Where Do We Go from Here? A Frank Discussion about Tim Ruskell

wouldn’t it be prudent to bring him onboard. Perhaps we say goodbye to Walter Jones and Say hello to potential.

Also, aside from the intriguing Jason Cambell theory, I’m also in favor of a swap of #1’s with Philly for Kolb.

Ruskell had a prime opportunity to turn the roster over this year without much backlash. I admire his desire to win now. I just hope it doesn’t work out like most of my credit cards that were granted at 4%, and now charge me 18%.

the ability to make this season a success is not lost yet. And still realistic.

Injuries really make it difficult to assess what kind of talent scout Ruskell is since these guys never seem to be on the field together. He has brought in alot of good players — Lofa, Mebane, Leroy Hill, Josh Wilson, John Carlson, and (is it too easy to say) Lawrence Jackson.

It’s safe to say that Deion Branch hasn’t worked out. Patrick Kerney did lead the league in sacks in 2007. TJ Housh seemed to be gelling with Matt Hasselbeck (remember him?).

So we should have taken Sanchez? You think he’d look as poised with Brandon Frye protecting him? He’d probably be getting Ryan Leaf comparisons by now and everyone would be second-guessing the hell out of the pick. Or maybe we should have taken LT Monroe and everyone would have been freaking out that we let Curry slide while fielding (in weeks 2 and 3) linebacking corps consisting of David Hawthorne, DD Lewis, and Will Herring..

What are the odds that a team loses 11 starters by the end of week 2? How much of that can be blamed on the GM? Think the Colts would have slaughtered us with Jim Sorgi at QB yesterday?

I don’t know where you get off thinking Robert Mathis is not an elite defensive end. I’d like you to show me other defensive ends who are more “elite.” He finally got a Pro Bowl nod last year, which he was long overdue for, and while he does not get the publicity that Dwight Freeney gets, he is just about as productive.

Since 2003, Mathis has forced 33 fumbles and recovered ten. The only other active player in the league to force more fumbles than Mathis is Freeney. He also has 58.5 career sacks, but has only been starting at DE since 2006. He also holds up very well against the run.

So please, before you start saying the guy who sacked your QB three times sunday is not “elite,” kindly look at the stats, watch the tape, and know what you are talking about.

Your tackle, Ray Willis, was not the problem. Your coach’s gameplan to use him to single block an elite player like Mathis was.

I’m really torn. I think he has done a lot of good for this organization and was a big part of the best season in team history. I still want to give him a chance to draft a QB and see how that QB does with the rest of the talent hes assembled.

I thought the struggles of the defense was a lack of coaching adapting to the talent (John Marshall, whom I still think gets way to much crap from some), but the coaching seems to be solid this season and the defense is still struggling in some areas.

I don’t know, I guess I would like to give Ruskell one more year.

I think it’d really be cutting Mora’s legs out from under him to replace Ruskell so soon, unless you bring in someone who already has a good relationship with Mora. I’d rather see them get a couple more years together, and then if it doesn’t work out, you can clean house and bring in a new GM and let him bring in his own coaches.

As far as QB goes, people say that Ruskell likes to take the best player available rather than draft for need, and I have to agree that it really does appear that way. The only problem is that there is such a premium on QB’s that they get drafted well ahead of more talented players at less premium positions. I wonder if his unwillingness to draft a QB is purley based on that.

will there be pressure for Ruskell to bring in someone like Gruden?

I want to see what he does this off-season and draft. Should he have released Walt and picked up a right tackle in FA? Drafted one? If Walt fully recovered and wound up playing for another team he’d have looked like an ass. He gave our all-pro tackle the benefit of the doubt and took the chance he’d recover. He may still, although I am doubting it more every day. He picked up Burleson and traded for Branch and picked up Housh to bolster the WR corps. I think we can say Branch is overpaid and underproducing. At this point I’d trade him for a 3rd round pick and promote Butler. Burleson seems like fair value, and jury is out on Housh although I think he’s earning his money. Unlike last year, we have a solid set of wideouts. I’d say he solved that problem.

I keep saying this, but I think the area that needs the most attention is O-line. Improving it helps Julius gain yards and Hass complete passes, and keeps the D off the field. With Sims and Spencer FA’s after the season, and Walt more questionable than ever, Ruskell will have the opportunity to re-shape the O-line. Unger was a great first step. We need 2-3 more steps. Build the team from the inside out. Before we draft the QB of the future (assuming it’s not Teel, which may be assuming too much) shore up the O-line to give him a chance.

