Seahawk talk

[poewelch84]

Really goes to show how much football is still a coaches game.

You have to have the right owners as well, the York's finally put their son in charge and he has helped bunch in turning things around, like actually getting advice from his uncle who actually won 5 super bowls with the team.

 

[SonnyCID]

You have to have the right owners as well, the York's finally put their son in charge and he has helped bunch in turning things around, like actually getting advice from his uncle who actually won 5 super bowls with the team.

The right owners hire a good staff, open the wallet and get the fuck out of the way.

 

[poewelch84]

The right owners hire a good staff, open the wallet and get the fuck out of the way.

That is the truth and the York's wouldn't open up the wallets, they use to limit them on how much gatorade they could take, and lock the towel closet so they couldn't use too many towels, just ridiculous things like that.

 

[SonnyCID]

That is the truth and the York's wouldn't open up the wallets, they use to limit them on how much gatorade they could take, and lock the towel closet so they couldn't use too many towels, just ridiculous things like that.

Damn.

They seem to have allowed Baalke to spend quite a bit.

But I didn't know about that other cheap shit. I've heard of that kind of thing with the Bills and Rams though. Really makes me appreciate Paul Allen. When he opens his wallet, no expense is spared.

 

[poewelch84]

Damn.

They seem to have allowed Baalke to spend quite a bit.

But I didn't know about that other cheap shit. I've heard of that kind of thing with the Bills and Rams though. Really makes me appreciate Paul Allen. When he opens his wallet, no expense is spared.

Yeah they have improved since allowing Jed York to take over.

 

[RegentDenali]

 

[Wedgie]

From quarterbacks on Facebook...

RICHARD SHERMAN
HOW IN THE HELL DID I THROW FIVE INTERCEPTIONS YESTERDAY?!?!?
3 hours ago . Like

COLIN KAEPERNICK
Shouldn’t that have been Eli Manning’s line?
3 hours ago . Like

RICHARD SHERMAN
It was. But I picked it off.
3 hours ago . Like

 

[55briggs]

The seahawks looked good against the terrible giants.

 

[Doublejive]

The seahawks looked good against the terrible giants.

Good? no that was domination the Giants only got it over the 50 yard line once.

 

[Doublejive]

Seahawks’ Byron Maxwell getting his shot and running with it
Byron Maxwell has three interceptions in three games, including two on Sunday, since the injury to Brandon Browner and the suspension of Walter Thurmond.


AST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Safety Earl Thomas insists he hasn’t jumped on the Byron Maxwell bandwagon. That’s because he’s been driving it from the beginning.

Maxwell faced plenty of questions three weeks ago when he was forced to step in for injured cornerback Brandon Browner and suspended cornerback Walter Thurmond. Thomas pulled Maxwell aside and told him this was his moment, and he knew Maxwell would seize it.

“Ask him,” Thomas said. “Go ask him. I guarantee he’ll tell you exactly what I’m saying. It’s crazy because you could see it. All he needed was confidence. Now he’s got it.”

Maxwell, in his third year, confirmed Thomas’ recollection. “I guess he felt like I was there,” Maxwell said, “and he had confidence in me.”

Maxwell has responded with three interceptions in three games, including two in Seattle’s 23-0 win Sunday against the Giants. They are the first three interceptions of his career.

Maxwell played his best game against the Giants. He knew they were going to test him often because he’s the least acclaimed member of Seattle’s secondary.

“They came out the first play and threw at me,” Maxwell said. “So, yeah, they were coming at me.”

With less than a minute to play in the first half, Giants quarterback Eli Manning threw a deep pass down the sideline, but Maxwell stayed with receiver Victor Cruz, turned just before the ball arrived and plucked it out of the air.

Later in the game, Manning tried to hit Hakeem Nicks on a crossing route over the middle. The throw was a little behind, and Maxwell grabbed it for his second interception.

“He’s not just picking off go routes,” Thomas said. “He’s taking everything away.”

Maxwell’s play lately reminds Thomas of another guy who got his shot and took advantage.

Two years ago, Richard Sherman was just a fifth-round cornerback who had yet to make himself known. But he started the final 10 games that year after Thurmond and Marcus Trufant went down with injuries. He has been starting ever since.

