Earl Thomas

[Largent80]

Teams are waiting for the Hawks to lower their terms. NOT going to happen and neither is a draft day trade. Look for Earl to remain a Hawk either by fullfilling his last year then getting franchised tagged next year, or an extension that will not be what he wants.

[c_hawkbob]

I think a draft day trade is still a very real possibility.

[Largent80]

I think a draft day trade is still a very real possibility.

Why?....A team needs to be able to sign him long term and if Cleveland isn't biting then it's not happening.

[c_hawkbob]

I don't care about why, I'm more about whether or not.

[NorthHawk]

I think the only way a Draft Day trade would work is if the teams and ET had all finalized salary and compensation prior to the draft.
I doubt they would be able to keep that quiet, though so a draft day trade sounds improbable unless negotiations started very early in the day.
Improbable? Yes
Impossible? No

[obiken]

I don't care about why, I'm more about whether or not.

I want to keep him. IF they are not willing to give up at least a 1st rounder for him, then Tag him and move on.

[Largent80]

A draft day trade is NIl. Period, as in Not going to happen. Earl is a Seahawk.

[NorthHawk]

There's still a month before the draft and anything can happen in the next few weeks.
I doubt anything happens, but one never knows with either trades or ability to finalize an extension.

[obiken]

There's still a month before the draft and anything can happen in the next few weeks.
I doubt anything happens, but one never knows with either trades or ability to finalize an extension.

IF we lose Earl we will be a certain 3rd place in the NFC West, period.

[Seahawks4Ever]

The only reason ET wrote that article about how he wants to "retire" as a Seahawk because the Cowboys are not coming to get him and he doesn't want to end up being traded to Cleveland or some place worse, so, that's why Seattle isn't looking as bad to ET as it did during the season...But, hey, I hope ET DOES play his entire career here, he is the best SS we ever had. I don't compare ET to Easley because they played different positions. Now, you could compare Easley to Kam and I would pick Kenny all day long. Easley was the "intimidator" of football LOL

[obiken]

The only reason ET wrote that article about how he wants to "retire" as a Seahawk because the Cowboys are not coming to get him and he doesn't want to end up being traded to Cleveland or some place worse, so, that's why Seattle isn't looking as bad to ET as it did during the season...But, hey, I hope ET DOES play his entire career here, he is the best SS we ever had. I don't compare ET to Easley because they played different positions. Now, you could compare Easley to Kam and I would pick Kenny all day long. Easley was the "intimidator" of football LOL

I agree, but I think Easley could have played either position, I don't think Kam could. Kenny could hit and cover with equal greatness.

[Zorn76]

Had we been making better early draft choices over the last few years, I'd be more enthusiastic for trading ET. But given the changes already on that side of the ball, in addition to the fact that we've whiffed Badly several times early in April or May, it makes sense that we'd try to keep him.

Obviously, he wants his money - and Earl Thomas can make as good a case as anybody in the league that he Deserves it.
Multiple pro bowls, 1st team and 2nd team all pro honors. He has been nothing short of Amazing, and the guy plays with a passion that is more fueled by football desire - or at least equal to - the money. He's a rare breed.

In the poll thread pertaining to this recently, I did vote to to trade him for picks. Now, when we officially learned a bit later of a 1st and a 3rd asking price, it seemed reasonable to assume that the F.O. still felt pretty strongly about Thomas, as they should. It's anyone's guess how upset Earl may have got when he first learned he was being shopped a bit to begin with.

But he also knew all along that we weren't gonna trade him for (as coach Holmgren used to say) a ham sandwich. I do have concerns about his health moving forward. This is year 9 coming up. Guys at his position have certainly played longer than that, and effectively, no question. It's just there's enough miles on him to where he could break down a lot sooner than expected. It's all guess work, but it's worth considering. If we keep him and he gets more than anticipated, in part since it would serve as a 'thanks-for-the-memories' contract, I get it. I can be pretty cold in these matters, because I think we've all seen these types of deals blow up early by way of injury or a slow step kicking in rapidly. Either that or my Scandinavian side is kicking in more as I age.

