.... 

I/O:  Field Gulls likes this "gigantic" 6'4", 250-lb K.J. Wright guy.  Obviously, so does Pete Carroll, because he powerflushed Aaron Curry so fast that you never even saw his wrist flip on the handle.

CRUNCH:  Again, Dr. D hasn't kept up with football much lately, but having watched five games this year... he does know enough to assure you that the Seahawks have plus defensive players at:

• Free safety
• Strong safety
• Weakside linebacker
• Pass-rushing DE

Let's try that again.  Did anybody ever play Strat-O-Matic football?  Every defensive player would be rated 4, 5, or 6 ... when the little red die came up 4-5-6 you'd be referring to the defensive cards.  A "6" defensive player would win all his matchups and you'd get the sack, incompletion, or whatever.  A "5" and you'd win 67% of your matchups.  With a "4" player you had a 33% chance of matching the red die and winning.  (Actually, there were 0 defensive players too.

Here's my guess as to how the Seahawks defensive players would grade in Strat-O:

• LINE:  5-5-4-4
• LB:  5-5-6
• DB's:  4-5-6-4

That's at a minimum.  You could upgrade three or four of those slots by one.  And in Strat-O, that kind of defense would be average-solid at least.

.

I/O:  Times Seahawks Blog with a little tale of the tape on the Browns.  Cleveland favored by 2.5 to 3.0, which is not much for a home team, and even that 2.5 might be inflated by Vegas' disrespect for the state of Washington.

CRUNCH:  We notice that the "sacks allowed" and "sacks gained" remain the eyesore on the Seahawks' statline.

For instance, we've suffered 20 sacks compared to the Browns' 9 ... our defense has inflicted only 8 sacks to the Browns' 17.  NFL play begins and ends with the pass rush, so obviously the Seahawks are a work in progress from that standpoint alone.

Still, we're guessing that "quick-release" Whitehurst can help with that some.  

...the Browns are no ball of fire -- ranked only #25 of 32 teams by Advanced NFL Stats so early on, down by 2.5 games already, the Seahawks better get this get-able game.

Enjoy,

Dr D