2018 Seahawks: R.I.P. Paul Allen

DanoooME

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Housecleaning continues

Both coordinators, and a few assistants out

Michael Bennett traded to Philadelphia with a 7th rounder for a 5th and WR Marcus Johnson

Richard Sherman released due to two Achilles surgeries and a high salary; subsequently signs for big money in SF.

Jeremy Lane released because of performance issues, injury issues, too high a salary and a DUI, not necessarily in that order.

Free agents include Jimmy Graham, Sheldon Richardson, Paul Richardson, all of whom likely won't be back

Cliff Avril likely to be released given his one remaining year on his contract and his career-threatening injury

Kam Chancellor won't be released because his cap hit would kill the team, so he either plays or spends the year on IR.

It's going to be an interesting year. They still have Russell Wilson, Earl Thomas, and Bobby Wagner. The draft will be key. Seattle is certain to trade down from #18, maybe multiple times, to acquire multiple picks.
 

DanoooME

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Seahawks keep S Bradley McDougald, who did a fine job filling in for Kam Chancellor and is his likely replacement, for 3 years, $13.95M. He should be worth every penny.
 

DanoooME

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I'm still shaking my head at a RB pick in the first round. Penny will need to pull an Elliott out of the gate to be worth this investment.
 

sketz

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Hate hate hate this pick. Have a hard time believing they couldn’t have traded out of the first round, pocketed a 3rd or 4th and still gotten him in the 2nd if they liked him so much.
 

DanoooME

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Hate hate hate this pick. Have a hard time believing they couldn’t have traded out of the first round, pocketed a 3rd or 4th and still gotten him in the 2nd if they liked him so much.
They don't have a second round pick, so they'd have to hope he slid to the third.
 

ThePrideofShiner

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After reading more about him, I don't mind this pick. They want to get back to running the ball and they don't have anyone in house that can do that. Guy is great at breaking tackles and has good speed.
 

sketz

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They don't have a second round pick, so they'd have to hope he slid to the third.
Should have been more clear: they should have traded 1/27 for a 2nd & a 3/4. Don’t mind the player, just think they left draft capital on the table taking him at 1/27.
 

Michelle34B

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Aug 2, 2006
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I think this pick is a result of hoping a player would have slid a bit more last year. The Penny pick can lead you to believe that the Seahawks may have missed their guy in last year's draft with Kareem Hunt, picked 86th overall by the Kansas City Chiefs. The Seahawks ended up choosing Shaquill Griffin at 90th overall. This year, the Seahawks get a guy that profiles similar to Kareem Hunt, and move on from the running back play they endured last year.
 

DanoooME

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Should have been more clear: they should have traded 1/27 for a 2nd & a 3/4. Don’t mind the player, just think they left draft capital on the table taking him at 1/27.
Clearly they didn't have that kind of offer or they would have taken it.
 

Ed Hillel

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He’s not technically retiring, he’s “not medically cleared,” which means he will make about 11.5 million the next two seasons as part of his injury guarantee. Glad he has it, and hopefully this doesn’t impact his life much moving forward.
 

ThePrideofShiner

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Well, that sucks. Easily my favorite Seahawks defensive player from this run. But glad he's hanging it up before anything worse happens to his body.
 

Super Nomario

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Not to get lost in the Kaepernick stuff, but Shaquem Griffin is also one of the featured Nike athletes this campaign:



Dude was one of the best players in college football with one hand, tore up the Combine, got drafted, made Seattle's 53, and now figures to start with K.J. Wright recovering from surgery. Unbelievable story.
 

RedOctober3829

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Jul 19, 2005
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deep inside Guido territory
Scathing piece on the internal turmoil in the Seahawks front office and locker room. Russell Wilson is at the center of it and comes out like a spoiled brat that goes to Daddy Pete while Daddy does not hold him accountable for anything.
https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/09/07/seattle-seahawks-dismantling-rift-russell-wilson-pete-carroll?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=themmqb&utm_medium=social

"The dismantling of a great defense dates back to one random 2014 practice, which ESPN first reported last summer as a catalyst for the Seahawks’ rift. That afternoon, Sherman intercepted Wilson, the two traded words and Sherman yelled “you f------ suck” as he flipped the ball back at the quarterback.

