Hawks try to take the road less traveled

January 10, 2020 cc Leave a comment

“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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Playoffs: At Green Bay, State of the team

Roster is still less than two-thirds strength

January 8, 2020 cc 2 Comments

The Humpty Dumpty Seahawks will find a way to put themselves together by Sunday, but you have to wonder how many more times they can do it before they finally have a great fall.

They were the most injured team in the league across the season, according to Man Games Lost. That includes losing their top tight end and center early in the season and their top three running backs in the final month, using six offensive line combinations, playing sick and injured at receiver in several games, never having a fully healthy defensive line and using a rotating cast at safety all season.

It all adds up to a team that has never come close to being 100 percent yet has won 12 games and is headed to Green Bay for a shot at the fourth NFC title game in franchise history. Give Pete Carroll some credit for yoking together this cracked egg of a club.

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Playoffs: At Green Bay

Hawks, Pack resume one of NFL’s best rivalries

January 7, 2020 cc Leave a comment

If you liked the drama of Seattle’s past two games, you will love it when the Seahawks and Packers resume a series that has been one of the NFL’s best non-division rivalries for two decades.

This will be their 16th meeting since 1999, the most for each franchise against a non-division foe. It’s their fourth playoff meeting — also making them each other’s most common postseason foe in those 21 seasons.

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Playoffs: At Philadelphia

Wilson, Metcalf lead Hawks to Green Bay

January 5, 2020 cc Leave a comment

The Seahawks know how to win on the road in the wild-card round, as they proved again in Philadelphia. Now the question: Can they overcome their winless record in road divisional playoff games?

Russell Wilson beat the Eagles’ pressure, thanks in big part to rookie D.K. Metcalf’s record-setting game, and the Seattle defense sacked Philly’s passers seven times in a 17-9 win that was a duplicate of their Week 12 meeting in score, if not in other ways.

The Seahawks improved to 3-5 in road playoff games, all of the wins coming in the wild-card round. It was their first playoff win since the 2016 season, 26-6 vs. Detroit at home, and sent them to the divisional round for the seventh time in Pete Carroll’s 10 seasons. (Who wanted him fired again?)

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Playoffs: At Philadelphia

Roster review as playoffs begin

January 2, 2020 cc Leave a comment

The Seahawks are in the playoffs for the eighth time in Pete Carroll’s 10 seasons, heading on the road for a wild-card game for the fourth time and aiming for their third win in such games.

They got here thanks to a top-10 offense and the league’s No. 3 team in turnover margin. But this club also has the worst defense by a Seattle squad since 2000 — Mike Holmgren’s second season (6-10 record).

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Playoffs: At Philadelphia, Week 17: San Francisco

December was rough, but Hawks are contenders

December 31, 2019 cc Leave a comment

For a half Sunday night, it looked like the Seahawks’ 11-win season might really be a mirage (as some had argued) and they might just be the lucky version of the 2017 Seahawks — you know, the team that crumbled in December amid defensive injuries and poor offensive play and failed to make the playoffs.

But — in their stymied comeback against the 49ers — erstwhile MVP candidate Russell Wilson, rookie Travis Homer and returning legend Marshawn Lynch gave us renewed hope that Seattle can indeed compete with the NFC’s best as these playoffs get under way.

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The roster, Week 17: San Francisco

Lynch on his return: ‘We got unfinished business’

December 23, 2019 cc 1 Comment

Marshawn Lynch said he is coming back to the Seahawks because he has “unfinished business” and simply wants “to help them go ahead and get the Super Bowl that they should be playing for.”

The 33-year-old knows he is not going to be able to do the things he did for Seattle during their Super Bowl runs in 2013-14. But he also still feels the sting of not winning Super Bowl XLIX and wants to try to rectify that major miss.

“We got history there. We got unfinished business,” he said in a YouTube video posted by Beast Mode Productions on Monday.

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The roster, Week 17: San Francisco

Hawks have made Week 17 rebound before

December 23, 2019 cc Leave a comment

The Seahawks just got upset by a bad division rival at home and now face a big finale against a playoff-bound division foe. Sound familiar?

The same thing happened in 2015. In Week 16, they lost to the 6-8 Rams (Seattle’s offensive line played poorly in that one, too) and then (missing a bunch of key players) blew out 13-win Arizona 36-6 in the finale.

On Sunday night, the Hawks (11-4) will face the 49ers (12-3) for the NFC West title — and they will do so without Chris Carson and Duane Brown (and previously injured Rashaad Penny, Justin Britt and Will Dissly) and also still might be without defenders Jadeveon Clowney, Quandre Diggs and Shaquill Griffin (though Pete Carroll sounded optimistic about Clowney on Monday).

Marshawn Lynch is returning to replace Carson for a game or two (or however long the Hawks are in the playoffs) — and Lynch certainly could provide a big emotional lift to a downtrodden 11-4 team, even if Travis Homer carries most of the running load.

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Week 16: Arizona

More injuries mean Hawks face tough road

December 22, 2019 cc 1 Comment

Injuries caught up to the Seahawks in their 27-13 home loss to Arizona, and now we have to hope they don’t cost Seattle a playoff bye — which it could sorely use.

The Hawks, already missing offensive starters Duane Brown, Justin Britt and Will Dissly and backup running back Rashaad Penny, lost Chris Carson and C.J. Prosise against Arizona. That meant an offensive line of Jamarco Jones, Mike Iupati/Ethan Pocic, Joey Hunt, D.J. Fluker and Germain Ifedi — and that five was not good enough against Chandler Jones & Co. Jones had four sacks, two tackles for loss and a forced fumble as the Cardinals held the Seahawks to a season-low 224 yards.

Pete Carroll thinks Carson (hip) and Prosise (arm) are out for the season; Brown, who is having knee surgery, could be back after a couple of weeks (adding more importance to getting a bye).

The defense was without Jadeveon Clowney, Quandre Diggs and Shaquill Griffin (and suspended Al Woods), and Bobby Wagner, Ziggy Ansah and Mychal Kendricks all played injured. That led the Hawks to allow 253 rushing yards — the second-most in Carroll’s 10 seasons in Seattle.

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Injury report, Week 15: At Carolina

Will top 11 defenders play together again?

December 17, 2019 cc Leave a comment

For some (many?) people, it strains credulity that the Seahawks are 11-3 and sitting in the No. 1 position in the NFC with two weeks to go.

Those folks think the Hawks simply aren’t good enough to beat New Orleans or Green Bay or San Francisco, citing Seattle’s historically low margin of victory and inability to beat any team handily.

But they did beat the 49ers already — and they did it with the defense Pete Carroll hoped he would have. The big question: Will he ever have it again this season?

Continue reading Will top 11 defenders play together again? →