“It’s just exciting to see Maxwell play,” Thomas said. ‘I told him like I told Sherm before he took off: ‘Watch. You’re going to take off just because it’s in you.’ ”

Seahawks’ Byron Maxwell getting his shot and running with it | Seahawks | The Seattle Times

 

[Doublejive]

Why Seattle Seahawks Cornerback Byron Maxwell Is a Star in the Making

When Brandon Browner was hit with a groin injury and a year-long suspension from the NFL for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy, fans and media members alike wondered if third-year defensive back Byron Maxwell could fill the Pro Bowl cornerback’s shoes.

Seattle Seahawks fans knew what they had in Maxwell, but the rest of the nation wasn’t as sold on the sixth-round pick out of Clemson. Some felt he hadn’t logged enough regular-season snaps to rival Browner’s play, while others believed he would never be anything more than a situational role player.




More at linky---Why Seattle Seahawks Cornerback Byron Maxwell Is a Star in the Making | Bleacher Report

 

[Cloud]

Marshawn Speaks!

And he seems to be happy with this team and its future. I'm glad he's opening up the media a lot more now.

Marshawn Lynch in a rush to collect more victories

 

[Podunkparte]

And he seems to be happy with this team and its future. I'm glad he's opening up the media a lot more now.

Marshawn Lynch in a rush to collect more victories

As a fan that's great to read. Marshawn is a hard guy to read from the outside. He's got that tough thuggish appearance and aura, and the fact that he doesn't talk to the media much keeps people a little hesitant as far as judging his overall feeling toward being a Seahawk.

As a Seattle fan I'm always weary of guys wanting more of the limelight or money and whether winning means more to them than those things. I'm glad Marshawn came out and said that stats mean nothing to him as long as we win. I hope more of the guys we have coming up for contracts feel that way. It sucks losing key pieces of a proven winning formula because we can't afford them.

I know it can be viewed as a pipe dream, but I really hope guys like Maxwell, Irvin, Bennett, and Avril would consider taking deals here for $$ and winning rather than moving on to a middle of the road team for $$$. As for Russell Wilson and Earl Thomas, pay those men their money because they have earned every penny.

 

[Doublejive]

Power Rankings: No. 1 Seattle Seahawks

Power Rankings: No. 1 Seattle Seahawks


The Seahawks retained their top spot in the final ESPN.com power rankings of the season. Now we find out if they deserve it.

Seattle ended the regular season 13-3 with the convincing 27-9 victory over the St. Louis Rams Sunday. The Seahawks earned the NFC West title, along with a first-round bye in the playoffs and home-field advantage.

That’s the good news. The bad news is two of the three possible playoff opponents for Seattle next week rank in the top six in the power rankings. The San Francisco 49ers (12-4) are fourth and the New Orleans Saints (11-5) rank sixth.

Green Bay, the other possible opponent for the Seahawks, ranks 13th with an 8-7-1 record. The Packers play host to the 49ers in a first-round playoff game Sunday.

Power Rankings: No. 1 Seattle Seahawks - Seattle Seahawks Blog - ESPN

 

[Doublejive]

Which foe is the best option for Seattle?


RENTON, Wash. -- So which team do you want the Seahawks to play next week?

Sure, playing the hated 49ers again would be fun for the fans, but San Francisco probably is the best team of the three options.


So why would you want to play a team that would come to CenturyLink Field with a 13-4 record, having won the last game they played against Seattle?

By the way, talk about escaping the North Pole. Had the Seahawks lost to St. Louis last weekend, they would have gotten a trip to balmy Green Bay this weekend. The expected high temperature on Sunday is 0 and the predicted low is minus-18.

And I thought archaic Candlestick Park was cold last month. Have fun with that, 49ers.

The other two possible opponents for the Seahawks are New Orleans and Green Bay. The Saints come to Seattle if they defeat the Eagles in Philadelphia Sunday.

The expected high in Philly for Saturday’s game is a much more pleasant 30 degrees, although that’s still too cold for the Saints and quarterback Drew Brees, a great player who struggles in cold weather on the road.

