Upon reading over this article by Steve Rudman on whether or not Shaun Alexander will receive or deserves election to the Hall of Fame, I wondered whether or not I even thought he deserved election to the Hall of Fame.

Blasphemous? Maybe. But Alexanders perception around the league as "soft" and that he benefited from playing behind the greatest left side of an offensive line ever might have worn me down over the years. It's not that I don't think that Alexander should or will, but it's more about the fact that I have to question it at all. I defend my Seahawks like none other, but as each day passes from the 2005 season it gets harder and harder to remember what it was like to tune in every Sunday just to watch the man run.

Quick Shaun Alexander Facts:

- His 9,453 yards are 29th all-time, ahead of Earl Campbell and Jim Taylor and Herschel Walker. However, if we're going to talk about "counting stats" then it's less than Thomas Jones, Tiki Barber, Warrick Dunn.

- His 100 rushing touchdowns are tied with Marshall Faulk for 7th all-time. The only players in the top 10 that aren't in the Hall of Fame will be in the HoF eventually: Jerome Bettis and LaDainian Tomlinson.

- His 27 TD 2005 was an NFL record for one year until Tomlinson scored 28.

- His 1,880 yard 2005 season is the 10th highest of all-time.

- His 4.3 career YPC number is tied with HoF players like Tony Dorsett, Marshall Faulk, and Larry Csonka. It's also tied with Ryan Grant, Earnest Graham, Reggie Bush.

I got nothing bad to say about Shaun Alexander, but these are the things that voters are going to look at. If they are staring at a ballot with Alexander and Corey Dillon, what are they going to see about Alexander to put him over the top of Dillon? Does Dillon feel like a Hall of Famer?

During the five years that he was the primary RB in Seattle (much shorter than I remembered) Alexander averaged 1,501 yards, 17 TD, 4.5 YPC and 93.8 Y/G with 37 catches for 269 yards and 2 more TDs. Pretty remarkable peak.

I now ask you the question below and please pay attention to how the question is worded before you answer.

I don't know what it is about this last game against the Cardinals that had me so struck with anger. It wasn't the play calling. This team had it's chances to win and fundamentally should have had some big plays, far before it came down to that final drive. I came out of that game bitter and frustrated and angry because I knew what the bulk of the words would be. 'Tarvaris fails again,' 'Jackson isn't clutch,' and other iterations of QB hate the fan base can muster to explain how it's all one man's fault.

I spent two days wallowing in it a bit, starting a few threads in some other communities on this subject just getting angrier and angrier because everyone just wanted the easy way out. Blaming Tarvaris Jackson is easy, but meanwhile I watched a less-talented QB in John Skelton dissect our defense with a top-flight receiver named Larry Fitzgerald, despite being pretty inaccurate. On the other side, T-Jack is making due with Ben Obamanu and Golden Tate, with slight Deon Butler and Doug Baldwin.

I tried to make this case after Week 2 and maybe that was too early, I'll admit, and though Jackson has shown to have a limited command of certain key skills, he didn't get the help from his receiving corps much. Before Sidney Rice went down, you could see those two had worked together, the way Rice broke off his routes and worked back to the ball on a breakdown was important for Jackson to have in some key spots. With Jackson and Rice having been in the same offense for years together, it created a knowledge where little adjustments and understanding each other created bigger plays than scheming mismatches in meetings. (See the Bengals game, where Rice had 7 catches for 102 yards).

I think this is the point - Tarvaris Jackson shouldn't be and is not the complete scapegoat for the Seahawks offensive issues - and this is something that people need to understand. I'm sure the average fan thinks that passing success is just having receivers that are more athletic than the opposing corners and that's just not true, otherwise Steve Largent wouldn't have caught 100 touchdowns.

This brings me to the unorthodox title of this piece. I chose it because I hate Ben Obamanu, not as a person, but what he reminds me of every time I see him. Matt Hasselbeck and Darrell Jackson were what Sidney Rice and Tarvaris Jackson are, two guys who had a lot of experience in the same offense, who started to click in such a fantastic fashion that Darrell and Matt could hook up against even the best cover men.

A contract dispute caused Tim Ruskell to trade away Jackson for a 4th rounder from the 49ers. The team lost it's true number-one receiver and never replaced him. Matt never clicked with Deion Branch; Nate Burleson never had the crisp moves or route running or natural feel for the ball in the air; and as we've seen, Obamanu's talent is little more than decent depth. I watched this last game in utter disgust because, if the ball isn't right in there, the only guy that's shown to be able to grab tough catches this season has been Doug Baldwin.

Sidney Rice made his share when healthy, but overall, these receivers depend on the QB to do all the work for them. I bring this up because I see these receivers skating, yet again. This sentence has become common in most conversations:

"Our wide receiver corps is really talented, I can't wait to see what a REAL QB can do with them."

Not only is this sentence naive, it denies how great receivers help make quarterbacks better or even in some cases make QB all by themselves. Ask Daunte Culpepper what life was like without Randy Moss.

