The Seattle futures of two key players are at top of mind after the blowout win over the 49ers.
Bobby Wagner’s historic performance is the kind of game that seemingly makes re-signing him next year a no-brainer — but, of course, it’s not.
On the other side, D.J. Fluker’s hamstring injury is another reminder why the injury-prone road grader was available on the cheap this year and why the Seahawks should tread lightly in their expected offer to him after the season.
It’s looking more and more like K.J. Wright and Doug Baldwin are in their final seasons with the Seahawks — and, if the Hawks don’t want to pay Bobby Wagner again, he will have to join them.
The Seahawks created a lot of shockwaves when they separated from a handful of their Super Bowl stars earlier this year — a sudden about-face for John Schneider and Pete Carroll that showed they were ready to remake the team.
A lot of fans are going to hate this, but the smart ones will recognize the reality of it: Wagner, Baldwin and Wright all might join Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman, Michael Bennett, Kam Chancellor and Cliff Avril as former Seahawks next year.
Continue reading Could be final season for Baldwin & Wagner, too
When the Seahawks signed Mychal Kendricks before Week 2, we figured it could be a really short marriage or else one that was interrupted by a suspension that lasted for as long as half the season.
The Hawks fortunately got three good games out of Kendricks while K.J. Wright was out, and then the NFL went the overly harsh route of suspending Kendricks indefinitely — which typically means beyond the season.
But, thanks to the doggedness of Kendricks and Pete Carroll, the linebacker will be back for the final month of the season and the playoffs after the NFL finally picked a definite suspension: the eight games we originally thought he might get.
Continue reading Good news: Kendricks has a ‘definite’ suspension, will be back in December
We’ll never know whether the Dallas Cowboys would have put together a deal for Earl Thomas this week if the Seahawks’ star safety had not been lost for the season.
Instead, the Cowboys sent a first-round pick to Oakland for Amari Cooper, who joined Carlos Hyde and Eli Apple as starting players already changing teams as the trade deadline nears.
There’s surely more to come before next Tuesday, but will the Seahawks be one of the teams in the action?
Tom Cable won’t recognize the offensive line on the other side of the field in London — because it is playing better than any unit he coached in Seattle since 2012.
Mike Solari replaced Cable (who ended up back in Oakland) this year and has tailored his hybrid scheme to fit the talents and aggressive nature of a line that now includes former first-round picks Duane Brown, D.J. Fluker and Germain Ifedi; second-rounder Justin Britt, and Cable’s one-time conversion project, J.R. Sweezy.
Since Fluker and Sweezy took over at the guard spots in Week 3, the Seahawks have led the NFL in rushing (474 yards on 105 runs) and are now in the top 10 overall — like they used to be when Marshawn Lynch was Beast Moding to bail out Cable’s poorly schemed and oft-injured lines.
If they keep going like this, the Hawks should try to keep this group together for a couple more years.
The running back drama is operatic this week.
The Seahawks finally have rediscovered their long-lost running game just as they prepare to face the embodiment of their old one and, just as coincidentally, the coach they ditched so they could find it again. Meanwhile, Seattle’s first-round pick has had nothing to do with it, frustrating him and fans who are calling him a bust and wanting to trade him for a kicker.
Continue reading As Hawks face Lynch, rushing game is back — without Penny
Pete Carroll and the Seahawks were surprised to learn Mychal Kendricks was suspended for more than just two or three games, which is the punishment they expected when they signed him after Week 1.
Kendricks, who is facing up to three years in prison for insider trading, was suspended indefinitely by the NFL on Tuesday. As we wrote, that probably means he is finished for the year — and until he returns from prison.
Carroll was clearly annoyed by the NFL’s decision.
Continue reading Hawks expected short suspension for Kendricks
Frank Clark is getting a lot of love amid a good start to the season, and he’s obviously enjoying it.
The best part of the Pete Carroll mic’d up video is the ref telling Pete to tell Frank Clark to stop flexing while he’s on top of the QB. pic.twitter.com/yuIOpnhops
— Parker Lewis (@ParkerLewisJR) September 27, 2018
But the big question: Will the Seahawks show him some financial affection at some point?
Continue reading Clark working toward his payday; will it come from Hawks?
Over the past three years, the Seahawks have drafted eight players in the third round — a league-best haul created by comp picks and draft trades that figured to help forge the next core of Pete Carroll’s team.
But it hasn’t so far — at least not as much as Carroll and John Schneider surely hoped it would.
With about 20 percent of this season complete, only one of those eight guys has become a starter and only two others are even contributing much.
That has to be disappointing after Schneider set up Seattle for some quality drafts in 2016 and 2017 — 11 picks in the first two days. Of seven third-rounders from those drafts, Shaquill Griffin is the only one to crack the first string (he has two interceptions this season).
The Seahawks have some temporary (we hope) problems at linebacker, and they came up with a controversial solution when they reportedly added Mychal Kendricks, who faces up to three years in prison when he is sentenced in January for insider trading.
Assuming his only fault is that he cheated to gain some extra investment cash, Kendricks is not any kind of risk for the Hawks — and there’s no reason to dislike the move. He committed a victim-less crime and will pay his penance after his Jan. 24 sentencing.
Most fans seem to agree with us, not overly concerned about his financial crime — knowing he did not hurt anyone and will pay for his investment shenanigans later. But some wonder whether the NFL might suspend him, making this signing moot.
Continue reading No risk: Kendricks might be here for only a week