It has synonyms, let’s use those, or we’ll sick LeGarret Blount on you…

I’m not saying Holmgren would be the best man for the job or even better than Ruskell, but I do see how hiring him could have some merits.

The team needs a franchise QB very badly and there is probably no bigger expert on the subject, alive or otherwise, than Mike Holmgren. If Holmgren invested in a 1st round QB that he believed in, it would at the very least be very exciting to see unfold. Having Holmgren around to mentor would be a big plus as well. If Holmgren drafted and groomed the next Matt Ryan, he could be mediocre or worse at almost everything else and still help this franchise immensely.

Holmgren had iffy drafts during his time here and iffy free agency decisions. However, he did get us a franchise QB, a couple of productive WR (Djack, FA Engram), one of the best guards to ever play the game, a pretty good center (Tobeck, FA), and a MVP running back. Even without being perfect (McIntosh and K-Rob), he still built an elite offense basically from scratch (Walter Jones being the exception).

Holmgren’s weakness is that he has trouble evaluating defensive talent, but if he took over next winter, he’d be inheriting a team with a lot of young defensive talent on it.

I don’t think Holmgren was a good GM by any means during his first stint, and I wouldn’t exactly be busted up if the team passed on him, but I do think he provides some expertise in areas that the Seahawks organization is in need of right now, particularly at QB and the offense at large.

I’m not really sure how to feel about retaining Ruskell. He’s shown to be persuasive and tends to win his battles in free agency, and he has a rock solid track record in the draft after the 1st round. However, Ruskell’s history with QB’s isn’t pretty, and his handling of the O-line since superbowl XL ended has basically amounted to a clusterfuck. He’s built a good WR corp but its essentially a 2-3 year rental at a time when we essentially don’t have a franchise QB to throw to them. Julius Jones is decent, but he too is short term, basically a bandaid to hold us over a few years.

On defense, its really hard to be fair because Marshall and a horrible offense sabotaged the 2008 unit and injuries with a poor offense have sabotaged 2009. My one complaint for the defense was the mistake of investing $128 million in the starting 3 LB’s, especially given Ruskell’s gift for finding cheap, servicable LB’s with late picks.

But mostly, I have a hard time feeling excited about more years of Ruskell, even though he’s a decent GM, simply because of the way he’s handled the QB and OL areas of the team. He’s also handled the WR and RB areas in a way that isn’t long term minded. Even if the defense becomes near elite, we won’t have the offense required to push for the Superbowl. Whoever the GM is next March/April, I hope it is someone that will make the QB and OL and offense in general an urgent priority and take bold, ambitious action to fix the problems.

That said Seneca Wallace should either be converted to WR or leave the Seahawks.

He has some value because he’s started so many games so I would definitely look towards trading him for draft picks or a depth player who is capable of playing a starting role in whatever position we need (except quarterback).

If this season is a total bust with Hasselbeck then it’s obvious that we’re facing a carbon copy of the Shaun Alexander situation. Pro Bowl years before injuries and sub-par play felled them. If Ruskell is smart he will realize the only way the QB position will be fixed through the draft, and it’s up to him from then on to determine if they can become future stars.

your question was mostly about Ruskell.

He got in bed with Hasselbeck and tried to give the man a ring. Ultimately. I can’t fault him for it and I thank him for recognizing where the team was and doing his best to win now.

I didn’t like the offensive neglect, but offense takes longer to build and it’s best to start there, so starting there would have meant neglecting the defense and re-building the offense. Starting over, essentially. Past couple of years would surely have been worse than they did come to be.

I want him back.

GM thinks you need good character nice-guys. You need beasts, you need rip off your arm and beat you to death with it, pull off your head and spit down your neck, type of ghetto ass, inner city, nasty muthafuckas. Seattle is way too nice, our reputation is sittin around drinkin Lattes, Birrkenstock wearing, granola eatin pussies. And our team is the joke of the NFL, we are southern Alaska and we get no respect. That’s why you need mean and nasty, snot-bubble dudes to put a hurtin on folks. If you don’t get respect you gotta take it. In a sport like football pussy ass nice guys finish last. We need Joey Porter, Ray Lewis, Patrick Willis, Kris Jenkins, Tommie Harris type players. YOU NEED MUTHAFUCKAS WITH RABIES!!!!!!!

there’s a difference.

doesn’t mean there good picks. I always believe in drafting the best player available as oppose to need. And just because we sign Free Agent Safties doesn’t mean there good Free Agent signings. That’s where your GM gets his big bucks…in evaluating talent. I’m just not sure he’s done it consistantly for us.