The pick itself wasn’t as important as what happened afterward, when several players who spoke to SI said Carroll gathered his offensive and defensive leaders and told them they needed to protect Wilson, to treat him more gently than they would their other teammates. Those same players had been indoctrinated into the NFL the exact way they were trying to teach Wilson, with merciless competition as the way to bring out the best in each other, by never letting a lapse slide, by talking s--- after interceptions, even in practice. In the meeting, they told Carroll exactly that. “This is making him one of our own,” one player said, while several others nodded, according to two who were in the room. “He’s got to go through the process.”

No, Carroll told them. Not Wilson. “He protected him,” one Seahawk says. “And we hated that. Any time he f----- up, Pete would never say anything. Not in a team meeting, not publicly, never. If Russ had a terrible game, he would always talk about how resilient he was. We’re like, what the f--- are you talking about?”
All these accusations, though, spoke to the same theme: that Wilson was both treated differently than his teammates and, in some instances, willingly stood apart from them. When McDaniel arrived in Seattle in ’13, he went to dinner with several defensive players and asked them why things seemed off between the defense and the quarterback. He was told by those players to be careful speaking frankly when Wilson was around, because they believed what they said could wind up on Carroll’s desk. The players said that had already happened—subjects that had been discussed in the QB’s presence had come to the attention of Carroll, an assertion four other players who spoke to SI also made. “When guys would talk candidly in front of Russell, somehow all that stuff got up to Pete,” one player said. “And after a while, after a few instances, everyone started noticing that, and everyone made sure not to talk about anything that could be misconstrued near Russell.”
An interesting exerpt about the play on the 1-yard line.

All of this came, remarkably, before the crushing Super Bowl defeat, before Wilson drove the Seahawks to the 1-yard-line in the game’s final minute against the Patriots, giving Seattle a chance to win. That Wilson threw an interception mattered less than the fact that the Seahawks had called a pass play on second down. Many who lamented how Wilson was treated differently now believed, truly believed, that Carroll had called a pass play to give Wilson a better chance to win the Super Bowl MVP award and decrease Marshawn Lynch’s chances, perhaps conveniently ignoring that offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell might have actually called the play. Regardless, the players say, that call contradicted what Carroll always said publicly: that he wanted to run the ball and play great defense, that that’s how he built the Seahawks—to be tough and stop foes and let Lynch bulldoze Seattle to victory after victory. Again, several players felt that Carroll said one thing and did another, and this time it had cost them a repeat Super Bowl title. (Such a view disregards the fact that the Seahawks defense missed 18 tackles and allowed the Patriots 196 yards-after-catch in the game.)
“That’s when some guys started to openly question whether [Carroll] believed in his philosophy,” says Avril, who says he still trusted the coach at that point. “Guys started to be like, do you even believe what you’re saying?”

Some Seahawks still remember every detail from that night. Sherman pacing back and forth, wearing his frustration into the carpet in that locker room in Arizona. Lynch, fully dressed, downing a bottle of cognac, saying “These motherf------ robbed me,” and “f--- this,” over and over. “If we gave the ball to the soul of our team and we lose, f--- it, we lose,” one Seahawk says. “Point-blank, period. You lost doing what you do best. But he gave it to Russ. I didn’t believe the MVP thing at first. But now I wonder. It’s at least plausible.”

“That one play changed the whole locker room,” McDaniel says. “When Pete would give a speech or try for a heart-to-heart, people just stopped responding. They didn’t know who to trust anymore.”
 

BaseballJones

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Oct 1, 2015
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I read that article. Sounds like the seeds for destruction were sown before the Super Bowl, but really... the Patriots broke them.

