To that.

The US military is one of the biggest in the world.

I’m not going to deny the contribution of Canadian (or European) military personnel, but you don’t get extra credit for coming from a smaller country.

Or so they tell me. And I believe them.

director (scanners, dead ringers, eastern promises), long distance runner who ran across the whole country on one leg while dying of cancer, creator of ren and stimpy, either the first or second inventor of the telephone, director, maybe the best sleight of hand magician of all time, actress, author of one of my favorite books of all time

I know Graham Bell, but the others I have no idea.

Or that TV show that spawned Rick Moranis and Eugene Levy?

Humor not relevant, but I’m ashamed I didn’t catch the name.
I think I got caught up by the “fucking” in the middle…

Okay, back to the topic at hand. Key word here in John’s post is “rebuilding”. Its something that does not happen with one draft. Or even two. Its way too easy to look at needs in the middle of a season and scream “why didn’t the stupid GM see these needs before the season and fix them all! I can see it and I predicted this, and everyone should be fired.” …. which is basically what most comments on most other Seahawks blogs seem to say at this time of year. Geniuses that they all are.

Last offseason, our needs were healing injuries that ruined 2008, rebuilding a defensive front seven with holes that had become exposed, finding a new safety, adding depth to an interior offensive line with too many question marks, and searching for future starters to develop at OT and QB.

A lot of these needs were addressed in the offseason. Some with deft moves including the trading of Peterson for Redding, resigning of Hill at a bargain, trading up to grab Unger in the 2nd, and stealing Butler in the 3rd, bringing back Lucas at a bargain, and finding young defensive linemen with potential. That was a good offseason of work. Running out of players to target and money to spend, Ruskell then whiffed on addressing the safety position, and took a calculated ‘hold-em’ position at OT.

With Locklear, Willis, and Jones collectively being paid a fortune to staff the OT position (over $12M cap for these three OTs) the GM could not afford to spend good money at that position unless he has a sure thing. He didn’t see that value in the draft or in the free agency players available and he decided that Locklear and Willis were adequate starters and the position would need to be further addressed next year. That, to me, was a completely responsible position. Ruskell ended up spending his money at LB, WR, DT, OG, and CB, all positions of need.

Just because a GM can foresee many needs on a team, this does not mean he can fill all those needs in one offseason, or even two.

Its still early, and I think the depth of our roster will show its value as the season wears on. But if we are going to start critiquing our GM, I think the first thing we need to assess is this: does the 2009 team have a stronger roster top-to-bottom than the 2008 team had? Will the team arrive at the 2010 offseason in a better position than they found themselves in 2009 offseason. I think the answers to both is yes, and that is exactly the result that GM is paid to produce.