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I wanted to write this article shortly after the game against the Bears in which Marshawn Lynch had broken the record for most consecutive games with a touchdown, once held by Shaun Alexander. As luck would have it, I couldn't get around to it until after the Week 16 game against the Niners in which Lynch ended both their streak of zero rushing touchdowns allowed this season, and games without a 100-yard rusher dating back to 2009.

I say it was luck because I now have a specific play to reference when making my point about Lynch's value to this football team. We know Marshawn is a free agent after this season and we know he will be paid a good contract to be part of the foundation, hopefully of a championship run in Seattle.

Let's be honest though, if we were going off the first five weeks of the season, Marshawn hadn't done too much. It wasn't until the Dallas game in Week 9 that I saw marked improvement in his game. In my opinion, until that game he seemed slow and too indecisive to make plays at his position, particularly in the compressed space of the redzone.

However, in the Dallas game, outside of the good blocking and consistently starting plays properly for the o-line, Lynch looked more aggressive and asserted his will to push the pile when he had to. I don't have the exact number, but I bet after that performance he logged very few negative runs and at least 5 more runs of 3-4 yards per game when the blocking wasn't anything more than OK.

It's come out recently that Lynch and Cable sat down at about that time and decided to make a change, and Danny mentioned this yesterday as well.

Tom Cable said, "We made a deal - you have to do it the way I tell you to do it, I ask you to do it. And he's done it. So a lot of credit, to me, goes to him because he was willing to kind of maybe push his ego or push own beliefs, to some extent, aside and then embrace something new.

Because this is a system that asks backs to do things a certain way. Once you get in and through the line of scrimmage, then do your thing. You can do all the craziness you want then. But you've got to do it this way from A to B. And he bought in from A to B. And after that, what you do from C on is you."

This is the difference we're seeing. From that same article, his lead back Michael Robinson had this to say:

"Marshawn never misses a one-read, he's always right on the mark. He definitely makes you want to block for him. There are some guys you just don't know. But with Marshawn, he makes you want to block for him and you take pride in blocking for him."

Since midseason or so, after committing to the Seahawks' desired style of running, this is what Lynch has done:

DAL - 23 rushes for 135 yards and a TD
BAL - 32 rushes for 109 yards and a TD
STL - 27 rushes for 88 yards and a TD
WAS - 24 rushes for 111 yards. Reception TD.
PHI - 22 rushes for 148 yards and 2 TD.
STL - 23 rushes for 115 yards and a TD.
CHI - 20 rushes for 42 yards and 2 TD.
SF - 21 rushes for 107 yards and a TD.
ARI - 19 rushes for 86 yards.

This change in philosophy has allowed another skill we all knew existed to surface and become a big part of Lynch's rushing success. Tackle breaking isn't a skill to learn. It's an art, that's rare, whether it's with Lynch's raw power or LeSean McCoy's shiftiness, and only a few backs in any given decade have this skill. It's what makes Lynch so special once he gets to C, as Tom Cable puts it, above.

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During training camp, the (supposed) impending breakout of Aaron Curry grabbed headlines and created excitement for Seahawks fans. Fast forward about four months and Aaron Curry is long gone, in a large part, because of the emergence of K.J. Wright. While Wright's coverage has been adequate, not great, he's been a major factor behind the line of scrimmage; seven of his 10 tackles for loss have come in past four games, including three against the Rams in Week 14.

In his Week 14 & 15 rookie report Derek Stephens, noted these three things, among others, when ranking Wright #1: 1) He's blitzing more, and the 'Hawks are utilizing his explosive first step to take more chances behind the line. 2) It's one thing to make a ton of tackles. It's another to make impact tackles, and the latter are what Wright is converting more of. 3) In terms of being in the right place at the right time, and when considering the discipline required to control the proper gaps from his position, Wright is the most consistent of the defensive rookies, and is showing zero regression from week to week.

While some may be surprised by his emergence, this is something the coaching staff believed was possible from very early on. Wright was drafted as an outside linebacker but he moved inside when Lofa Tatupu was released. In August Ken Norton Jr., "saw something that made him think Wright had, well, the right stuff. ‘Initially, in my conversations with him and with what he thinks he does best, I just felt it was worth a try...

He's only going to learn, and you know that he cares a whole lot about his reputation, about his performance. As a coach, that's all you can ask for, a guy that really cares and is very coachable. He's the type of player that listens and then knows how to transfer it to the field very quickly. When you think of all the great players, he has those intangibles. Now let's just see if it shows up on game day.''"

Wright's savvy and work ethic earned him an opening-day start at middle linebacker with David Hawthorne inactive. Hawthorne returned and the coaching staff realized Wright was consistently competing for playing time; he looked raw in Week 3, but showed enough promise and versatility that the Seahawks felt comfortable trading Curry during the bye, and moved Wright to starting strongside linebacker. Wright experienced some growing pains, notably in Week 9 against the Cowboys, but recently we've seen him make the types of plays that "forced" the coaching staff to give him a more prominent role.

