Seahawks Prospectus
Prediction: 5-11, 11-5, or anything in between.
In one corner, a vicious age-down trend. In the other, Hasselbeck's and Mora's mammoth resources. It'll be a whale of a contest.
.
=== The Good ===
You're talking about a team with a lot of talent. They averaged what, about 11 wins a year for a loooong time until last year's lame-duck disgrace. That 11-win talent has reloaded, including with the draft's impact player, Curry, and a legit go-to star wideout.
...................
NFL fans know that there are big-play, unreliable receivers, such as Joey Galloway and Darrell Jackson, and then there are go-to wideouts who carry a passing game, such as T.J. Houshmandzadeh. As Jack Tatum once put it, when a wide receiver will go over the middle and pay the price for his yardage, he WILL be effective. T.J. should single-handedly revitalize the air game.
...................
Reporters used to ride Chuck Knox unmercifully about his lack of a dangerous passing game. He would snap, "Well, I don't know where you go to GET a Dan Marino or Joe Montana. If you're winning games and not drafting first."
You get them by grooming them, as Holmgren did Matt Hasselbeck. Matt has the West Coast microchip soldered onto the motherboard of the Seahawks' offense. For two or three more years, the Seahawks will always have the 7-yard slant as long as Hass is healthy.
Hasselbeck was hurt last year, and the stats pathetic, but when healthy he is a seriously underrated QB. He's not Peyton Manning, but he is a West Coast craftsman who is hard to bring down and has the fiery, intelligent personality to back up his arm.
Sportswriters judge QB's by the naive measure of playoff wins; coaches judge QB's by their decisions under fire, by how much they convert out of the opportunities available to them.
Hasselbeck is the real deal. As we all know, he's got to be able to stand up straight without pain, and has to have three seconds to throw and two yards of separation from his wideouts.
......................
This is a roster with plenty of talent, and a proven-by-fire passing attack.
.
=== The Bad Dept. ===
There is a huge, overarcing negative to this team, and that is that it is aging.
You're not talking about two or three players getting old. The aging process is dyed into the wool of this generation's Seahawks, with a roster that is crumbling around them like one of Pat Gillick's rosters decaying around him as he beats feet for another city.
I don't have a lot of doubt that Holmgren saw the brick wall in the middle of the highway -- as soon as Hasselbeck can't handle the shots any more, there's not a lot separating the Seahawks from becoming a perennial 6-10 type club. And the guy keeping Hasselbeck's abuse to manageable levels -- Walter Jones -- is getting old too.
In 2005, the Hawks hit their peak and I'd have bet them against any team in the NFL, neutral park, neutral refs.
Since then, their running game has gone up in smoke. The left side of their line -- in fact, their entire line -- is now baling wire and duct tape. They dominated in 2004-07, but they have definitely come back to the pack even when playing at their best.
...................
You're not going to be elite without a feature running back, and you're not going to be elite without pressure on the QB. The pass rush might be fixed. The running game will not be.
.
=== The Ugly ===
The 2008 Seahawks showed the typical inmates-run-the-asylum chemistry that a 4-12 NFL team will show, running under a lame-duck coach. When's the last time an NFL lame-duck won anything? It was a dumb idea to try.
................
IIRC, the Hawks have six games starting at 10:00 a.m. this year. I've been told that their historical record in such games -- traveling West to East and playing outside their biorhythms -- is terrible.
................
Hasselbeck's odds of staying healthy seem no better than 50-50.
................
The Seahawks will try to reload, rather than to rebuild, and considering Hasselbeck and the overall roster, that seems reasonable.
They'll be fighting to "bend the graph," so to speak -- this generation of Seahawks had a performance arc that looks, on paper, like a golf shot. Now that the arc is bending over and free falling, they're going to try to turn it around and get it pointing back up.
That is a talllllllll order. I don't even remember the last time I saw an NFL team successfully get an age-collapse turned around in one offseason.
But Mora does have a lot of resources to work with, and the chemistry is evidently fixed (for now) even in preseason, so it'll be fun watching.
If the Seahawks win in 2009, they're defying gravity IMHO, but they've got some hot-air fans blowing, to try it with.
Cheers,
Dr D