SEahawks all banged up going into Steelers game...

[Spohawk5092]

not good. Metcalf and Walker among others who are both questionable.

[RiverDog]

not good. Metcalf and Walker among others who are both questionable.

It's more than just Metcalf and Walker who are on the injury report.

Yikes Adams is out. They just placed him on IR today. But, maybe that's a good thing. Our defense seems to play better without him. We also placed Dee Eskridge (who?) on IR.

Jason Peters and Mario Edwards are both out. Jordyn Brooks and Devon Witherspoon are both listed as questionable.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/team/injuries/_/name/sea

[Aseahawkfan]

We aren't real contenders anyway. It all feels like empty effort at this point with year 10 of more mismanagement leading to yet another disappointing outcome to look forward to. I'm down on Pete and John's management right now. I'm not happy they traded a 2nd round pick for a rental they have to re-sign or it was like they gave away a high pick for nothing. We need linebackers and new safeties, we have less draft capital to get it done now because Pete isn't patient enough to do a proper rebuild.

[MackStrongIsMyHero]

Last season and this season saw a departure from the rut they fell into and they started the proper rebuild. I’m guessing you’re alluding to the 2nd round pick they gave up for Williams this year. I saw that as move to be made when they believed they were competitors this year based on their progress at that time. The 2nd rounder was the price to have NYG eat that $10 million. They are still in a position to compete this year; I’d rather them get in the playoffs and see what happens. That’s not to be confused with being content with mediocrity. You build a winning culture with a young roster by competing.

To the topic, yeah, wish they weren’t so banged up, but every team tends to be nicked up at this point in the season. Not sweating Jamal or Eskeridge being out for the reasons Riverdog mentioned. Hoping they get more healthy by next Sunday and just maybe the playoffs.

[curmudgeon]

It would be more beneficial to lose out to improve draft position. Qualifying for playoff would just result in first round loss……

[EmeraldBullet]

It would be more beneficial to lose out to improve draft position. Qualifying for playoff would just result in first round loss……

I disagree. I think having a playoff game is an important experience that will be beneficial to our young players on defense. Making the playoffs two years in a row while rebuilding is an amazing feet. That experience will make the team much better in the future

[Aseahawkfan]

Last season and this season saw a departure from the rut they fell into and they started the proper rebuild. I’m guessing you’re alluding to the 2nd round pick they gave up for Williams this year. I saw that as move to be made when they believed they were competitors this year based on their progress at that time. The 2nd rounder was the price to have NYG eat that $10 million. They are still in a position to compete this year; I’d rather them get in the playoffs and see what happens. That’s not to be confused with being content with mediocrity. You build a winning culture with a young roster by competing.

To the topic, yeah, wish they weren’t so banged up, but every team tends to be nicked up at this point in the season. Not sweating Jamal or Eskeridge being out for the reasons Riverdog mentioned. Hoping they get more healthy by next Sunday and just maybe the playoffs.

I see it as an example of more roster mismanagement and lack of confidence in their ability to draft. He's a 29, going on 30, year old player you paid a 2nd round pick for sending a message to his agent that you have given him all the leverage in negotiations because if you don't re-sign him, you gave up a 2nd round pick for nothing.

We been making the playoffs for 9 years from the last Super Bowl trip. It isn't enough anymore. You act like this team is young, but we got many of our top players on 2nd plus contracts or about to hit 2nd contracts. We have older guys like Jamal Adams and Bobby on the last legs of their career.

This is not the young and up and coming Legion of Boom days. This is a very uneven roster with key positions not solidified and aging fast. You just gave up a 2nd round pick for a guy about to be on the wrong side of 30 when you have serious, serious problems at LB and safety as well as the interior of your O-line.

I don't see what you see on this roster. This doesn't feel like a young and up and coming team. It feels like a team with a head coach and GM that have reached the end of their run and are just hanging on hoping for one last dream run by just punching their ticket as one of the 14 teams that make it to the playoffs. They don't feel like the younger Pete and John that scoured every rock for players, traded a 7th round pick for Clem and a 4th round pick for Marshawn, and signed Avril and Bennett to round out a quality D line anchored by Mebane and drafted one of the best safety tandems in NFL history with a 1st and 5th round pick and one of the best CBs to ever wear a Seahawk uniform with a 5th round pick. Then drafted our best LB in history with a 2nd round pick. And our best QB with a 3rd round pick. It don't feel like that at all.

