Paxton Lynch and Jazz Ferguson made redemptive first impressions, Marquise Blair looked like he could be Seattle’s next great safety, Ken Norton Jr. showed signs of how he is going to fabricate a pass rush and the special teams covered all of the bases.
Those were the top takeaways as Seattle beat Denver 22-14 in the preseason opener Thursday.
Continue reading Lynch, Ferguson, Blair, Norton star in opener
As the Seahawks get ready to open the preseason Thursday against Denver, most fans are itching to see rookie wunderkind D.K. Metcalf.
But we won’t see him play with Russell Wilson, because the starting quarterback will not play (a bunch of other starters will sit, too, Pete Carroll said Wednesday).
But there are a lot of other things to keep an eye on, starting with a defensive line that sure doesn’t seem like it will be ready for prime time yet — if ever this season.
Pete Carroll is ready for the season. But his roster isn’t quite.
After the Seahawks finished off their first winless preseason ever with a mistake-filled 30-19 loss to Oakland, Carroll said, “I’m excited about getting to our 53. We’ve got roles for guys to take over. We’ve got a real clear thought about what we’re doing with a lot of stuff.”
Carroll and John Schneider still have some tweaking to do to get to the 53, though. They already have upgraded at backup quarterback, adding Brett Hundley, and you can bet they will be looking for help at a few other places — perhaps safety, corner, tight end and edge rusher.
Ahead of Saturday’s 1 p.m. cutdown deadline, here’s our final roster projection:
As the preseason winds down, teams are already starting to use trades to address weaknesses in their rosters.
It won’t be long before John Schneider joins the fray.
Schneider always makes a trade at some point before the season — he made seven deals from the start of camp to just before the season last year, and he has made 15 other preseason deals since 2010. That’s an average of 2.75 per preseason.
Schneider has been 50-50 in acquiring and moving out players in these deals. Last year, for example, he traded Kevin Pierre-Louis, Cassius Marsh, Tramaine Brock and Jermaine Kearse while adding D.J. Alexander, Matt Tobin, Sheldon Richardson, Justin Coleman and Isaiah Battle (Duane Brown didn’t come until October).
He probably won’t be nearly as active this year, but it’s a good bet he will make some kind of deal — because he always does. So, which trades might he make?
Continue reading Which trades will Schneider make this week?
After three preseason games, the Seahawks’ roster looks pretty set through about 45 positions.
With only Thursday’s game against Oakland left, the Hawks seemingly are set everywhere but their last few cornerbacks, including the starter on the right side, plus their sixth receiver, their last offensive and defensive linemen and maybe their final linebacker. (UPDATE: Backup QB was up in the air until the Seahawks acquired Brett Hundley on 8/29.)
Injuries will play into a couple of decisions. The Hawks probably won’t put fifth-round tackle Jamarco Jones (high ankle sprain) or J.D. McKissic (broken foot) on IR because they don’t want to lose either for the season. So expect the team to keep them both and then possibly use short-term IR on one or both after Week 1.
That will affect the keepers on the offensive line and at running back, where the Hawks might forgo a fullback (as they did in 2016).
Here’s our roster projection through three games (updated with comments from Pete Carroll):
While the Seahawks work on figuring out their secondary early in the season, it looks like their offense and run defense should be able to carry them.
Playing without senior vet Bradley McDougald, the shuffling secondary had issues stopping Mr. Guaranteed, Kirk Cousins, and Minnesota’s backs and receivers Friday in a 21-20 win by the Vikings. But the run defense was stiff and Russell Wilson and the offense put the Seahawks in the lead by halftime. And Michael Dickson flipped the field on almost every punt — showing what a huge weapon he will be.
Continue reading Offense, run defense, Dickson could carry secondary
It has been an eventful week leading up to the big dress rehearsal game.
Among other things, we learned J.D. McKissic is out 4-6 weeks, Doug Baldwin and Rashaad Penny could be back next week, George Fant is going to compete against Germain Ifedi, and Brian Schottenheimer isn’t satisfied with the running game.
As the Seahawks head to Pete Carroll’s formative NFL stomping grounds in Minnesota for the all-telling third preseason game, the coach has a few goals.
We’re two preseason games into Seattle’s new offensive era, and the reviews on Brian Schottenheimer and Mike Solari have been pretty glowing so far.
Last week, Pete Carroll reiterated that one of his concerns about the old offense was that coaches were starting to “jam our players into the system” rather than play to their strengths.
The obvious example there is Jimmy Graham, who was forced to become a blocker and was not used downfield as well as he should have been. But Carroll also meant the offensive linemen. As he said in May, “We needed to shift gears a bit to match up with the guys we have here.”
Well, after two preseason games, they seem to be making progress.
Philip Rivers and Melvin Ingram gave the Seahawks a great test in Game 2 of the preseason, a 24-14 win by the Chargers, and we can only hope young guys such as Tedric Thompson, Tre Flowers and Germain Ifedi will learn from it.
Meanwhile, Chris Carson again showed why he is the No. 1 tailback (unless he keeps fumbling), Jaron Brown entrenched himself as the No. 3 receiver, David Moore secured a roster spot with a couple of stellar plays, and Maurice Alexander, Dontae Johnson and Poona Ford all gave the coaches something to think about as we head into the final two weeks.
Here’s our roster projection after two games:
The Seahawks have had a couple of surprise changes since their first preseason game.
As they head down to Los Angeles to face the Chargers in preseason Game 2, they will be without Rashaad Penny and Marcus Smith – the latter a surprise release Friday due to personal issues.
The Seahawks were going to have to make a roster transaction to accommodate new pass rusher Erik Walden, but cutting another pass rusher was a surprise.
It’s not like the Hawks are flush with pass rush, but Smith apparently has some personal issues he is working out and Pete Carroll said Smith agreed “it was the right thing to do.”
The Hawks also swapped out a cornerback for a running back, since Penny and Gerald Holmes (concussion) won’t play. In good RB news, C.J. Prosise is expected to play. Of course, he was expected to play last week, too, and then failed to.
Here’s what Carroll is looking for in L.A.: “We need to clean up all of the stuff that happened in the second half (against the Colts). We had 10 penalties in the second half. We need to get rid of that. That was terrible. First half was fine and clean and all that; we moved the ball well and did a lot of good things, but that got in the way in the second half – and it was all the young guys (who) were on the field and they need to be poised and make good decisions and play good, clean football.”
Here’s what we’ll be watching, by position:
CHAWK TALK: Everything being said about the Seahawks 