Everyone knows Pete Carroll loves competition. And John Schneider loves COMPetition — working free agency so he ends up with compensatory draft picks the next year.
He has done it in four of the past six years — and he got three extra selections today when 2020 picks were announced. But is it really a game worth playing? Has Schneider found any diamonds in the rough with these extra picks?
Continue reading Will Schneider keep playing the comp game, despite little return?
Pete Carroll thinks he finally knows how to put together his pass-rush puzzle.
Jadeveon Clowney: “Once we start clicking on all cylinders, I think we’re going to make a big push at the right time.”
Carroll expects L.J. Collier “to show you … in the next few weeks that he’s going to be able to figure into what’s happening.”
Tyler Lockett is poetry on and off the field.
Bobby Wagner’s signing pretty much ends Seattle’s big-money deals for the foreseeable future. Now the Seahawks find themselves in wait-and-see mode, just like John Schneider and Pete Carroll’s early years in Seattle.
The Seahawks acquired and developed a lot of talent from 2010 to 2013 and were able to pay all of the top guys: Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor, Marshawn Lynch, Richard Sherman, K.J. Wright, Russell Wilson, Wagner, Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril, Doug Baldwin.
The Seahawks are still counting on Wilson, Wagner and Wright — all of whom got third contracts this year. But the team now needs to see which players, if any, become the next generation of stars in Carroll’s program.
In one swell foop Thursday, the Seahawks reset their offensive line for 2019 — bringing back D.J. Fluker and swapping in Mike Iupati for J.R. Sweezy (basically a trade with Arizona).
The Hawks now have four former first-round picks and one second-rounder as their line starters. You can hardly get better draft pedigree than that.
They also will return four starters to the line that led the league’s top rushing attack in 2018. They just have to hope Fluker and Iupati can stay healthy for Mike Solari — or at least combine with Jordan Simmons to put together 32 man-games at the guard spots in 2019.
Then John Schneider needs to work up a plan for beyond next season.
Three years ago, the Seahawks basically traded Paxton Lynch to the highest bidder, which brought them an extra third-round pick in the draft. And now, after the quarterback flamed out in Denver, the Hawks have Lynch, too.
Maybe they just missed having a guy named Lynch on their team.
Continue reading Three years after draft deal, Hawks add Lynch
Some — maybe even many — people thought the Seahawks screwed up by not drafting an offensive lineman before the late fifth round last weekend.
Sure, they could have selected Austin Corbett or Will Hernandez instead of Rashaad Penny with their first pick (after trading down, of course). But the Seahawks have put a lot of resources into the line over the past couple of years, and Pete Carroll obviously is betting Mike Solari will do a much better job with that talent than Tom Cable did.
Carroll is expecting Solari to boost the Hawks out of a two-year funk that has seen them rank second only to Detroit in fewest rushing yards by non-quarterbacks. (Russell Wilson’s 845 yards raise Seattle to 11th worst.)
Continue reading Hawks should have what they need for the O-line
As the Seahawks undergo the biggest roster reshuffle since Pete Carroll and John Schneider arrived in 2010, some are making the mistake of calling this the most important draft in the Schneider/Carroll era.
The simple fact is the last two drafts were more significant.
Every draft is important, but the Seahawks (with no picks on Day 2) are not set up for success in this one like they were in 2016 and 2017, when they had 11 picks in the first two days. Those players should be a big part of the team’s core in 2018-19. They need to come through this year — something Schneider has said more than once.
Tom Cable’s offensive line failed because it was passive and predictable and did not use the players’ skills as well as it should have, and the lack of creativity by Cable and Darrell Bevell made it easy for defenses to beat Seattle — according to some great analysis by former Seattle first-round tackle Ray Roberts on 710 ESPN.
Roberts confirmed what we have said for a long time: Cable’s zone scheme has not worked partly because the Seahawks have not incorporated enough pre-snap motion. There has been almost no misdirection to make defenses wonder what is coming.
“There’s no other thing for linebackers or defenders to read,” Roberts said of the running game. “They know exactly where it’s going and they can come right downhill and defend it.”
Continue reading O-line expert: Cable & Bevell were passive, predictable
As Luke Joeckel returns to Jacksonville to face the team that made him the No. 2 pick in the 2013 draft, the Seahawks finally have put together a quintet of blockers that could carry them the rest of this season — and perhaps for the next few.
The crew of (from left) Duane Brown, Joeckel, Justin Britt, Ethan Pocic and Germain Ifedi looks like the best Seattle has had in two seasons. It should be, based on draft pedigree — Brown, Joeckel and Ifedi were first-round picks and Britt and Pocic second-rounders.
Talking about it is tiresome, but it’s really the only thing hindering the Seahawks from winning another Super Bowl, so, until the Seahawks fix their offensive line, it will remain the topic du jour.
People can talk all they want about Kam Chancellor’s 2015 holdout or Earl Thomas’ 2016 injury being major factors in the Seahawks not advancing far in the playoffs those years. But the simple fact is: If the Hawks’ offensive line had been anywhere close to average in those seasons, the Hawks would have had a great shot at winning the Super Bowl — even with the issues in the secondary.
So now here we are again, coming off a significant opening loss to one of Seattle’s top NFC rivals, and the offensive line remains the biggest hindrance to Seattle’s success. And we have no idea if it will become any good, despite the insistence of Pete Carroll and Tom Cable that it will.
Continue reading When will Hawks’ O-line investments pay off?
CHAWK TALK: Everything being said about the Seahawks 