This is the GM and coach that traded 2 first round picks for Jamal Adams. Signed two safeties that are underperforming badly for 36 million a year. Let the LB corps drop off so far they are signing Bobby in his twilight to a contract. They're selling Geno Smith as the answer to a competitive QB position and we have fans wishing Lock, who played average football, as some kind of viable, competitive QB.

Let's just say the expectations for an up and coming young team in Seattle have changed dramatically. I'm done with that vision as it isn't what is happening. All I see right now is a GM and Head coach desperately trying for one last run making bad trades and bad roster moves, bad drafting for years, and they finally got lucky that their QB wanted out at the right time which led to a great deal that managed to net us a handful of possible great players I'd much rather see another coach develop and push to the next level because Pete has somehow lost even the ability to develop a great defense for some reason. He's never been great at offense, but when your great defensive coach that built one of the all time great defensesin NFL history that actually earned their nickname can no longer develop and coordinate a quality defense in Seattle, not sure what you do with that.

[Aseahawkfan]

How many years now with a horrendous run defense? 4 years? 5 years? I remember when our run defense was amazing. Let no one pass. Now it's been in the toilet for years across multiple coordinators.

[curmudgeon]

Yes. And horrific tackling…..

[Spohawk5092]

Yes. And horrific tackling…..

horrifically bad at that! Why do we get these stick looking guys that can't knock down a thing?????

[Spohawk5092]

How many years now with a horrendous run defense? 4 years? 5 years? I remember when our run defense was amazing. Let no one pass. Now it's been in the toilet for years across multiple coordinators.

season is done, so should Petes career with the Hawks. Next!

[RiverDog]

Losing at home to a very pedestrian team starting their backup quarterback. The Steelers racked up 468 yards of total offense, over 200 yards of that on the ground. We couldn't stop them even when we knew they were going to run.

I haven't looked at the playoff picture yet, but with the Rams winning, they've secured the #6 seed, leaving just one seed left to be decided. I saw where our odds are pegged at 32%, which isn't bad, but that assumes that we'll beat the Cards next week, and they looked like world beaters today upsetting the Eagles in their house.

[c_hawkbob]

Yes. And horrific tackling…..

Yup, can't tackle can't win football games. Simple as that.

[trents]

At least Pete offered no mealy-mouthed excuses for the poor tackling. He admitted there was no excuse this late in the season for not executing fundamentals. We didn't hear from him or the players in post game interviews the usual stock answer of, "We need to look at the films to see what went wrong." It was painfully obvious today. The Hawk's defensive line was overpowered and the line backers and D backs looked like they were tackling greased pigs.

[EmeraldBullet]

It would be more beneficial to lose out to improve draft position. Qualifying for playoff would just result in first round loss……

guess you got your wish. How does it feel?

[Aseahawkfan]

guess you got your wish. How does it feel?

Feels the same for me as if they won: still headed on a path to non-contention and going nowhere as long as this head coach and GM are in charge.

[MackStrongIsMyHero]

As I said before, the Leonard Williams move was filling a need when it looked like they could really compete this season. In filling that need, as with any product or service, you can get it good, quick, or cheap and you can only pick two (i.e. he was expensive because they needed a good player now). Williams has held up his end; the rest of the defense hasn’t.

Hitting on the likes of players that they did in the LoB years is something not accomplished often by many teams; we were fortunate to see something like that once. I’m not saying the roster is complete, but it is a significant departure from their past drafts. That’s readily apparent to me. They still have to follow through; that remains to be seen, but I have more hope they are headed that way than they have been.

More concerning to me, as stated by others here, is the poor tackling across the board. It won’t matter what players they get if that doesn’t get fixed. They were technically in that game, but it felt like a loss was coming knowing Rudolph would hardly be forced to make plays because Harris and Warren were running them over.

This kind for continued performance makes me think they will forego an early round QB and roll with Geno to shore up obvious holes at LB, S, and DL. Not particularly happy about that.

[NorthHawk]

The Leonard Williams trade was fools gold in that we really hadn't shown we were capable of competing at a higher level than we had because we really hadn't beaten any good teams and the wins we had weren't dominating wins that we would expect from a team that is good enough to compete with the best teams. Many of us fans could see it but Pete has shown he is blind to what is really going on. His and Johns trades for single players the last 6 years or so show a real weak spot for knowing their own team. DL Richardson - washout, Clowney - washout here, and Adams are just 3 examples of this blindness or at the very least only looking at a single moment in time.
Maybe they re-sign Williams, but what will that get us? We will still be a team that is just good enough to get a bad draft pick and bad enough to not go anywhere in the playoffs if we make it.