How much he ends up with, I dunno. Not sure what any money rumors are of if they're out there. But I could see a short term deal, maybe three yrs, for way more guaranteed money in proportion to some silly long term deal that would be drawn out for cap purposes. I realize it's a tight budget now, but maybe next season we'll be in better shape. I haven't looked that one up, of course.

[RiverDog]

Had we been making better early draft choices over the last few years, I'd be more enthusiastic for trading ET. But given the changes already on that side of the ball, in addition to the fact that we've whiffed Badly several times early in April or May, it makes sense that we'd try to keep him.

Some of my old PI buddies are making a similar point, how badly our drafting has been over the past 3-4 years. If you take a look at our roster, we don't have a single sole left on the roster from the 2013 draft and just one from the 2014 draft. That differs dramatically from our results of Pete's first two drafts. If not the root cause, it's certainly a major contributing cause of this drift our franchise has suffered over the past 3 seasons.

[curmudgeon]

Scot McGloughan was in the fold for Pete’s first two drafts. I think the results since speak for themselves.......

[Seahawks4Ever]

Darius Leonard will NOT be there when the Hawks pick comes up and we have nothing to offer to move up unless it is ET we use to move up, UNACCEPTABLE!!!

Pete says; "I always wanted to know what it is like to be the HC of a cellar dweller, I guess I will find out." No, Pete didn't really say that, but he may as well had because that is exactly where our Hawks are headed, the cellar. PC will get a pass for the upcoming season but when we finish last in the 2019-2020 too will you all still be so forgiving?

[Aseahawkfan]

John and Pete have been drafting poorly since 2013. They knocked it out the park the first few years, then crapped the bed for the most part after that. I think Frank Clark is our best pick since that draft with some promise from Tyler Lockett. Justin Britt has become a serviceable center. For the most part it's been miss after miss after miss. I hope they stop reaching for high end athletic talent and pick some guys that can play.

[HumanCockroach]

Kenny did play both positions in his career.. switched positions once they inserted Eugene Robison at free safety.

[RiverDog]

John and Pete have been drafting poorly since 2013. They knocked it out the park the first few years, then crapped the bed for the most part after that. I think Frank Clark is our best pick since that draft with some promise from Tyler Lockett. Justin Britt has become a serviceable center. For the most part it's been miss after miss after miss. I hope they stop reaching for high end athletic talent and pick some guys that can play.

And I have a theory as to why they've stumbled since those first couple of years: The first two years, Pete had some very intimate knowledge of players in the college game that he was able to use to his advantage when he first took over, but the further away he gets from his USC days, the worse our player evaluation has become.

We've also had this habit of trading away high draft choices for players like Clipboard Jesus, Percy Harvin, Jimmy Graham, Sheldon Richardson, and Jerome Brown. As a consequence, we seem to trade down a lot in order to reclaim the numbers we've traded away, albeit it lower on the food chain, and might be missing out on better personnel in order to aquire more but lower picks.

[HumanCockroach]

Nah, Carroll didn't have intimate knowledge of a slew of those players that made that SB team. You're stretching there.... he knew the types of players for his system, but thinking he had inside info on guys like Irvin, Wilson, Earl, Kam, Maxwell, Wright, Bennett, Avril, Okung, Unger, Giacomini etc seems pretty thin to me... sure Sherman ( though Carroll recruited him as a receiver, and his career at Stanford at corner was pretty ho hum, hence 5th round) Baldwin who he was so high on, he didn't bother drafting, even maybe Wagner ( though I'm not entirely sure Caroll recruited or even did work on him at SC). Ultimately, that team was stockpiled with players Carroll didn't have intimate knowledge on, same as now.