But New Orleans is the opponent Seattle fans should hope to see. The Saints are 3-5 on the road this season, including the 34-7 loss in the Monday night game last month at CenturyLink Field.

Green Bay has the worst record of the three possible opponents at 8-7-1, but that’s misleading. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers was out with a broken collar bone and the Packers went 2-5-1 without him. He returned last week to lead Green Bay to victory in a winner-take-all NFC North matchup at Chicago.

Packers receiver Randall Cobb also returned last week, so the Green Bay team the Seahawks would face is much better than its record indicates. And the Packers still might be smarting a little over the Immaculate Deception catch (as some Green Bay fans call it) on Golden Tate’s controversial game-winning grab to defeat the Packers on the last play of the game last season at CenturyLink.

So to review:

Best possible opponent for the Seahawks: New Orleans. No way the Saints win back-to-back road games in cold weather, and they just don’t match up well with the Seattle defense.

Worst possible opponent: San Francisco. Easily the most talented team of the three and one that knows the Seahawks well.

Somewhere in between: Green Bay. A great quarterback and a talented rookie running back in Eddie Lacy. Also, cold weather in Seattle is a warm day to these guys.


Which foe is the best option for Seattle Seahawks? - ESPN

 

[Doublejive]

Once Bobby Wagner got healthy, Seahawks began to shut down the run

Seattle’s middle linebacker Bobb Wagner a key factor in Seahawks’ improving run defense





By Bob Condotta
Seattle Times staff reporter


RENTON – After their defense fell into a midseason lull stopping the run, Seahawks coaches — to use the football vernacular — asked Bobby Wagner to take his play to another level.

First, though, Wagner had to return to form.

The middle linebacker was off to a good start to the season before spraining his ankle in Week 5 at Indianapolis. He then made what coach Pete Carroll called a surprisingly fast recovery and missed only two games.

In his first two games back, though, St. Louis (200 yards) and Tampa Bay (205) rushed for a combined 405 yards in almost pulling off upsets of the heavily favored Seahawks.

Wagner won’t say he shouldn’t have played. But he admits he wasn’t fully recovered.

“I definitely felt like I was capable of playing,’’ Wagner said. “Was I playing in some pain? I was playing in a little bit of pain. But it wasn’t enough to be like ‘All right, nah, I can’t do it.’ ’’

Still, as Wagner said, “I feel 100 percent (now). I feel great. And I think it’s showing.’’

In fact, teammates and coaches rave about Wagner’s play the past month, which coincides with the Seahawks having become as stout against the run as at any time all season.

Wagner has 50 tackles in the past five games as the Seahawks have allowed just 76.8 rushing yards a game (compared to a season average of 101.6).

“Bobby Wagner is instrumental in what we do,’’ said defensive coordinator Dan Quinn. “And in the run game, you really have a sense that there’s even another level to go to from understanding in terms of the technique and what we want to play. That’s really the constant challenge that we put on the guys. Can you get better again? Can you now work your skills even harder?

“He’s one of the players that we’ve recognized as a guy, can he take it up to even another spot and keep working and keep working? (He was one) that we tried to identify to say can you pick it up and get even sharper in that area, and he certainly has.”

Or as teammate Richard Sherman put it: “He’s picked up his game and is starting to play like an All-Pro.’’

Wagner, a second-round choice in 2012 out of Utah State, credits both health and the added comfort level of now being in his second season in the NFL.

“I feel like I just know the game a lot better than I did last year,’’ Wagner said. “Last year, I felt like a little kid out there playing to play with the big boys. This year, I feel like I belong here.”

Wagner specifically cited being able to more quickly recognize plays and formations.

“A lot of the stuff last year, I had never seen before in my football career because Utah State was more of a spread team. So I feel like a lot of stuff I’m seeing a lot better now than I did last year.’’

Wagner said a subtle shift in the style of his play also helped in defending the run.

“I’ve just been more aggressive and more downhill,’’ Wagner said. “And I think me being more aggressive has helped the defensive line out because the (offensive linemen) come off the double teams a lot faster. … and the linemen have done a great job of keeping the linemen off of me. So a lot of the stuff I’ve been doing has also been a credit to them.’’