It also goes to show that while for some players BB's system may not be as "fun" (whatever they mean by that), they know he's consistent and it works. The Patriots have had plenty of huge stars and egos on the team and the team just keeps winning. How remarkable it is, really.
 

DeadlySplitter

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haha, boo hoo. Bill goaded the Seahawks into a pass play. If Pete wanted Russ to be the star that badly, he would have thrown on 1st down, after a timeout, with some time to think about it. Not in real-time panic on 2nd down.
 

dcmissle

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haha, boo hoo. Bill goaded the Seahawks into a pass play. If Pete wanted Russ to be the star that badly, he would have thrown on 1st down, after a timeout, with some time to think about it. Not in real-time panic on 2nd down.
But people will believe it. You have a player saying it.

These moments are tough to overcome. We have geniuses saying B.B. threw a SB to make a point re Malcolm Butler.
 

Cellar-Door

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Is Kendrick even going to be eligible to play? He pleaded guilty to a felony, have to assume that there's a significant suspension coming
 

DanoooME

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It's time. Pete needs to go. The team needs a reboot. His insistence on hiring shitty offensive coordinators is wasting the prime of Russell Wilson's career. The defense played its heart out last night, terribly undermanned missing three starters including 2 Pro-Bowlers. And yet they held Chicago to 17 points on offense on the road despite being on the field for more than 2/3rds of the game after 3 quarters. Russell was fucking awful last night, even if you threw out the pick-6. I don't know if it's the scheme or if he's lost his confidence, but he looked worse than your average rookie QB last night. Pete claimed in his postgame press conference that he overruled Schotty's offensive play calls to start the second half, calling for more passing than sticking to the game plan. If true, that's criminal. He's a fucking defensive coach; he needs to stop meddling in something he knows squat about. This team has enough talent to finish 6-10. I'd rather the wheels fall off completely, Paul Allen talk Pete into "retiring" and getting a top 5 pick in the draft and begin the rebuild/retooling.
 

DanoooME

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That was pretty nuts. He’s clearly gone this offseason, probably to Dallas.
He's clearly gone now. For the season.

And wibi is right, what should John Schneider have done? Overpay for his 30+ years? Trade him for anything? They were still trying to win this year. Earl would have been a big part of that. I think he expected Kam treatment, contract-wise, which would have been reasonable, except the team is pretty much rebuilding around him and it just didn't make sense to pay him the top dollars he wanted and pretty much deserved. Schneider was stuck between a rock and a hard place and chose the long-term.
 

BigSoxFan

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He's clearly gone now. For the season.

And wibi is right, what should John Schneider have done? Overpay for his 30+ years? Trade him for anything? They were still trying to win this year. Earl would have been a big part of that. I think he expected Kam treatment, contract-wise, which would have been reasonable, except the team is pretty much rebuilding around him and it just didn't make sense to pay him the top dollars he wanted and pretty much deserved. Schneider was stuck between a rock and a hard place and chose the long-term.
Didn’t the Cowboys offer a 2nd round pick or is that just rumored? Seems like a fair price for a guy the Seahawks likely weren’t keeping around after this year regardless.
 

Pandemonium67

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Earl's been a great player for the Hawks and this is just a shitty way to go out. If he's busted the same leg twice, you've got to wonder how well he'll recuperate and how much he'll have left. It would be a drag if this was the end of the road for him.

This game is brutal.
 

DJnVa

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And wibi is right, what should John Schneider have done? Overpay for his 30+ years? Trade him for anything? They were still trying to win this year. Earl would have been a big part of that. I think he expected Kam treatment, contract-wise, which would have been reasonable, except the team is pretty much rebuilding around him and it just didn't make sense to pay him the top dollars he wanted and pretty much deserved. Schneider was stuck between a rock and a hard place and chose the long-term.
Which one?
 

