from the league’s No. 1 defense under contract next year (two if you add Kevin Williams to Byron Maxwell).

Wright and Avril join Legion of Boom stalwarts Kam Chancellor, Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman, plus defensive lineman Michael Bennett, as the keys to a defense that could reign over the NFL through 2017.

Continue reading All rainbows: Defense set to dominate through 2017 →

Contracts

Paying a premium: How Wright’s deal affects Wagner and the rest

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Seahawks top salary cap numbersK.J. Wright’s $27 million contract extension is the latest proof that John Schneider and the Seahawks are willing to pay a premium to keep their favorite players.

The Seahawks paid Wright more than they really needed to — he admitted he had a lower figure in mind. We recently projected they would offer him $4 million a year, which was their original goal, per ESPN’s John Clayton, who said Wright wanted $5.5 million.

Instead, they made him the highest-paid 4-3 outside linebacker in the NFL, according to OverTheCap.com. The only outside linebackers with better deals are the guys who rush the passer.

The Hawks obviously value Wright’s versatility — he can play inside or out. But they seemingly overpaid him, just as they did Red Bryant when they gave the run-stopping end $7 million a year.

Continue reading Paying a premium: How Wright’s deal affects Wagner and the rest →

Contracts, State of the team, The roster

With decisions to make, Hawks need to create a more dependable O-line

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The Seahawks' line
Russell Okung (76), James Carpenter and the rest of the Seahawks’ line sit on the bench during their win over the 49ers on Sunday (Seahawks.com)

Rookie right tackle Justin Britt’s
struggles have opened up the
debate about whether the
Seahawks should consider
replacing him next year, but the bigger question is whether the Seahawks should replace the left side of their line — Russell Okung and James Carpenter — over the next two years.

The Hawks are unlikely to give up on Britt so soon, but they definitely will have decisions to make along the line in the next couple of years, especially with three starters up for free agency — not that we can tell a starter from a backup anyway, considering injuries continually knock out Okung, Carpenter and center Max Unger.

Offensive line has long been Seattle’s weakest link — and that predates John Schneider, Pete Carroll and Tom Cable. The last time the Hawks started the same five all season was 2007, and they have averaged seven combinations a year in five seasons under this regime. They really need to find some consistency so the offense can progress.

Continue reading With decisions to make, Hawks need to create a more dependable O-line →