Category Archives: NFL history

Are Hawks about to become 2003 Bucs?

Mike Macdonald is not going to bench Sam Darnold, and now we have to hope he is not sending his Seahawks down the same path as the 2002-03 Tampa Bay Buccaneers – a Super Bowl champion with an elite defense that faded the next season (and beyond) due to a dysfunctional offense.

Macdonald thinks Darnold’s poor play is a symptom and not the problem – even though the quarterback has been a major factor in all three losses with six interceptions (seven in his four games total).

Macdonald thinks Darnold is still the best choice at QB.

“We have a lot of faith in Sam,” Macdonald said. “Sam has played great football for us. He’s done a lot of great things this year. He’s obviously turned the ball over more than we want to. There are things on our end that can help him play better football, and he’s part of the solution rather than the opposite.”

We have seen nothing to indicate that is true, which is why we think Darnold would benefit from sitting and watching Drew Lock play.

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Another Super Bowl vs. Patriots offers redemptive chance at a dynasty

In the lead-up to Super Bowl LX, there has been a lot of discussion about the previous Super Bowl between the Seahawks and Patriots.

Mike Macdonald’s team is not out to atone for the sins of Pete Carroll in that controversial Super Bowl XLIX giveaway. They DO NOT CARE about that, as Macdonald has made clear. Nor should they. They are their own team out to carve their own destiny.

But, while Carroll ruined a chance at a Seahawks dynasty by losing to those Patriots, it is perhaps apropos that Macdonald could very well begin a Seahawks dynasty by beating these Patriots.

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For 50-year celebration game, Bucs & Hawks have revitalized franchise QBs

As the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Seahawks celebrate 50 years in the league together by facing off Sunday, both have a more immediate reason to celebrate: They have found their next franchise quarterbacks and those guys have them on track to make the playoffs.

This contest, while big in the early NFC playoff picture, is also a lesson in the NFL’s general inability to coach talented quarterbacks into productive ones.

Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold were the No. 1 and 3 overall picks in the 2018 draft, and both were completely unsupported by their first, failing franchises. They were teammates on another bad club for a few games after being traded from their original teams and then finally found places where they could grow into the franchise passers they are today – both secure as the offensive leaders in Tampa and Seattle.

They were victims of the NFL’s ongoing struggle to develop quarterbacks – especially in a system that sends top college passers to the worst teams.

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Hawks should take lessons on how 49ers and Rams keep getting to the Super Bowl

“We feel this is the toughest division in football.” – John Schneider on the NFC West.

The NFC West has been the best division in football for several years now, so it is no big surprise that the NFC championship featured two teams from Seattle’s division.

The 49ers and Rams both have lost in the Super Bowl in the past three years, and now – after a pair of walk-off road wins last weekend — one of them (the Rams) is returning to the league’s championship game. It will be the NFC West’s sixth Super Bowl appearance in the last 10 seasons – another tribute to the best division in the NFL.

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Hey, Trader Joes & cap experts, Wilson is not going anywhere

Russell Wilson, Seattle’s franchise quarterback, was named the NFL’s Man of the Year over the weekend, a long-deserved nod to his many charitable endeavors since he came to the NFL.

In Seattle though, he appears to be persona non grata with a section of frustrated fans who are still plotting (in their crazy heads) to get rid of him. Others are talking about him needing to take less money if the Hawks are ever going to get back to the Super Bowl. Basically, most of these people are saying they don’t believe in franchise quarterbacks.

To be clear: Wilson is not going anywhere. Nor should he since he is the reason the Seahawks keep making the playoffs every year (2017 excepted). And his salary has not stopped the Seahawks from getting back to the Super Bowl; coaching has.

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Hawks try to take the road less traveled

logo-playoffs“There’s a real confidence about us. We don’t care where we are playing.’’ — Pete Carroll, on his 8-1 road Seahawks.

A wild-card team has never hosted a conference championship game, but the Seahawks have a chance thanks to the Vikings’ upset of the Saints in New Orleans on wild-card weekend.

If Minnesota can win in San Francisco on Saturday, the Hawks will be playing for a home game next week. If the 49ers win, though, Seattle will then try to join the three teams that have won three straight road games on the way to winning the Super Bowl.

It all starts with exorcising a couple of curses in Green Bay.

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Adjusted goal for Carroll: Do it better than anyone but Pats

Belichick XLIXPete Carroll’s goal since he arrived in Seattle has been to “do it better than it’s ever been done.”

Sorry, Pete, but there’s only one team that has done that, and it’s headed to the Super Bowl again.

So Carroll and the Seahawks will have to content themselves with trying to do it better than anyone but the New England Patriots.

Bill Belichick and Tom Brady continue to prove they are the best coach-QB combo ever, now on to their eighth Super Bowl together and a cinch for Team of the 2010s as they go for their third win in four appearances this decade and sixth win overall. That’s doing it better than it has ever been done.

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Sherman & Co. need to take NFL Econ 101

Salary cap logoAs NFL players continue to grumble about how “underpaid” they are relative to the NBA (and MLB), Richard Sherman just doubled down with a challenge for players to be ready to strike when the NFL CBA expires after the 2020 season.

For a Stanford guy, Sherman is not very smart. He and these other whiners don’t even understand the economics of their own sport, they apparently can’t do simple math, and Sherman obviously has no grasp of the NFL’s labor history.

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Does Vegas really want these fans?

Not crying any tears for Raiders fans.

The Raiders’ pending move out of Oakland reminds me of my dad’s story from his ill-advised visit to the Coliseum for a Seahawks-Raiders game back in the early 2000s:

As he and my mom walked through the parking lot to the stadium, the air was filled with the stench of marijuana and other gag-inducing odors. Tailgating for Raiders games is apparently one big bong fest.

As my dad watched the game in the first half, the thug behind him kept spitting his chaw onto the back of Dad’s Seahawks shirt. What kind of a lowlife does that to a 60-year-old man?

I asked him why he didn’t get security to toss the miscreant out or have him arrested for assault. He said “security” had no interest in wading into the stands, where they would have been pummeled by drug-addled roughneck Raider fans.

At halftime, Dad took off the shirt and threw it away (fortunately, it was a sunny day) — then went and found seats where he wouldn’t be assaulted. I suspect that was a pretty tough task.

Enjoy the Raiders, Vegas!

 

 

 

Seahawks at heart of key rule proposals

NFL logo and penalty flagThe league owners meetings next week are in Phoenix, which is apropos considering a couple of the proposed rule changes come right out of a game last season between the Arizona Cardinals and the Seahawks.

In that game, Bobby Wagner did his best Kam Chancellor imitation, leaping over the line to block a field goal. The teams ended up playing the full 15-minute overtime and finishing in a tie — the first of two NFL ties last season.

That game provided a lot of impetus for the NFL competition committee’s proposal to ban leaping and cut overtime to 10 minutes.

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