A year ago at this time, the Seahawks were getting ready for a wild-card playoff game against an NFC North team they had helped build. They ended up escaping frigid Minnesota with a lucky win over the Vikings and Teddy Bridgewater, the quarterback Seattle enabled Minnesota to draft in 2014.
Now, here the Hawks are in the wild-card round again, about to face another NFC North team, and personnel ties loom large yet again.
As the Hawks prepare to host the Detroit Lions in the first playoff game between the teams, two of the big storylines involve Golden Tate and Cliff Avril going against their former teams. But the personnel links are deeper than that.
Since coming to Seattle in 2010, John Schneider has done more business with Detroit than with any other team. Of his 42 trades, seven have been with the Lions. And two of them helped create the Legion of Boom.
Michael Bennett’s new deal is the first of several extensions John Schneider figures to consummate in the coming months as he presumably focuses on keeping the core of this Seattle team intact.
The Seahawks are headed back to Green Bay this weekend to renew one of the best non-division rivalries in the NFL — the fifth time in five years they will have faced each other.
Like clockwork, it’s Kam Chancellor time.
A big reason the Seahawks were able to get Marshawn Lynch in 2010 is C.J. Spiller, so it’s somewhat ironic that the guy who helped Seattle get Beast Mode now steps into the same backfield.
The Seahawks’ offensive line has endured a couple of rough games against stellar defensive fronts so far, and Bradley Sowell has been the most consistent problem player.
It’s no wonder John Schneider and Pete Carroll had developed an aversion toward drafting offensive linemen in the first round: They always get hurt.
