Field Gulls Podcast: Stammering Towards Meaning

That is all.

That was hilarious, thank you.

But anything worse than 7-9 could mean dismantling, to me. It’s all dependent on who we hire but I see that being possible.

Is it just me or is this thought crazy:

Being that TR drafted players from big conference, big schools players, he had a particular focus on schools on the east coast, especially the SEC. Maybe his thought of taking players from east coast schools would help the Hawks on those road games in the east coast.

Just a thought..

First, just wanted to say that I enjoy these. You can cover a lot more material in x amount of time with talkshoe. It seems like we haven’t seen much of those audio bits lately, but I think they are a good idea.

Agree about Knapp. With a new GM and possible new staff, it could mean that Knapp’s days are numbered, but I’d be just fine keeping him around to build the new offense.

I don’t really know if the Seahawks can prove anything in the last few games, in terms of W/L. If the team felt there was still something to prove, I don’t think they would have pushed out Ruskell as early as they did. We’ve seen a healthy Seahawks team for over a month now and its been decidedly unimpressive. Even if the Seahawks finished 8-8, they’d have closed 5-1 against a stretch of opponents with a combined record of 25-47, which only tells us what we already knew, Seattle can squeak by weak opponents but get hammered by contenders.

Most importantly, the QB position is a real mess with no easy solution on the horizon. I don’t think winning some meaningless games down the stretch will change much in terms of outlook in a macro sense, because the current team’s ceiling is pretty low. Even if this team won out and finished 9-7, they have such urgent issues that are so difficult to address that I still would see them as being 2 or 3 years away from being viable contenders anyway. Things are going to get worse before they get better on offense, and the defense doesn’t seem to fit very well with Bradley’s system and style.

In a micro sense, I do agree that we really want to see if any players can step up. Other than perhaps Mebane, if he moves back to 1, I’m not seeing any real franchise cornerstones on this team under the age of 30- just a collection of decent players that wouldn’t be major pieces of a championship team. However, Tapp should be kept and his performance at the end could make an impact if he stays or goes. Trufant’s performance could impact the Seahawks approach to the draft. So in that sense, I agree. Ideally, I’d like to see the team finish 6-10 (a result indicative of how well they actually played- currently at 4.2 “estimated wins” with 4 games to go) but get good performances from their best players, and bad performances from their worst players (Cole).

Interesting that you thought the AFC was better. No doubt its deeper (9 of the top 16 teams in DVOA are AFC), but the NFC is pretty scary at the top (as evidenced by NO destroying NE), and I think it will feature a nastier playoff slate. The top 3 teams in DVOA are NFC, and 6 of the top 9 are NFC.

I echo your sentiments on Marcus Trufant, Josh Wilson, and Brandon Mebane. Well said, and thank you for saying it.

I appreciate that while you want to see the team step up, you acknowledge the lack of building block players. If we suddenly see a “star” emerge from this roster, that’s a big thing. Hasselbeck emerged in 2002 long after the season was lost. Josh Wilson began to emerge after the season was lost in 2008. Can we hope to see Justin Forsett, Aaron Curry, or Darryl Tapp take that big step in the final 4 games? That is definitely football worth watching.

It’s always nice to be able to sit at work or putz around the house and fill dead air with some intelligent football ramblings.

Great listen, ’preciate it!

I’ll be listening to this later, thanks John!

You are one hell of a football journalist. Thanks for this.