Kam Chancellor and Frank Clark are game-time decisions for ATL-SEA.
The weather is expected to be a big player in the game.
The Seahawks had great things to say about Dan Quinn, their former DC who brings the Falcons to town this weekend.
Julio Jones vs. Richard Sherman is the matchup everyone wants to see.
But K.J. Wright said this “is a linebacker’s game,” and Bobby Wagner said he thinks he and Wright are up to the big challenge of stopping Atlanta RBs Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman.
Russell Wilson says he will play vs. the Jets.
Germain Ifedi, who could return this week, said he was happy his high ankle sprain did not keep him out longer.
Nick Vannett also is back from his own high ankle sprain, which kept him out six weeks.
Luke Willson says his turn as H-back means defenses can’t key on the Seattle two-TE offense.
Tom Cable and Bradley Sowell talked about the improvement of the offensive line.
The Seattle O-line faces yet another tough D-line, with Leonard Williams and company.
Some of the age-old bugaboos showed up in the home opener as the Seahawks committed penalties, gave up sacks and surrendered big chunks of yardage in the short passing game.
They committed 12 infractions, costing them 111 yards. It’s to be expected in preseason games, with lots of young guys shuttling in and out, so not a real big deal. And let’s remember: The Hawks led the league in flags in both Super Bowl seasons.
Sacks were a big problem early last year, with Wilson being taken down more than four times a game through the first eight. On Thursday, the Vikings got him four times — mostly due to him holding the ball too long or getting caught by blitzes.
Wilson took the blame for two of the sacks, and Pete Carroll said the offense did not react to Wilson’s blitz pickup call on another.
On defense, the Hawks ran into the same problem that has plagued them for most of Carroll’s tenure: short passes. Veteran QB Shaun Hill picked them apart with his running backs and tight ends in the first half, hitting 11 of 17 passes for 127 yards and leading the Vikings to a touchdown.
Here’s a look at what else we saw, by position:
Continue reading Old bugaboos return, plus positional observations
The Seahawks didn’t have a so-called “championship offseason” last year, and the results were pretty predictable: no championship.
Everyone hoped they could overcome all of the negatives — the loss of confidence in Pete Carroll after his asinine Super Bowl call, the silly fan backlash against Russell Wilson, the poor health of almost their entire secondary, the pointless holdout of Kam Chancellor, the idiotic coaching decision to start Drew Nowak at center.
It all added up to a disjointed start and disheartening finish. It was obviously too much to overcome for a team that had become fractured and really needed to be glued back together again.
The Hawks entered this offseason with more than a few concerns about their ability to bounce back. They needed to replace Marshawn Lynch, deal with unhappy campers Chancellor and Michael Bennett, rebuild their offensive line and fortify their defensive line.
At this point, it looks like they have put the glue in place for all of those fixes: Lynch was replaced by three draft picks; Chancellor made up with the team; Bennett sounds like he will come back ready to repeat his stellar 2015 season; the club replaced Russell Okung, Alvin Bailey and J.R. Sweezy with five linemen and Brandon Mebane with three.
Carroll says this offseason “almost feels like a rebirth.”
“We’ve been through a lot of stuff; we’ve been challenged by a lot of stuff,” he told 710 ESPN on Monday. “We’ve learned so much: winning and losing and then trying to come back again and still maintaining this huge standard and expectation. And we know it’s right there for us. Everybody feels it. That’s what is really fueling the energy around the building and why we’re so enthused. And then we hit it with this draft, so it’s feeling pretty good. Millions of things have to happen, but we’re in the right place right now.”
Let’s take a post-draft look at the roster and see whether that is true:
Everyone always laughs at the instant draft grades handed out by analysts — the argument being that it is impossible to know how well a team did until its draft class has shown itself over a couple of years.
That part certainly is true. But the one part of the draft that can be judged immediately is the value a team received for its picks.
The Seahawks haven’t always gotten great value for their picks. It’s why they were judged harshly in 2011 and 2012 — even though they found future stars in both of those drafts.
This draft has pretty unanimously been judged a success — both because the Seahawks seemingly picked up good players who filled roster needs and because they got some great value along the way.
Continue reading Looking at the value (picks & cash) of Seattle’s draft class
John Schneider has built a reputation as a draft pick collector. He’s such a pick hoarder that he had surrendered picks to move up just twice in his first six drafts.
Well, in his seventh draft, he flipped the script, trading up twice. And he did something he had never done during the draft: trading a future pick to get back into a round.
The move up to draft Jarran Reed in the second round on Friday cost the Hawks their fourth-round pick and meant they were going to have to wait 72 picks before their first selection on Day 3. But they saw another defensive tackle they liked in the fifth round (before their pick at 171), so they decided to send New England a 2017 fourth-rounder so they could pick Quinton Jefferson.
It was the first time since 2009 — before Schneider and Pete Carroll arrived — that the Seahawks had dealt away a future pick during the draft. In 2009, Tim Ruskell traded gave up a 2010 third-rounder as part of a package to get back into the 2009 third for wide receiver Deon Butler.
Continue reading Schneider leans on 2017 comp picks to add DT
“I think it’s going to be a hell of a class.” — John Schneider, after adding five players in the first two days of the draft.
For the first time since 2010, the Seahawks did not do anything offbeat — and it looks like it could turn out to be their best draft in four years.
The Seahawks like to point out that their grading system is not the same as the rest of the league, but this time most of their picks matched projections — and they got some great value as they filled holes on both lines and added depth at running back and tight end.
CHAWK TALK: Everything being said about the Seahawks 