For some reason, there is a thought among more than a few Seahawks fans that Jimmy Graham won’t — or shouldn’t — be back next season.
The Seattle Times even ran a poll asking whether fans thought Graham and/or Marshawn Lynch would be back, and about 22 percent thought Graham would not return.
Clearly, these people have not observed how John Schneider and Pete Carroll do business. Graham is not going anywhere in 2016.
The Seahawks have been such a middling franchise over most of their 40 years that their miracle moments are easy to recall. Let’s take a look at Seattle’s most miraculous playoff wins:
Wild-card game at Minnesota
Season: 2015
Blair Walsh’s missed 27-yard field goal in the final 30 seconds allowed Seattle to escape with a 10-9 victory.
NFC title game vs. Green Bay
Season: 2014
Seattle rallied from a 19-7 deficit in the final four minutes, getting two touchdowns, an onside kick recovery and a two-point conversion to force overtime, where they quickly won it, 28-22.
When 69-year-old Tom Coughlin was forced out by the New York Giants last week, 64-year-old Pete Carroll became the oldest coach in the league.
Asked about that distinction on KIRO Radio on Friday, the Seattle coach cracked that he has been lobbying for 67-year-old Mike Holmgren, who coached the Seahawks for 10 years, to get another job so Carroll wouldn’t be the oldest.
But age certainly hasn’t slowed Carroll, who is as energized this season as he has ever been.
“I’m having a blast,” he told KIRO’s Dori Monson. “I’ve never had more fun.”
That certainly bodes well for Carroll re-upping after this season. His contract runs through 2016, and — fortunately for Seattle fans — he doesn’t seem inclined to leave any time soon.
Just a little something to get you excited about Marshawn Lynch’s return for the playoffs. It’s a simulcast of the Beast Quake vs. the Saints in January 2011 and the Desert Storm vs. the Cardinals last season:
As stunning as it still is to consider, this is the best all-around team in the history of the Seattle Seahawks. That’s odd to say about a 10-win team — and it would be odder yet if this team had not made the playoffs.
Thirty years ago, it wouldn’t have. Thirty years ago, in fact, a red-hot 10-6 Seahawks team did not make the postseason.
These Seahawks, who have won six of seven and have averaged 32 points over the past eight games, are the team no one wants to play in the playoffs (even if Arizona GM Steve Keim says he does).
It’s fitting that Pete Carroll gets to take Seattle’s No. 1 scoring defense back to Bud Grant’s house next week.
As we all know by now, Grant was Carroll’s most significant mentor — the architect of the Purple People Eaters defense that was the league’s stingiest unit from 1969 to 1971.
Carroll’s crew just capped off a four-year run as the No. 1 scoring defense — a feat that had not been accomplished since the dominant 1950s Cleveland Browns, who did it five straight years in a 12-team league. Clearly, this is a much more significant accomplishment — coming in a 32-team league during an era in which the rules heavily favor offense.
Carroll was fired up about holding the league’s No. 1 offense to six points and finishing two points better than Cincinnati.
“I don’t know if there is a record that I could be more proud of than to see our guys go for four straight years and lead the league in scoring defense,” he said. “I think that is a remarkable accomplishment by a bunch of guys dedicated to the program and what we are doing. It’s hard to do things over a long period of time that well, and that is something about outlasting the opportunity and making sure that you get it done.
“Steven Terrell makes a knockdown at the goal line and to ice it (DeShawn) Shead makes an interception right there,” Carroll said, reliving Arizona’s last drive, which threatened to ruin the streak. “We knew what was going on on the sidelines. The guys were having a ball, trying to get it done, and the offense was trying to keep the football to let that happen. That’s a really cool accomplishment, so we take great pride in that one.”
Carroll got to see Grant, his 88-year-old mentor, when the Seahawks destroyed the Vikings 38-7 in Week 13. And now he will go back to Minnesota having done something Grant’s stellar Vikings defenses never did.
“Of all of the stats, that is the one that takes the most and demonstrates the most,” Carroll said. “We are really proud of that.”
John Schneider and Pete Carroll built the Seahawks into Super Bowl contenders using three strong drafts to start their tenure.
Of their 28 draft choices from 2010 to 2012, 17 contributed in some fashion, a dozen became full-time starters and six have been named to the Pro Bowl at least once. Those three drafts were a great foundation for consecutive Super Bowl appearances.
Then there was 2013. It was a bad draft year for the entire NFL — and Seattle certainly didn’t buck the odds.
Christine Michael’s somewhat surprising return to Seattle and Jordan Hill’s latest injury are reminders.
Now you know why John Schneider doesn’t pay big money in free agency very
often: It usually
isn’t worth it.
The release of Cary Williams this week was the latest example. It was the second straight year the Seahawks have gotten rid of a highly paid veteran addition during the season — and they probably set a record with this one, dumping Williams just 12 games into a three-year, $18 million contract.
A year ago, the Seahawks traded Percy Harvin — the pouting malcontent who for a time had poisoned the Seattle locker room.
Since he took over in 2010, Schneider has acquired nine big-contract veterans — defined as making $5 million a year or more — and six of them have not been worth it.
At tight end for Seattle, it’s the same as it ever was — and that was good enough to get to the Super Bowl the past two years.
Plenty of people are all atwitter about Jimmy Graham’s season-ending injury and wondering how the Seahawks will replace him.
Well, how about the same way they replaced Zach Miller last year? Luke Willson, Cooper Helfet and a new guy.