I just want to see that we are building toward something. As it is, I have no idea what out identity is. We show as an Offensive team with a lot of talent but don't really use it - and that's consistent theme under Carroll. We're a little bit of a finesse team but want to play the power game. It was mentioned during a broadcast a couple of games ago that we throw into the middle of the field the 3rd least in the league. Why then did we draft a WR who feasts on crossing throws? And why did we draft pass catching TE's if we don't throw to them down the middle where they are the most effective?

On Defense we haven't been able to stop the run for the past 3 or 4 years. We used to not be able to generate a pass rush for the previous 3 or 4 years. The LB play is often poor and we've overpaid significantly at Safety for what?
Who are we as a team and where are we going?
Are we building for something bigger or are we happy just to win more than we lose?
I'd rather go through a few poor win seasons and have a direction of where we want to be than just bob around in a win/loss series of seasons.
Watching a team being built and how the pieces come together is fun and exciting. The same old thing every year is not. And we can see that with the number of opposing fans in our stadium on game days that others agree.
Things just have to change.

[RiverDog]

As I said before, the Leonard Williams move was filling a need when it looked like they could really compete this season. In filling that need, as with any product or service, you can get it good, quick, or cheap and you can only pick two (i.e. he was expensive because they needed a good player now). Williams has held up his end; the rest of the defense hasn’t.

Hitting on the likes of players that they did in the LoB years is something not accomplished often by many teams; we were fortunate to see something like that once. I’m not saying the roster is complete, but it is a significant departure from their past drafts. That’s readily apparent to me. They still have to follow through; that remains to be seen, but I have more hope they are headed that way than they have been.

More concerning to me, as stated by others here, is the poor tackling across the board. It won’t matter what players they get if that doesn’t get fixed. They were technically in that game, but it felt like a loss was coming knowing Rudolph would hardly be forced to make plays because Harris and Warren were running them over.

This kind for continued performance makes me think they will forego an early round QB and roll with Geno to shore up obvious holes at LB, S, and DL. Not particularly happy about that.

My big beef is the way Pete's building this roster. In his first 3 seasons when he built the LOB, Pete never drafted a wide receiver with anything higher than a #60 overall (Golden Tate in 2010) and the highest he drafted a RB was Robert Turbin in the 4th round in 2012. If you take a look at our past 3 drafts, he's burned a #20 overall on JSN, Dee Eskridge with his first of just 3 picks at #56 overall, Kenneth Walker with a #41 overall, and Zach Charbonnet with a #52 overall while he's let some very good talent at positions that's been a weak spot for the past 6 seasons (center) slip past him. IMO he's placing too much emphasis on skill positions and not enough on the big uglies.

We've had just one game this season where we had a running back put up a 100 yard game. We currently rank 29th in rushing offense, and this is supposed to be a run-first offense, while on defense, we're ranked 28th against the run and 26th overall, a problem that has been a sore spot for the past 7 seasons and shows no signs of improvement. It's an unacceptable situation.

[NorthHawk]

I don't think they are building this roster, rather they are just plugging holes. They aren't building toward anything in any type of cohesive plan.
Most teams build from the inside out and have strength up the middle. We have never really done that on the OL and on Defense we've been soft up the middle for 5 or 6 years on the DL and now with Wags just a shadow of himself we are weak at the 2nd level, too.
If we look at all of the draft choices and trades the last 5 or 6 years, we don't see any type of plan. We're still waiting for (and bypassing in the draft) a top Center. Maybe Olu is that guy, but Pete doesn't want to play rookies much unless they show exceptional talent. That means players like Pocic never really got a chance to play and develop at Center even with a substandard Center at the time who started. Now Pocic is a starting C on an OL that is better than ours and is considered one of their better IOL.

So what is our plan? What is our identity and are we drafting into that which we want to be?
For me, the answers are it's unclear and therefore, who knows if their drafting is to their plan or if they even have one outside of just filling holes or gathering talent without knowing how to use it.