[RiverDog]

Nah, Carroll didn't have intimate knowledge of a slew of those players that made that SB team. You're stretching there.... he knew the types of players for his system, but thinking he had inside info on guys like Irvin, Wilson, Earl, Kam, Maxwell, Wright, Bennett, Avril, Okung, Unger, Giacomini etc seems pretty thin to me... sure Sherman ( though Carroll recruited him as a receiver, and his career at Stanford at corner was pretty ho hum, hence 5th round) Baldwin who he was so high on, he didn't bother drafting, even maybe Wagner ( though I'm not entirely sure Caroll recruited or even did work on him at SC). Ultimately, that team was stockpiled with players Carroll didn't have intimate knowledge on, same as now.

Besides Sherman, you can toss in Browner (Oregon State), Baldwin (Stanford), Wagner (Utah State), and Lynch (Cal) as players that Carroll might have had some intimate knowledge of. Additionally, Carroll may have benefited from contacts he had as a college coach...other college coaches/AD's...that he no longer has.

My understanding of the Wilson deal was that Schneider had some pretty good inside knowledge via his contacts in Wisconsin from his days with the Packers being that Wilson played his senior season a few hours away in Madison.

It's admittedly a reach, but there has to be some explanation as to how they could do so well initally then fall flat on their faces in these past few years. Has their scouting system suddenly become incompetent?

[NorthHawk]

As curmedgeon said above:
"Scot McGloughan was in the fold for the first two drafts..."
He's shown to be a great evaluator of talent and would make a pretty good GM if he stayed off the bottle.
I would think that he (Pete) could call almost any coach in college and get the lowdown on players even if he didn't know them.
They rely on recordings of games and scout assessments to make the majority of decisions from what I've heard.

[mykc14]

Am I the only one who still has high hopes for last year's draft class? Give them a little more time and it could turn out to be very good. Griffin, Pocic, Naz Jones, and Chris Carson all seem like they have a chance to contribute in a big way. Delano Hill, Tedrick Thompson and Amara Darboh all seem like they might have a chance to help out as well. Obviously I'm not holding my breath for McDowell, but if he somehow came back that would make a very interesting group.

[Largent80]

http://sports.mynorthwest.com/431021/ad ... ed-return/

[NorthHawk]

Am I the only one who still has high hopes for last year's draft class? Give them a little more time and it could turn out to be very good. Griffin, Pocic, Naz Jones, and Chris Carson all seem like they have a chance to contribute in a big way. Delano Hill, Tedrick Thompson and Amara Darboh all seem like they might have a chance to help out as well. Obviously I'm not holding my breath for McDowell, but if he somehow came back that would make a very interesting group.

They got one confirmed starter in Griffin, and Jones was a surprise, but beating out established players when playoff aspirations are still alive can be difficult. With a full year under their belt, they should be able to perform their best this pre-season so we will have a better idea if they have a future here. We might see they drafted a couple of other solid players - maybe no All Pro's, but good, steady types that can contribute.
I'm still not so sure about Carson. He only played 4 games, so it's not enough to really see if he can carry the load for a full season or if he would have had a large drop off in production once there was some good film on him.

[RiverDog]

Am I the only one who still has high hopes for last year's draft class? Give them a little more time and it could turn out to be very good. Griffin, Pocic, Naz Jones, and Chris Carson all seem like they have a chance to contribute in a big way. Delano Hill, Tedrick Thompson and Amara Darboh all seem like they might have a chance to help out as well. Obviously I'm not holding my breath for McDowell, but if he somehow came back that would make a very interesting group.

The real test for this draft class, as with past classes (only Justin Britt remains from the 2013 and 2104 classes), will be when their rookie contracts expire, how many of them get a second. Pocic, for example, seems like a jack of all trades, master of none type of player, and I don't know if that's going to be good enough. He's going to have to go out and take hold of a position and make it his.

