Seahawks Win In Jersey: Looking At This Team's Direction

Remember three weeks ago when everyone thought the Seahawks were the worst team in the NFL? Remember a little while before that when the Seahawks' failures prompted some national publication to make up rumors that Pete Carroll and John Schneider weren't getting along? Remember when everyone thought that James Carpenter was a bust and that the Seahawks had the worst offensive line in football?

Well, those seem like distant memories after the Hawks have won two out of three, and even in losing, gave a good team in the Atlanta Falcons a real run for their money. The Seahawks are no longer the NFL's whipping boy, for two weeks anyway. The Seahawks are no longer in the Suck for Luck conversation. 

This win, combined with the losing effort last week and the win against the Cardinals two weeks ago has told us some things about this team. Let's go over some of them:

The Seahawks Have Some Depth: 

The Hawks started this week without starting receiver Mike Williams, starting left guard Robert Gallery, starting cornerback Marcus Trufant and at varying points in this game lost starting tight end Zach Miller, right guard John Moffitt, quarterback Tarvaris Jackson, left tackle Russell Okung, weakside linebacker K.J. Wright, strongside linebacker Leroy Hill, and running back Marshawn Lynch. They really didn't seem to miss a beat, outside of a few shaky series when Charlie Whitehurst came in cold off the bench, something that can be very expected.

John Schneider and Pete Carroll have churned the bejesus out of this roster and it hasn't gone in vain. They inherited what some people called the worst roster in the NFL and now have assembled a group of players at every position that can step up when the guy in front of them goes down.

Paul McQuistan did it the last few weeks when Robert Gallery went out. Atari Bigby did it last week when Kam Chancellor went out. Walter Thurmond did it this week when Trufant went out. Lemuel Jeanpierre did it this week when Moffitt went out. Ben Obomanu did it this week when Mike Williams went out. Charlie Whitehurst did it this week when Tarvaris went out. Tyler Polumbus came in and played a pretty difficult position when Russell Okung went out, and I didn't notice him screwing up badly so he held his own. 

Anthony McCoy struggled early while replacing Miller but came up with a big 20-yard reception in the decisive drive of the 4th quarter to help us all forget the prior few plays. Don't forget that John Carlson was gone before the first game started. 

The Seahawks Have Some Fight:

Remember when the Seahawks of the last few years would go down by a touchdown or two and then just roll over? That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Remember when we couldn't win a damn game on the road on the east coast? Well, that just happened. 

The Hawks fought back in the second half of last week's game against Atlanta, down 27-7 early in the third and made a game out of it. This week, they started out quickly before untimely turnovers and bad luck had them down 25-22 late in the game. They stormed back, with a cobbled together offense, and took back the lead. For good. Love to see that fight.

This is a hard-nosed, blue collar style of play. The Hawks aren't finesse. They're frickin BIG. They're nasty. Anthony Hargrove broke through the line and lit up Danny Ware, flat backing him for a safety. That was pretty badass. I can't remember the last safety the Seahawks had. 

Kam Chancellor lights people up. Red Bryant has some attitude. He's got that swagger. No one on tha corner has swagga like us. Brandon Mebane is ill. Alan Branch is a bad man. Earl Thomas is everywhere. Leroy Hill is straight up intimidating. Brandon Browner is the most physical tackling corner in the NFL, and I don't need your retort about his pass coverage skills. Who would have thought it would be tough to decide which player on this defense is my favorite? 

The Seahawks finally have an identity forming, and it's not of a finesse, high-character group of gentlemen. 

The Seahawks Are Exciting:

I remember that Jacson wrote an article in the offseason and said this:

"(The 2009) Seahawks were bad, but worse than that, they were boring. Shortly before the 2010 NFL Draft, my friend asked me if I thought the Seahawks would be any good. I said I didn't think so, but after ‘09 I didn't really care if they were good, as long as they were interesting. I felt like "good" was at least a couple of seasons away, and I've got plenty of experience rooting for teams that aren't good, so I didn‘t mind being patient. I just wanted to have fun watching them play again."

This quote really stuck with me. After the first two games the Hawks played this year, I started to worry about Jacson for that very reason. "Worst team in the NFL." "Internal strife." "No offense, bad defense." "Jeff Reed." 

I'm not worried anymore. The last three weeks, I've found myself jumping off the couch fist pumping, hooting and hollering. I've found myself missing high-fives and hugging my friends. I've found myself smiling. Even in that Atlanta loss, I was pretty stoked. 

Yes, this team has some holes. Probably, some gigantic holes right now. There's a reason everyone put this team as one of the worst in the NFL at the beginning of the season and why that lasted a few weeks. It  will probably return a few times this season if or when they suffer bad losses. That's ok though, it's to be expected with one of the league's youngest and least experienced teams. The point is, this team is interesting again. They're fun to watch. Their games are exciting. Who would have thunk it? 

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