PedroKsBambino

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He's clearly gone now. For the season.

And wibi is right, what should John Schneider have done? Overpay for his 30+ years? Trade him for anything? They were still trying to win this year. Earl would have been a big part of that. I think he expected Kam treatment, contract-wise, which would have been reasonable, except the team is pretty much rebuilding around him and it just didn't make sense to pay him the top dollars he wanted and pretty much deserved. Schneider was stuck between a rock and a hard place and chose the long-term.
I think Schneider should have traded Thomas, just as other GMs have traded key guys as part of reloading on the fly when they make clear they want more money and clarity than it makes sense for the team to provide. I understand that would have impacted this year's team, and Schneider's attempt to get through this year with Thomas is understandable---but it has proven to be wrong.

Also, I think you have it backwards---Schneider chose the short-term not the long-term
 

wibi

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Which one?
They were stupidly trying to do both and that's part of why they are where they are. They should have kept going this year as a rebuilding year instead of trying to win and rebuild at the same time. If that happens they trade ETIII and get some value in return instead of no value.
 

Super Nomario

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They were stupidly trying to do both and that's part of why they are where they are. They should have kept going this year as a rebuilding year instead of trying to win and rebuild at the same time. If that happens they trade ETIII and get some value in return instead of no value.
They can still get a comp pick depending on what he signs for and what else they do in free agency.

I think there's something to be said for keeping guys who let you play the way you want to play, even for a rebuilding team. Kam's retired(ish), Richard Sherman's gone, secondary guys like Maxwell and Jeremy Lane are gone. Tre Flowers is a rookie, Shaquill Griffin, Delano Hill, and Tedric Thompson are second-year guys, even vets like Coleman and McDougald are only in their second years with Seattle. Thomas gives them not only a link to the Legion of Boom culturally but also someone who plays his position the way it's supposed to be played in that system. You have to trust your teammates to play zone defense, and it's hard to build that trust if you're playing a young guy at FS who doesn't know what he's doing. I could see Carroll / Schneider thinking, "yeah, we'll have growing pains with the youngsters, but it'll be manageable as long as Thomas is back there." I guess we'll find out.
 

InstaFace

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What was the flipping of the bird all about? Articles seem to be mentioning the fact of the flip-off, but leaving the context unremarked-upon.
 

singaporesoxfan

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What was the flipping of the bird all about? Articles seem to be mentioning the fact of the flip-off, but leaving the context unremarked-upon.
Wasn’t it as simple as “screw you, you refused to give me more money and put pressure on me to end my holdout and now I might have lost a ton of money?”
 

Super Nomario

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Pete Carroll confused by Mychal Kendricks suspension

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2018/10/03/pete-carroll-confused-by-mychal-kendricks-suspension/

I don't know why Pete is confused when he pled guilty to a federal crime
If you read the article, Pete's point is pretty fair. They expected a suspension, but of finite length; instead the league is taking the "indefinite" approach. This is the same stuff the league got in trouble for when suspending Peterson and Hardy.
 

DanoooME

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Allen's death is going to have a major effect on the team. The Seahawks had a very shaky history of previous ownership before Allen purchased the team. At one point, they were almost headed to LA. The whole city of Seattle has had ownership issues with all of the teams throughout the years, and I don't see it getting better with the Sonics leaving, and the Mariners not exactly a model of stability. Allen knew well enough to hire good people and stay the hell out of the way of their decisions. Are they going to be able to find someone to buy the team at the price it's going to require? It will likely require multiple partners forming a group to buy the team. And what kind of philosophy are they going to have in regards to running the team? This almost certainly means the end of the Pete Carroll era and likely the John Schneider era as well (he probably heads back to Green Bay).

The future is really, really murky now and who knows what happens going forward.
 

InstaFace

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don't worry, I think I hear Jeff Bezos's music. He could buy an NFL team and barely notice the difference, Hiroshi Yamauchi style (only without the racist pushback).