[Aseahawkfan]

As I said before, the Leonard Williams move was filling a need when it looked like they could really compete this season. In filling that need, as with any product or service, you can get it good, quick, or cheap and you can only pick two (i.e. he was expensive because they needed a good player now). Williams has held up his end; the rest of the defense hasn’t.

Hitting on the likes of players that they did in the LoB years is something not accomplished often by many teams; we were fortunate to see something like that once. I’m not saying the roster is complete, but it is a significant departure from their past drafts. That’s readily apparent to me. They still have to follow through; that remains to be seen, but I have more hope they are headed that way than they have been.

More concerning to me, as stated by others here, is the poor tackling across the board. It won’t matter what players they get if that doesn’t get fixed. They were technically in that game, but it felt like a loss was coming knowing Rudolph would hardly be forced to make plays because Harris and Warren were running them over.

This kind for continued performance makes me think they will forego an early round QB and roll with Geno to shore up obvious holes at LB, S, and DL. Not particularly happy about that.

I'm all done making excuses for crappy trades and roster mismanagement hoping for something better. Been doing that for going on a decade now after our last Super Bowl trip. It was a great run, but the run is done. Pete and John no longer have the mojo.

All the fan base does is either spend time attacking them or making excuses for them while we fail for going on a decade at being truly competitive. I've been part of the excuse making fan part for years.

But now I'm spent on making excuses like saying "Williams was a move they made when they thought they were competitive." I'm a fan without inside information and even I could see that wasn't true. We had major weaknesses at LB and safety. Any coach or GM that sees Jamal Adams as a viable, competitive safety for the middle of the field is one that isn't seeing clearly this guy is done. I have not seen players come back from continuous injuries like this and Jamal's crappy ball skills were noticeable even when he was rushing the passer and doing well enough at run defense.

I have no more excuses to make. Pete and John's time is up. It's clear this team needs a rework from the bottom up and Pete and John are no longer capable of doing it.

[trents]

Undoubtedly, some forum member will point to Pete's total won/loss record over his tenure with the Seahawks in order to support his retention. And it is pretty good, grant you. The TV announcers during Sunday's game pointed that out. So, how long are you willing to trump that stat as the team continues to slip into obscurity? Will it bring you comfort five years from now when that won/loss ratio looks totally different because Pete and John aren't willing to change?

[NorthHawk]

If I see a definite plan on building a new team, I’m all for it.
What I want to see is progress and I haven’t seen overall improvement for about a decade, rather I’ve seen a slow degradation of talent without a plan to fix it. How long do we have to suffer a team that isn’t going anywhere? How long do we have to see us getting a new player and not know how to use them a la Adams and Njigba? Pete has outright said at some point for each that they are still figuring out how to use them. Adams after the first year and JSN just a few weeks ago. Why draft or trade for a player if you don’t know why you are adding them to your team?

After a time, coaches get stale, no matter who they are and even if their message changes with the times, So consider that Pete is still doing the same things as he did in 2010. It’s just time for a new voice and direction.

[Aseahawkfan]

I don't know how to explain how our defensive guru coach who built the Legion of Boom can no longer fix simple issues like the run defense going on multiple years and coordinators. Or why he wants to hold onto the idea that Jamal Adams is good. Jamal hasn't been good for years. He's gotta suck up it was a terrible trade and cut bait. I don't know what happened to Pete. He still has all his defensive knowledge. Not sure what's holding him back from putting together another great defense.

[NorthHawk]

Is Carroll really considered a defensive guru? He built one Defense in the NFL then struggles to regain that form and now languishes in the bottom half of the league defensively.
His College teams weren't dominant defensively either. He did have a bunch of talent spread through the team, but scheming was never his forte on either side of the ball. Mostly it was great players making big plays at the right time.
But now he seemingly doesn't know how to build a good Defense. Even a solid but unspectacular Defense would be an improvement, but after years of no pass rush and now no run defense, and after saying for years they had to be addressed in the off season, we still haven't reached the goal of being at the very least capable in one area. What they have done is pick a couple of players from teams and tried to improve from that change, but the results have been quite poor.
So I think Defensive Guru is an inaccurate label for Pete Carroll. He's more of a create an atmosphere where a player can reach his potential. However, it doesn't work if there is no real road map for how to find the right scheme for the different player talents. So it seems to me they draft and trade for players that may be good players but for the most part don't fit what the team wants to do - or change from year to year what they want to do.