Category Archives: State of the team

NFL draft, State of the team, The roster, Trades

No matter how season ends, Hawks have to make changes next year

November 20, 2015 cc 2 Comments

Chancellor, Carroll and Schneider No matter how the season ends for the Seahawks, they have some key changes to make next year.

They certainly don’t need to blow up the team completely – even if they miss the playoffs. But they will need to make a few small detonations — even if they make the postseason and even if they somehow manage to win the Super Bowl (which seems like California dreamin’ at this point).

Whether Pete Carroll intends to stay beyond 2016 or not, John Schneider needs to fix the problems that have been holding this team back from greatness and help avoid becoming, as he has called it, “one of those teams that skates in and skates out” of contention.

Bottom line: The Seahawks cannot go through another year with such a disjointed offense holding back a potentially great defense. And they have to make some changes to the defense as well – beyond Bruce Irvin leaving in free agency (they will get a taste this week of how Frank Clark and Kevin Pierre-Louis might replace him).

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State of the team, Week 10: Cardinals

Sorry, Pete, your team will not win the West

November 17, 2015 cc Leave a comment

Wilson safety vs. Cards Pete Carroll thinks the Seahawks can still win the NFC West. What else would you expect from Positive Pete?

Yeah, the Cardinals have a few tough games left — Cincinnati, at St. Louis, Minnesota, Green Bay and Seattle – but they would have to lose at least three of those and the Seahawks would have to win out to win the division.

How can Carroll possibly think the Seahawks are going to win out when they have tough games themselves against Pittsburgh, Minnesota, St. Louis and Arizona the rest of the way?

Carroll said, “To call it now is the biggest mistake you could ever make.” Well, we’re calling the division now. We’ll see who made the mistake in seven weeks.

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State of the team, The roster

Midseason position evaluation

November 9, 2015 cc Leave a comment

The Seahawks have been highly disappointing this season as the combined effects of a Super Bowl hangover (i.e., not fully trusting Pete Carroll anymore), contract squabbles and new additions have yielded the worst-case scenario: a 4-4 record.

But, they won two straight before their bye and now have a chance to redeem themselves in the final eight games.

Let’s take a look at each position to see how it has performed, what it needs to do better the rest of the year and what it might look like next year.

QUARTERBACK

Russell Wilson is completing a career-high 68.8 percent, but that has done nothing to help the offense in the red zone, where Seattle is the league’s worst offense.

Wilson’s crew has been the main culprit in meltdown losses against Cincinnati and Carolina – games the Hawks should have won.

Wilson is in his fourth season now and should be playing at a consistently high level, but he is not. Some of that is due to the subpar OL in front of him, some of it is due to the inconsistent play calls, some of it is due to him.

Wilson needs to have more urgency. He needs to change plays more at the line. He needs to account for blitzers. He needs to move more to create better passing lanes. He needs to find his open receivers more quickly and get the ball out fast.

The Hawks have little room for error in the second half, and Wilson needs to play like it.

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Schedule, State of the team, Week 9: Bye

Second half starts and ends with Arizona

November 5, 2015 cc Leave a comment

Way back in April, we said a 4-4 start would be the worst case for the defending NFC champions. Well, unfortunately, here the Seahawks are.

Pete Carroll understatedly called their record “nothing to be shouting about.” Hell, it’s barely anything to whisper about.

“But,” he pointed out, in his oddball way of speaking, “it did put us in a position where we have a second half to really go forward. We have all of the matchups in the games that we need to play in the division to settle issues and go for it and take it as far as we can.”

He has to hope that is farther than the last time the Hawks started 4-4. In 2012, they rallied to finish 11-5 and had to hit the road for the playoffs, where they beat Washington and lost agonizingly in Atlanta (kinda like they have lost some of their games this season).

It’s just how Carroll’s slow-starting team typically does it. Since Russell Wilson became quarterback, the Seahawks have gotten better as the season has progressed. They are 20-12 (.625) in the first half and 20-4 (.833) in the second.

Last year, they rallied from 3-3 to finish 12-4, and Carroll thinks they are in a similar spot this year.

“I don’t think it feels much different than it did last year,” he said. “I think it’s very similar. It’s unfortunate that it takes us a while, but I think this is an opportunity to observe what it’s like to be where we’ve been and to come back.

“If we’re able to put the second half together like we plan on, then we’ll be really proud of that.”

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State of the team, Week 8: At Dallas, X's & O's

This is Seattle’s worst offense under Wilson

November 3, 2015 cc 1 Comment

Russell Wilson and the Seattle offense are getting lots of credit for a 17-play drive that yielded the winning field goal in Dallas — the first time in four chances this season Wilson has led a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime.

But let’s not let one very inefficient winning drive confuse the facts: This is the worst offense the Seahawks have had with Wilson at quarterback.

The Seahawks scored just once in the skintight 13-12 win in Dallas — the fourth time in eight games they have tallied one TD on offense. In the four other games, they have scored just two TDs. They have yet to score three touchdowns in a game.

In fact, they are the only offense in the league not to put up a TD trifecta. New England has done it in all seven. Arizona has done it five times. Even Oakland has done it four times and Jacksonville three.

