State of the Seattle Seahawks

The title must have surprised some of you. Isn’t this a travel blog? Yes, it is a travel blog, but it is also my blog. You see, I am a huge Seahawks fan and I felt compelled to voice my opinions about this team. So if you all could bear with me for this post, I would really appreciate it.

The Seattle Seahawks are a mess of a football organization.

This organization under the leadership of Pete Carroll has fallen from its 2013 Super Bowl glory to a 3-6 football team. Questions are swirling around Russell Wilson’s future, Pete Carroll’s capability as a modern NFL head coach, John Schneider’s perplexing draft decisions, the disaster that was the Jamal Adams trade, and much more. Today, I want to talk about how we got here and why we need to move on forward, whether that future involves Pete Carroll or not. 

After the 2017 season where Seattle failed to make the playoffs, Pete Carroll had some difficult decisions to make. With a deteriorating defense, inept coaching, horrible offensive line play, and no decent running backs to speak of, there were rumors about Pete Carroll considering retirement. However, Pete Carroll decided that instead of retiring, he wanted to give coaching one more shot with a “reset”, hoping to win one more Super Bowl. However, Carroll’s reset has been a complete failure due to poor drafting, perplexing free agency moves and a philosophy that is at odds with the modern game.

Bad drafting has been perhaps the chief reason behind this failure of a reset. The Seahawks have drafted 31 players between 2018 and 2021. Out of those players, how many could you say are true studs, DK Metcalf and Michael Dickson? The 2020 draft class shows promise, but that seems to be it. Jordyn Brooks and Damien Lewis have been inconsistent at best. Darell Taylor has only played half a season. Freddie Swain and Alton Robinson have shown promise but nothing farther than that. The rest of the class has been unforgettable. It is too early to pass the final judgment on much of the 2020 draft class and certainly too early to judge the 2021 class. However, even if we exclude those drafts, we end up with a “hit rate” of 2/20. That number is much too low for a competitive franchise. I challenge you to find a team that has had that little success drafting. These results are simply unacceptable and should be a fireable offense on their own. However, there have been even more transgressions.

Admittedly, in most years, the Seahawks have had little cap space to play with since their reset. However, the 2019-2020 offseason saw the Seahawks spend 60 million dollars and not make any real progress. The Seahawks won one more game in the regular season with a slightly easier schedule and got bounced in the first round of the playoffs. That 60 million dollars went to players like Bruce Irvin and Greg Olsen. Olsen, Irvin, and Hollister made up around 20 million dollars in cap space, enough to sign the big-name pass rusher the Seahawks desperately needed. Yet the Seahawks squandered the opportunity by signing a bunch of average players. If you want more in-depth information regarding that botched offseason, here is a link to a great article on it – http://seahawksdraftblog.com/an-alternative-look-at-what-seattles-off-season-couldve-been

All these reasons show why Carroll and Schneider have been bad off the field. On the field, the Seahawks have been even worse. Confusing time-out choices, poor play in the first half, an unimaginative offense, and conservative play-calling have held the Seahawks back. Sometimes, the entire Seahawks game plan feels like it is either a run up the middle with Carson (when he is healthy) or a deep pass by Russell Wilson. Often, it feels like we fans sitting on the couch can figure out the play call. On defense, the situation is even worse. Last year, it was fairly obvious what the Seahawks were doing. If Jamal Adams was lined up to one side, close to the Line of Scrimmage, it was a blitz with man coverage. If not, it was a soft zone coverage. If fans can predict the play before the ball is snapped, NFL coaches certainly can.

Pete Carroll wants to play like he still has the “Legion Of Boom” and frequently talks about wanting to be the bully. Yet right now, the Seahawks are a finesse team that lives and dies by the play of their star QB. The Seahawks have invested heavily in the safety position with the trades for Jamal Adams and Quandre Diggs plus the top 50 draft pick spent on Marquise Blair. The Linebacker position has also been a perplexing spot of investment with the money spent on Bobby Wagner and KJ Wright plus the draft picks of Jordyn Brooks and Cody Barton. The Seahawks continue to invest in these non-premium positions instead of the offensive line, defensive line, and cornerback. This old-school philosophy does not work in the modern NFL, as shown by the Jamal Adams trade.