Seattle’s, well, run of run stoutness began with its 34-7 victory Dec. 2 over the same New Orleans Saints that it now plays Saturday in an NFC Divisional playoff game at CenturyLink Field.

Seattle held the Saints to 44 yards on 17 carries that night in limiting the Saints to just 188 yards overall.

Since Seattle last saw the Saints, though, New Orleans has displayed a renewed commitment to running, including getting 126 at Carolina (where Seattle was held to 70 in Week 1) and then 185 on 36 carries in the 26-24 wild-card round victory Saturday at Philadelphia.

“They have run the ball more,’’ Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “What it means I don’t know, but it does show you something different.”

Wagner said he thinks the Saints still will rely on a passing game that ranked second in the NFL this year at 307.4 yards a game.

“I felt like they ran a lot of their (usual) runs (against Philadelphia),’’ Wagner said. “They just did it a lot more to set up their passes. I felt like it wasn’t any new runs, just more of it. And we will be ready for it.’’

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or [email protected]. On Twitter @bcondotta.


Once Bobby Wagner got healthy, Seahawks began to shut down the run | Seahawks | The Seattle Times

 

[blstoker]

Wagner is my favorite player on the team. Absolutely love watching him play. I have noticed him being more active in all phases of the defense the last few weeks, and he has dominated.

 

[Doublejive]

Seahawks GM John Schneider has a talent for evaluating players

He didn’t have a Wikipedia page when the Seahawks hired him four years ago, and his friends like to remind him that he’s short. But general manager John Schneider is … The Natural.

“I won’t be totally jacked up until we start winning championships and people on other teams are calling to acquire our players.”

— Seahawks general manager John Schneider in 2010




John Schneider badgered his way to a job interview. Through letters, through gritty persistence and phone calls, he made his hometown team, the Green Bay Packers, notice him.

In retellings of the John Schneider story, his determination and pestering of Packers general manager Ron Wolf while still in college is presented as career foreshadowing. He had a will and work ethic that would carry him a long way.

Both are foundations of Schneider’s success, but what separates him is what happened once he had his shot.

Over the years, the Packers developed a system for evaluating potential scouts. When Schneider walked in as a 21-year-old in 1992, the Packers assigned him five or six players to evaluate. Not the team’s stars, but also not bottom feeders.

Here’s the film. Here’s a room. Here’s a checklist of what we’re looking for in an offensive lineman, a defensive back.

Schneider had one day. Wolf was looking for honesty and accuracy. Was a guy providing useful information or canned comments out of a scouting book? The amount of inquiries an NFL front office generates is staggering. The amount of valid applicants is not.

“John nailed it,” Wolf says. “And when they nail ’em, you realize you have somebody who can really, truly evaluate and isn’t full of BS.”

SCHNEIDER HAS WORKED hard and trained under some of the game’s best minds, but he is also just good at evaluating players. A gift, Packers general manager Ted Thompson calls it.

“It’s like a great athlete who doesn’t realize he’s a great athlete,” former Seahawks owner John Nordstrom says.

Schneider does most of his work behind the curtain. That’s not uncommon in the NFL, but the result is that the architect of Seattle’s roster operates in the spotlight only around draft time. (He hasn’t talked since before the season and declined to do so for this story).

Wolf says general managers need to hit on four of seven draft picks to be successful. “I’m talking about guys who have the ability to play at a high level, a championship-caliber level,” he says.

In Schneider’s first three years in Seattle, that’s exactly the clip at which he drafted starters or contributing backups. He’s also proved adept at mining undrafted free agents (Doug Baldwin, Ricardo Lockette, Jermaine Kearse).

But that’s only part of what’s enabled Schneider and the Seahawks to reach this point. The other part goes back to an interview four years ago with coach Pete Carroll.

THE ORGANIZATION NEEDED to start over. After years of trying to patch things up with repairs, the Seahawks finally decided to swing the wrecking ball.

Former president Bob Whitsitt’s heavy-handed style alienated many, including coach Mike Holmgren. Holmgren’s relationship soured over time with Tim Ruskell, the man hired to replace him as general manager. And, finally, Ruskell bolted before the end of the 2009 season after learning his contract wouldn’t be renewed.