[NorthHawk]

Pocic is a natural Center if you look at the College game film, but he may be better elsewhere at the NFL level.
The coaching staff have to find his position early and let him learn the craft. This moving around stuff doesn't work with many younger OL players who need time to learn.
Ifedi is a good example of this. He never got a chance to fully learn how to play G and then was shuffled to RT where he's now learning how to play there. Now people are saying get rid of him.
It's lunacy to think someone who has the athletic and competitive traits a team wants but wasn't trained properly at the College level could learn 2 positions in 2 years and should therefor be let go as some are suggesting.

[RiverDog]

Pocic is a natural Center if you look at the College game film, but he may be better elsewhere at the NFL level.
The coaching staff have to find his position early and let him learn the craft. This moving around stuff doesn't work with many younger OL players who need time to learn.
Ifedi is a good example of this. He never got a chance to fully learn how to play G and then was shuffled to RT where he's now learning how to play there. Now people are saying get rid of him.
It's lunacy to think someone who has the athletic and competitive traits a team wants but wasn't trained properly at the College level could learn 2 positions in 2 years and should therefor be let go as some are suggesting.

Agreed, but it does beg the question: Why did we draft a center with a 2nd round pick if we signed Britt through 2020?

[NorthHawk]

Who knows unless they think his better position is elsewhere at the NFL level. He is tall for a Center, but he's said to be pretty smart, too which a Center needs.
They need to decide where his best position is and let him develop.

[idhawkman]

Agreed, but it does beg the question: Why did we draft a center with a 2nd round pick if we signed Britt through 2020?

C'mon Riv, you know the answer to that. Just think about who the coach was and what he thought about a player playing his natural position. Somehow he thought he knew better than all the other coaches that got the kid to this level and was going to teach them the real way to play football ... at a different position. Just thinking about his philosophy makes ya kind of laugh doesn't it.

[Aseahawkfan]

And I have a theory as to why they've stumbled since those first couple of years: The first two years, Pete had some very intimate knowledge of players in the college game that he was able to use to his advantage when he first took over, but the further away he gets from his USC days, the worse our player evaluation has become.

We've also had this habit of trading away high draft choices for players like Clipboard Jesus, Percy Harvin, Jimmy Graham, Sheldon Richardson, and Jerome Brown. As a consequence, we seem to trade down a lot in order to reclaim the numbers we've traded away, albeit it lower on the food chain, and might be missing out on better personnel in order to aquire more but lower picks.

I think the reasons are varied:

1. Too much emphasis on player athleticism and physical measurables rather than their ability to play football. They have become too enamored of numbers. This caused them to reach on certain picks based on their numbers trying to hit a homerun rather than pick up some solid players.

2. Not having higher round picks because they traded them away for risky established players that didn't work out. Lower picks always have a lower chance of success, but their early success in the lower rounds made them overconfident.

3. Bad talent analysis at key positions, specifically O-line. Cable was a very poor talent analyst. It showed in pick after pick after pick. He seemed to look more for mental criteria rather than physical and technique criteria. That didn't work very well for us. Even the guy he picked from his old team (Robert Gallery) played like crap and didn't last. Pete held on to Cable too long whose success came from having the most brutal RB in the league and the smartest running QB.

These factors have come back to haunt them now as none of the players they signed other than Avril and Lynch worked out very well. They made those modest draft capital and monetary investments early.

[NorthHawk]

Drafting at the end of the rounds doesn't help.
The tiers are larger there, so unless you have a single player in mind, it's worth it to trade down and pick up a similarly rated player later plus gather more picks.
Agree with you about the measurables seem to have more weight than playing ability.

[RiverDog]

I think the reasons are varied:

1. Too much emphasis on player athleticism and physical measurables rather than their ability to play football. They have become too enamored of numbers. This caused them to reach on certain picks based on their numbers trying to hit a homerun rather than pick up some solid players.

2. Not having higher round picks because they traded them away for risky established players that didn't work out. Lower picks always have a lower chance of success, but their early success in the lower rounds made them overconfident.

