This Super Bowl matchup is near and dear to the Seahawks’ aching hearts: The division rival the Hawks cannot beat right now vs. the one-time Super Bowl nemesis the Hawks will always regret not beating.
The Rams and Patriots are the teams the Hawks have to figure out how to defeat if they are going to win another Super Bowl under Pete Carroll.
So how do they do that?
Continue reading Super Bowl clubs are Hawks’ targets, and it starts at home
The 2018 season originally was supposed to be the last hurrah for the Legion of Boom era Seahawks. But injuries in 2017 ruined that, so Pete Carroll and John Schneider turned 2018 into a youth movement instead — an audition for the core of Carroll’s next potential Super Bowl team.
The Seahawks surprised many (not us) by making the playoffs and then had an unnecessarily premature departure, but Carroll is confident he has created the foundation for his next Super Bowl window. Carroll already has re-upped through 2021, and he thinks he has most of what he needs to make a deep playoff push in the next three years.
“We come out of here with a great feeling about our future,” he said after the 24-22 loss in Dallas. “Our guys are excited about it. They know that we can do some damage in the playoffs. They know that we can go a long way …
“You can tell that the nucleus and the core of the team that you need to be a championship club is here. These are the guys that we’re going to build it around. I couldn’t be more adamant about that right now. That’s where we are.”
Continue reading Carroll says the core to ‘go a long way’ is here
“The Seahawks are going to be a running team as long as Pete Carroll is the coach. If you can’t handle that then you probably should pick another team to root for.” — Bob Condotta on Twitter
Condotta is right: Pete Carroll is not going to change his philosophy — or his offensive coordinator. Nor should he.
Unlike some fans, we have no issue with Carroll’s overall tactic of controlling the game with the run and great defense. This is the same philosophy that took the Seahawks to two Super Bowls, and Carroll is very confident it will take them back.
But he will evaluate how the first year with Brian Schottenheimer went, and they hopefully will improve their in-game adjustments so they can avoid the kind of unnecessary playoff loss they just experienced in Dallas.
As Carroll said, “We have to adjust a little bit quicker.”
Continue reading Carroll’s Hawks will run, but they ‘have to adjust a little bit quicker’
“It feels like we are just getting started.” — Pete Carroll
Consider the Seahawks’ next Super Bowl window officially open.
A day after Pete Carroll led the Hawks to the playoffs for the seventh time in his nine seasons, he signed an extension keeping him in Seattle for three more years.
It does indeed feel like the Seahawks are just getting started — both this year and beyond.
Continue reading With Carroll re-signed, playoff-bound Hawks ‘just getting started’
While everyone else marvels over the fact that the Seahawks are over .500 this deep into the season, we’re more concerned about how Seattle’s historically bad run defense might prevent the team from advancing in the playoffs.
We have always projected the Hawks to be above .500 at this point (they actually have underachieved by a game in our eyes), and it speaks well of their developing offense that they have been able to stay in games against high-powered offenses such as the L.A. teams, Green Bay and Carolina — rallying to beat the latter two.
But Seattle’s defensive line has proven to be more of a liability than we thought it would be. No one expected the pass rush to be very good outside Frank Clark — and that largely has proven true (Clark has 10 sacks, Jarran Reed a mildly surprising 5.5 and the rest of the team 12.5). But the run defense has been a major disappointment.
“We’ve put together four weeks of pretty good football. … I’m really pleased with where we are right now taking off for this break.” — Pete Carroll
As sad as the death of Paul Allen is — and will continue to be this year and beyond — the Seahawks still have a season to play. And it looks like they at least have a chance to make it a special one in honor of Allen.
The Seahawks took care of business in London, climbing back to .500 in style — a blowout win in front of a record, partisan crowd — as they head into their bye. Their three wins are one fewer than we thought they would have by this time, but they’re also just 12 points short of a possible perfect start.
The Seahawks could barely get out of their own way in Arizona, missing two field goals, going 0 for 10 on third downs, committing eight penalties, losing Earl Thomas and Will Dissly.
If it weren’t for a 171-yard rushing day, some stout defense against David Johnson and rookie QB Josh Rosen and Arizona dropping some passes, the Hawks might not have evened up their record at 2-2 as they prepare to host the juggernaut Rams, who sure look like the NFL’s top team at this point and come to Seattle as touchdown favorites.
The Hawks are a game off our projection due to the loss in Chicago, but how does Pete Carroll see his team after the first quarter?
Continue reading Seahawks’ status report after NFL’s first quarter
It looks like the Seahawks just lost three players for the season.
In addition to Earl Thomas and Will Dissly, who both were put on IR on Tuesday, Mychal Kendricks looks unlikely to play the rest of the way — he was suspended indefinitely by the NFL for his inside-trading case and is likely out of commission until after he finishes his prison sentence.
The Seahawks need to end this soon.
They have enough problems without having to put up with the drama of a star player who refuses to practice. Time to trade Earl Thomas. Take the second-rounder and move on.
The Hawks reportedly are considering fining him for missing two practices last week as they prepared to play his favorite team, Dallas.
Robert De Niro’s “Meet the Parents” character would be disappointed. Pete Carroll, Brian Schottenheimer and Russell Wilson would not make Jack Burns’ “circle of trust.”
They can’t even create their own triangle of trust with the Seahawks. Wilson does not trust Schottenheimer’s scripted plays, so he holds the ball too long, which puts the Hawks in deficits. Then Carroll gets impatient and orders Schottenheimer to abandon his balanced attack and take deep shots. When those fail and the Hawks are in desperation mode, Wilson starts calling more audibles. But, because his lack of trust helped put them in this position, Carroll and Schottenheimer don’t trust him to do that.
On top of that, no one buys Carroll’s explanations for his running back roulette.
It’s a vicious circle of antitrust.