The Jamal Adams trade continues to get worse and worse every Sunday for the Seahawks. Even at the time of the trade, people were worried that the price was too high. Yet some justified it as a “win-now” move by trading for an elite player. Getting Jadeveon Clowney back and adding Jamal Adams would have made headlines. However, the Seahawks failed to address their pass rush issues. To make up for those issues, the Seahawks turned Jamal Adams into a blitz specialist. Through the first 5 games of 2020, the Seahawks either got home on a Jamal Adams blitz or were torched downfield for a huge gain. All this blitzing caused the defense to be on a record-setting pace in all the wrong ways. Then, Carlos Dunlap arrived and the Seahawks’ defense improved slightly. Still, even with a better pass rush in front of him, Jamal Adams frequently struggled in coverage. Adams ended up ranking 53rd for safeties in the NFL, certainly not the elite player Seattle was hoping for when they traded for him. This year, Adams is blitzing less and still has significant coverage issues, as evidenced by his 64.2 PFF grade. There is no way the Seahawks would have traded 2 firsts – one which may end up being a top 10 pick- a 3rd rounder, and Bradley McDougald if they knew they were getting the box safety, oft-injured, “Blitz Boy” Jamal Adams. They seemingly traded for the wrong Jamal Adams.

Last offseason, Russell Wilson said enough was enough. Wilson subtly hinted at leaving by saying, “I don’t want to be traded, but if I am traded, please send me to one of these 4 teams”. To those who deny the severity of this report, think about this. Imagine if someone said, “I am perfectly happy with my spouse. However, if I were to get a divorce, I would love to be with these 4 people.” This report by Mark Rodgers was simply a way of getting a trade request out without calling it a trade request. The Seahawks tried to make Wilson happy by trading for a player about to be cut, Gabe Jackson. Yet poor drafting and cap mismanagement from previous years prevented the Seahawks from going all out to make him happy. 

Now the Seahawks sit at 3-6, with massive questions staring at them. Is Russell Willson going to leave? Does Pete Carroll have a future here? Does John Schneider? The Seahawks now have two options. Stick with the 70-year-old head coach who seems stuck in his ways or side with the best player this franchise has ever seen. To me, the choice is clear. Russell Wilson, although in a bit of a funk recently, is the way to move forward. Hiring an offensive-minded head coach like Brian Daboll or Joe Brady and pairing them with Russell Wilson would be a sight to see. Getting a new General Manager who is a better talent evaluator and more frugal with cap space is the way forward. Shifting resources from linebacker and safety to offensive line and defensive line is the modern way. If The Seahawks could do all of these things, the Super Bowl would not be far away. The Seahawks could take notes from the Packers on this front. The Packers went from having 6-win seasons under Mike McCarthy to back-to-back NFC Championship games under Matt LaFleur. If Seattle can find their own Matt LaFleur, this ship can turn around real quick.

In the end, Pete Carroll is a great head coach who has revolutionized the game with his “Cover 3” defense. Carroll has been a great motivator and has led Seattle to its only Super Bowl win. However, it is time for him to hang it up as the game has passed him by. He is no longer the right man for the job and needs to be replaced by someone with fresh ideas. Seeing Wilson with a young, innovative offensive mind would be so much more fun than watching “Peteball” without Russ. Overall, I want what is best for the team, and getting rid of the man at the top is the way forward.

Once again, I want to thank you all for letting me post about some sports stuff. I felt like I really needed to get this one off my chest. Let me know your opinions on the piece in the comments below. Tune in next time on Pranay’s Seattle Departures as I talk about my motherland and second home, India.