Pete Carroll likes to say “it can’t be pretty and perfect all the time” or some silly copout like that, but does it really have to be so ugly and imperfect every damn game? The answer, Pete, is no. No, it doesn’t. If you knew anything about offense, you would have figured that out by now.

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State of the team, Trades, Week 8: At Dallas

Don’t expect any major deals from Seahawks

November 1, 2015 cc Leave a comment

Don’t get too excited about the reports that the Seahawks are working the trade phones ahead of the deadline Tuesday: Any deal they might make almost surely would be minor.

It’s no surprise John Schneider is on the hunt for offensive line help, but the Seahawks are not in financial position to bring on a big-money player such as Cleveland’s Alex Mack or Joe Thomas.

The report that Schneider is willing to trade a receiver such as Chris Matthews is evidence that any deal Seattle makes would be minor. The Hawks are not going to get much for Matthews or Ricardo Lockette, and they surely aren’t going to deal Doug Baldwin, Tyler Lockett or Paul Richardson.

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State of the team, The roster, Week 8: At Dallas

Seahawks trying to build what Cowboys have

October 31, 2015 cc 1 Comment

The Dallas Cowboys have what the Seahawks want, but the only way Seattle could get it is by losing a lot more and using first-round picks.

We’re talking about a great offensive line, of course.

If Russell Okung, who injured his ankle in practice Thursday, misses the game in Dallas on Sunday, the Seahawks will end up starting undrafted players at the tackle spots and center, with a seventh-round conversion at right guard and a second-round reach at left guard.

The Cowboys, meanwhile, have invested three first-round picks in their line over the last five drafts, and they lucked into a potential first-rounder when rookie La’el Collins went undrafted due to a murder case he was peripherally attached to.

The Cowboys won a recruiting war for Collins, adding him to an already stacked line that includes left tackle Tyron Smith, the No. 9 pick in the 2011 draft; center Travis Frederick, the No. 31 pick in 2013; right guard Zack Martin, the No. 16 pick in 2014; and veteran right tackle Doug Free.

“They’ve put their money in it. They’ve got three No. 1s playing there, those guys are all terrific football players,” Pete Carroll said. “Tyron was a guy that we loved coming up; he’s a fantastic athlete at the spot. And Zack’s terrific; it’s just a really good group. I think that they made a commitment to it and they’re benefiting from it. I don’t know if they’re the best one — we won’t see everybody particularly – but they’re as good as we’re going to see all year long.”

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State of the team, Week 8: At Dallas

Bennett says Hawks became complacent, selfish, unfocused

October 29, 2015 cc Leave a comment

The Seahawks are looking to prove this week that they really have awakened from their early-season doldrums and have returned to Super Bowl contenders.

For the record, Michael Bennett has not experienced any hangover — even though he was unhappy with his contract last offseason and considered holding out, as Kam Chancellor actually did. Instead, Bennett has played as well as ever (a bunch of early offsides penalties notwithstanding) — and is coming off a 3.5-sack effort against San Francisco that earned him recognition as the NFC’s defensive player of the week.

In a couple of recent interviews, the always candid Bennett said he chose not to hold out because he is determined to help lead the Seahawks back to the Super Bowl. And he shed some light on the causes, as he sees them, of Seattle’s ridiculous 2-4 start.

To sum it up, Bennett said the team became complacent, greedy, selfish, unfocused — all while getting younger because it has lost some key veterans over the past two years. He said this incarnation of the Seahawks had to learn how to handle losing and needed to regain the trust, chemistry and confidence that had disappeared since the last Super Bowl. He also hinted that XLIX still lingered in the minds of the Seahawks — proof that Pete Carroll did indeed damage his team’s psyche with his stupid call on the goal line at the end of that game.

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State of the team, The roster

P-Rich’s return will mean more later, but just imagine him & Lockett

October 27, 2015 cc Leave a comment

If the Seahawks actually gave Russell Wilson enough time to throw the ball consistently, the return of Paul Richardson would mean a lot more.

As it is, his impending return — whether this week or after the bye — won’t add much to the offense. Not immediately anyway.

But, if the Seahawks can get to the point where Wilson has time to throw some deep balls, Richardson and Tyler Lockett should offer a great deep duo.

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It's bigger than football, State of the team

Remember when the Seahawks ‘slammed’ the door on Hardy?

October 26, 2015 cc Leave a comment

As Greg Hardy proceeds to melt down in Dallas right before our eyes – and right before the Seahawks play the Cowboys this weekend — it’s a good reminder that the Seahawks realized what a head case the mercurial pass rusher was and steered away from him.

If you recall, a report out of Dallas in March indicated the Seahawks were willing to match any offer the Cowboys made for Hardy, who was facing a domestic-assault case and a suspension (which ended up being cut from 10 games to four).

The Seahawks did admit to checking into Hardy, calling it their usual “due diligence,” but general manager John Schneider also said they had zero interest in Hardy once they learned the specifics of the domestic assault case.

“We talk about being in on every single deal so we don’t miss out on something,” Schneider said in May. “… Once we found out what was going on with that situation, we were done. It was over. But we had to find out what happened. We opened that door, we looked inside and we slammed it.”

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