Do you think Spencer was the best player available on the board when we took him and the same could be said for Jackson….(Jackson has rounded in to form now though) But I don’t think Wilson is going to be a great Corner either. He was just the lesser of 2 evils with Jennings. He’s not a shut down guy. His special teams ability kept him in the fold. I think he’s really a Nickel corner at best.

Do we do an apologist thread?

2005 Draft

Vincent Jackson #61
Frank Gore #65
Justin Tuck #74
(our own) Leroy Hill #98
Brandon Jacobs #110
Chris Canty #132

2006 (We drafted Kelly Jennings #31)

Greg Jennings #52
Devin Hester # 57
Maurice Jones-Drew #60
Tim Jennings #62
Brandon Marshall #119
Elvis Dumervil #126

I contend that all the players on this list are impact players even though they were drafted after our 1st round picks in those two drafts. I know it’s not a pure science but there’s a reason that there are Bill Pollians and then the Matt Millens of the world. I think Ruskell is right in the middle. That’s all. He’s had some late round picks that have out performed other GM’s to. But we have missed on his 1st round picks I think.

Shaun Alexander and Steve Hutchinson…And he drafted Shaun when we had Waters and look how that panned out. Best player on the board. I would take those 2 1st rounders over Spencer and Jennings any day. I didn’t even mention the 1st rounder we didn’t have in 2007 because of Deion Branch.

Lamar King wasn’t that bad either.

However, it isn’t so much his lack of doing anything for the offense as it is the fact that the defense looks awful, despite being his alleged strength.

Shutting out the Rams isn’t impressive when you consider they are on pace for a historically bad offense.

We faced a team that claims the run is their strength in the 49ers, and despite several offseason moves to strengthen the run-defense, they ran all over us even though we knew what was coming.

We faced a team that had the ability to scratch and claw their way out of a deficit, and our defense blew the lead.

We faced a team with a proven passing offense, and we didn’t come even close to stopping it.

Which begs the question, what exactly is this defense good for? Even though Ruskell’s clearly invested more in terms of draft picks and signings on that side of the ball, it looks as bad as it ever was with Holmgren, except then we could outscore opponents on the way to victory. I don’t think it’s the coaching as much as the talent simply isn’t there.

To me, the elephant in the room we are ignoring is Colin Cole. Even if we ignore Brian Russell as just a bad move in hindsight, we went out and signed a crappy replacement-level on a crappy defense that couldn’t stop the run to be our alleged run-stuffer. Even though we are smart enough to know that Mebane is our best run-defender, the coaching staff and Ruskell obviously think Cole’s bulk was going to improve the defense, and Cole has looked just awful, as evidenced by him getting washed out by David Baas on Gore’s long TD runs. I think it’s an inexcusable signing and a legit gripe to question Ruskell’s talent evaluation with.

In addition, trading Julian Peterson seems like a self-defeating move. Here we had a proven playmaking machine, and traded him away for peanuts because we apparently didn’t need 3 high-paid linebackers, and then promptly drafted Aaron Curry. If we were going to bank on him declining simply because he was past 30 (despite he was a physical freak of nature), Patrick Kerney should have been the first to go, as he has invisible this season. Walter Jones, Mike Wahle, and Chris Spencer were known injury risks, and we didn’t do anything to address the line besides Unger despite being in prime position to in the draft.

In the end, I’m going to have to agree with ASeahawkfan that this defense simply is not very good and doesn’t look like it’s ever going to be, and that it only does when the offense is firing on all cylinders. Even 2007 looks like a mirage when you consider the ridiculously bad QBs and offenses our defense got to feast on. Only now we don’t have an offense that can’t outscore anyone, and is going to be as barren as any team on that side of the ball when Walt and Matt are done, which will be sooner rather than later. Someone on NinersNation made a good point to me that the only real bright spot we have on offense that’s young is John Carlson.

And while next season provides promise with two first round picks, I’m not I trust Ruskell to make the right decisions on offensive players anyway.