3. Bad talent analysis at key positions, specifically O-line. Cable was a very poor talent analyst. It showed in pick after pick after pick. He seemed to look more for mental criteria rather than physical and technique criteria. That didn't work very well for us. Even the guy he picked from his old team (Robert Gallery) played like crap and didn't last. Pete held on to Cable too long whose success came from having the most brutal RB in the league and the smartest running QB.

These factors have come back to haunt them now as none of the players they signed other than Avril and Lynch worked out very well. They made those modest draft capital and monetary investments early.

That's as good a guess as any, particularily #3. Cable lost me when he thought that James Carpenter had what it takes to play offensive tackle in the NFL and burned a #1 pick on him. Even his head coach in college, a guy that's pretty darn familiar with NFL talent, was surprised that we picked him that early.

[NorthHawk]

They selected a lot of "hedge" players at Tackle.
By that I mean players that could play inside if T didn't work out. Most teams value that so it's not uncommon.
That's fine for one or two drafts, but I doubt a line can be consistent when you end up with a group full of Guards and are constantly switching them around.
My hope is Solari will find positions for the younger players and let them develop in a single spot as it takes a few years for an OLineman to really show what he can do.
It used to take less time, but there is not very good training at the College level in preparing OL for the NFL these days except for a few programs.

[Seahawks4Ever]

RD; There you go Dog!!! You hit the proverbial nail right on the head!! Pete and John are NEVER going to catch lightening in a bottle again because they are never going to be in a position to do so again.

My conclusions might not be the same as yours RD but the diagnosis of the disease is still the same.

We have to ask, Knowing his intel window of opportunity was finite why did Pete skimp on the scouting department???

After so many failures, why didn't Pete or John, or Paul Allen for that matter not demand changes in how players are signed and developed???

I will let others add to the list of failures but it is long. So long it boggles my mind how optimistic so many potters are considering current history as opposed to ancient history.

[RiverDog]

They selected a lot of "hedge" players at Tackle.
By that I mean players that could play inside if T didn't work out. Most teams value that so it's not uncommon.
That's fine for one or two drafts, but I doubt a line can be consistent when you end up with a group full of Guards and are constantly switching them around.
My hope is Solari will find positions for the younger players and let them develop in a single spot as it takes a few years for an OLineman to really show what he can do.
It used to take less time, but there is not very good training at the College level in preparing OL for the NFL these days except for a few programs.

Yea, I remember that argument when we selected Carpenter. But it was so obvious that the guy did not have the foot quickness to get in front of edge rushers that it boggles my mind that an experienced OL coach would think that he could. Heck, Carpenter didn't have good enough foot quickness to make a decent guard let alone tackle.

And I agree with you about all the mixing and matching that Cable did on the OL. Not only does it hinder the development of individuals along the OL, it hinders them from developing as a single unit.

[obiken]

I agree River, lines have to jell over a long period of time. Or atleast the best ones do.

[rocket]

THOU SHALL NOT TRADE EARL.
I have spoken.
I would cry.
Honest.

[NorthHawk]

If there was any option on the table for the Cowboys to trade for him, the chances just increased as they cut Dez Bryant.
This saves them about $8.5 MM on the cap according to Spotrac.

[RiverDog]

If there was any option on the table for the Cowboys to trade for him, the chances just increased as they cut Dez Bryant.
This saves them about $8.5 MM on the cap according to Spotrac.

They didn't even offer Dez a paycut, either, so it would seem that letting him go had to do with more than just money.

Between Bryant, Tony Romo, and two other former players, the Cowboys will be paying $22.5M for four players that won't even suit up for them. Perhaps we should nominate Jerry Jones for Exectutive of the Year.

[burrrton]

The Onion nailed it:

"Report: Dez Bryant Could Be Perfect Fit For NFL Team Lacking Locker-Room Cancer"