The Seahawks still made the playoffs five times between 2000 and 2009, including the 2005 Super Bowl run. But over time internal tension hampered decision-making. By 2009, when Ruskell left and coach Jim Mora was fired, “the rope finally snapped,” one former team employee said.

That’s why Schneider’s interview with Carroll in 2010 was so important. Carroll and the new general manager were getting a clean slate, but there had to be a working connection.

The Seahawks liked Schneider’s pedigree. He started in Green Bay’s scouting department, became the Chiefs’ director of pro personnel and then was named Marty Schottenheimer’s No. 2 man with the Redskins at age 30. He lasted only a year before getting fired, but even that intrigued Seattle’s executives: He returned to Green Bay and worked his way back to be the organization’s director of football operations.

But would he mesh with Carroll, the coach hired one week before and given the biggest stake?

Schneider wasn’t Seattle’s first choice. The Seahawks had discussions with Holmgren before talks stalled, and many around the league thought veteran general manager Floyd Reese would get the job. In a sign of modern anonymity, Schneider didn’t even have a Wikipedia page at the time.

He and Carroll met for two or three hours at the team’s office. The two talked philosophies and how they approached team building.

But something important happened. Schneider made Carroll laugh. They struck a personal chord and got along. Carroll could see himself collaborating with Schneider.

“I’m really proud of that relationship,” Carroll said earlier this season, “because without that we would be making errors, more errors than we have been. We’ve been pretty accurate.”

THE FUNNY THING about talking to Schneider’s old colleagues is that they all want to pass along a jab.

“John always knows it’s OK to draft someone taller than him, so that’s what he always does,” says Chiefs general manager John Dorsey. “You let him know that, OK?”

“Are you going to see John this week?” Holmgren says after telling an old story in which he yelled at Schneider about a newly signed linebacker in Green Bay. “Ask him: ‘Is it fair you got blamed for bringing in Alberto White?’ Just ask him that.”

“You know how John is,” Thompson says. “He’s 5 foot 6 as it is. If he mentioned a cornerback or running back that was real short, Ron would get all over him.”

Schneider often mockingly yells “Hey, Dan!” or “Hey, Darrell!” while walking by the news conferences of coordinators Dan Quinn and Darrell Bevell, like a high schooler seeing his friend interviewed for the first time. In a live chat with fans in 2010, Schneider dropped quotes from “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and responded to a puzzling question about his voice by saying, “Dude … what are you hopped up on?”

He is, as Dorsey put it, “very secure within his person.” And that enables him to do things that others might be too timid to try.

THOMPSON CALLS SCHNEIDER “the idea man.” In fact, that’s exactly what Thompson wanted Schneider to be when the two worked together.

“I wanted him to always be pushing the envelope and coming to me with ideas,” Thompson said. “Often times we didn’t do it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t part of our process. I always found that very interesting.”

Here’s an example Thompson gave: Instead of switching out one guard with another guard, what if the Packers replaced that guard with a cornerback so they could scout him during the season? That might seem small, but the point is Schneider was always looking for different ways to shape and evaluate Green Bay’s roster.

Even as Seattle’s 53-man roster has largely solidified this season, Schneider has continued shuffling guys in and out of the practice squad in search of better players. “If you realize player B can’t play, bring player C in and take a look at him,” Wolf said. “Doesn’t matter where B or C plays, what position, but let’s take a look at C and see if he’s better.”

As Holmgren said, “John has a lot of gambler in him. He did some things the first couple years that people in the business were going, ‘Whoa, what?’ I teased him at a league meeting once: ‘Do you get paid per transaction?’ He had like the world’s record in transactions. But there was a method to his madness.”

Schneider’s drafts have not always come stamped with approval. He was criticized for taking Russell Wilson in the third round after just signing free agent Matt Flynn, and Mel Kiper gave Schneider’s second draft a D-minus. He was also criticized for two of his first-round picks: offensive lineman James Carpenter (which is looking increasingly accurate) and linebacker Bruce Irvin.


Rest at link




Seahawks GM John Schneider has a talent for evaluating players | Seahawks | The Seattle Times

 

[Doublejive]

Russell Wilson has proved himself to Seahawks teammates

Quarterback Russell Wilson has earned respect of teammates and coaches with his coolness and performance under pressure. He’ll try again to lead the Seahawks to the Super Bowl.


As he has moved up the football ladder, the first reaction to Russell Wilson, even from teammates, is invariably one of skepticism. As in, can this guy be for real?

All those platitudes, like “the separation is in the preparation.” The work ethic that borders on maniacal. The no-nonsense approach that extends to every practice, every meeting, every study session. Surely, it must be an act.

“I thought he was full of crap for the first few weeks,’’ said wide receiver Golden Tate, laughing. “It was, like, man, it’s not that serious. It’s serious, but you can kind of relax. But that’s who he is, and that’s what’s gotten him to this point.”

Where it has gotten Wilson is a second go-round in the playoffs, and another opportunity to cement his reputation as one of the NFL’s clutch quarterbacks. His opposite number in Saturday’s game with the Saints, Drew Brees, has what Wilson aspires to: a Super Bowl championship.

So do Tom Brady (three, to be exact) and Peyton Manning. The rest of the quarterbacks in the NFL playoffs — Philip Rivers, Andrew Luck, Cam Newton, Colin Kaepernick and Wilson — can rise to elite status if they complete the journey in the next three weeks.

Once they got over the initial suspicion of Wilson last year, teammates were gradually won over. The tide began to turn decisively in the Chicago Bears game in Week 12, when he led a game-tying touchdown drive at the end of regulation, then a winning drive in overtime.

“He played outside of his mind,’’ Richard Sherman said. “He managed the game, he ran it when he had to, he threw great passes when he had to and drove the ball down the field when he had to for the game-winner. I think that’s as clutch as you can get.”

But in the playoffs last year, Wilson gave the strongest indication he doesn’t shrink in the spotlight. In the first round, he led the Seahawks past Robert Griffin III and Washington for a road playoff victory.

And then, in what ultimately was a heartbreaking loss to Atlanta, Wilson was the best player on the field, leading four touchdown drives in Seattle’s first five second-half possessions. He rallied the Seahawks from a 20-0 halftime deficit into a lead with 31 seconds remaining — one the Seahawks’ defense couldn’t hold.

 

[Doublejive]

The Seahawks, however, believe a precedent was established by Wilson — one that has been mostly upheld this season in leading Seattle to an NFC-best 13-3 record.

“He had great numbers in the postseason, and to us, he seems to rise up and always capture the moment,’’ Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said.

Wilson has said he rarely succumbs to nerves, which he ascribes to his renowned study regimen.

“I always say you’re never nervous when you’re prepared,’’ he said.

Again, it would sound like just corny words if Wilson didn’t exude a sense of calm beyond his years, one he hopes his teammates pick up on.

“His leadership is amazing,’’ wide receiver Jermaine Kearse said. “I’ve already felt like he was a 10-year vet when I first met him last year, so now I feel like he’s a 20-year vet. He is just getting better every day. He is never trying to stay complacent. He is always trying to get better, whether it’s film study or on the field.”

Wilson used the phrase “being the calm in the storm” more than once Wednesday in explaining his mindset in the critical junctures of the tensest games.

“The biggest thing is being able to slow the game down,’’ he said of the playoffs. “It’s no different.’’

Well, maybe a little different, according to wide receiver Doug Baldwin.

“It’s just the energy is ramped up a little bit more,’’ Baldwin said. “The field is still the same size, but the atmosphere … the players just get up more for it. The energy is hard to explain. That’s what we learned from it (last year) and that’s what we took from it.”

For all of Wilson’s talk all season about each week being a championship game, he knows the stakes are raised now, and the margin for error narrowed. If that is indeed when he thrives, he’ll have to show it again Saturday, for this is a “what have you done lately” league.

“I think to be a big-time player, you have to play big-time in big games,’’ Wilson said. “Every big opportunity is a great opportunity to step up.’’

Meanwhile, Tate long ago stopped questioning Wilson’s methods. If Wilson wants to arrive at the crack of dawn to watch film, Tate realized, it isn’t for show. It’s just Russell being Russell.

“That’s what’s helping us win,’’ Tate said. “So I’ll eat my words.”

Russell Wilson has proved himself to Seahawks teammates | Larry Stone | The Seattle Times