On Monday's Brock and Salk show (with Dave Wyman subbing for Brock), Salk asked about Wright's ability to make plays on screens and "Nakeds" (bootlegs). Carroll responded; He is a very, very instinctive football player, the game comes really easy to K.J. Everything makes sense. When you tell him something and he gets it, he's got it for good. If he makes a mistake, its not happening again. He sees things as really good instinctive players do, while they are starting to develop, so he is a whole step ahead. He's learned so much football in such short time and he just has great savvy for the game and all, and its made him an exceptional rookie football player...he's all over the field, he's making plays and he's having a ball playing football."

Let's take a look at K.J. havin' a ball ballin'.

1-10-SEA 48 (5:11, 1Q) L.McCoy right end to PHI 48 for -4 yards (K.Wright)

The Seahawks are in a 3-4 look. Wright is circled.

After the snap, Wright begins his pursuit but immediately his instincts and recognition skills come into play; he quickly stops to watch the quarterback/running back exchange. Wright knows the play will either continue down the line with LeSean McCoy or Vince Young will roll back into his area. Wright must figure this out as quickly as possible.

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Mike Williams' performance has dropped from last year in a way no one would have predicted. Going from a 65-catch, 751 yard season to what is now projected as a 15-catch, 260-yard performance, well, that's quite a significant drop off. Even with our number one receiver out he's barely showing signs of life, as younger and - quite frankly - better players are grabbing the spotlight. In fact, he did not start last game, in a technical sense, since the Seahawks started the game in 22 with Golden Tate as the lone receiver. He's still technically the starter, but I can't offer a good reason as to why he is.

For me, Mike Williams was a hard player to peg following last season. I tried doing so in two write-ups entitled BMW is a number one WR and BMW is not a number one WR, but I'm not so sure I did even a half-decent job. It's hard because he doesn't really fit any prototype. His only outstanding assets are his size and body control. He's not a typical possession receiver because he lacks precision route-running and excellent hands of a possession receiver. He's not a field-stretching receiver because he lacks speed. He's not that great a tweener either because he lacks short-area quickness. He's close to a non-blocking tight end in skillset but not in how he plays. Obviously, with all those limitations he still put up a 751-yard season and he's not a bad player by any measure, but this serves to remind us of a truism worth keeping in mind for the NFL: the more limited the skillset, the more quickly a player is influenced by changes in context, in the team's roster, coaching, matchup strength or when switching teams entirely. This is especially true for WRs, with many reminders available throughout the NFL's history (read: Harper, Alvin, particularly here).

For BMW, it's all about changes in the roster, specifically at quarterback. When talking about this position, one term Greg Cosell likes to use is "see-it-throw-it"-type quarterback. These are quarterbacks that do not throw ahead of the receiver beating his guy, that are limited in their ability to analyze matchups or grow proper timing with their receivers. The anti-WCO players, in other words. Vince Young is your prototypical example. Most of the SITI QBs are bad, and will always remain bad, or at least limited. Some transcend their limited reading skills by physical acumen, the most pronounced example being Jay Cutler, who compensates with outstanding accuracy and velocity. Tarvaris Jackson isn't a perfect example of a SITI quarterback, he can get in a rhythm with receivers where he makes nice, timing-based throws. But his tendency to hold on to the ball is tied directly with his shying away from receivers that look covered, but aren't really. This is something Cosell said would happen prior to the season, and it did. Matt Hasselbeck is the opposite. He would see the one-on-one matchup with Mike and almost instantly know where to throw it where only BMW can get it. That's part of what made Hasselbeck a better quarterback than Tarvaris is ever likely to become.

This problem didn't show up so much with Sidney Rice. A lot of that has to do with Sidney Rice's skillset not being as limited as Mike Williams', with much better hands, better route-running and better speed. And a lot of it has to do with Tarvaris being much more familiar with Rice. As a sidenote, Rice looks every bit the star wide receiver we hoped he'd be, which wasn't a sure thing considering he'd only had one outstanding season. Now if only he can stay healthy. Props to the FO for properly assessing how much our group still lacked a true #1 WR, too.

Keeping the above in mind, you can't really just note "it's the quarterback" and move on. Mike Williams isn't just under-performing, he's disappeared. And he's disappeared because he's a fundamentally flawed wide receiver. If I were to rank our current group of wide receivers by "talent" - an ever-elusive concept you can only be wrong about -it'd probably go Sidney Rice-Doug Baldwin-Golden Tate-Mike Williams-Ben Obomanu-Deon Butler (with no idea about Lockette or Durham), with Obomanu being much more valuable when Tarvaris Jackson is under center. It's easy to go "yeah, but Tarvaris isn't the quarterback of the future", but that's part of the problem, with a full off-season we should see more trust between the two and thus more output from Mike Williams. However, if we're starting a young quarterback soon I wouldn't just assume he'd be able to use BMW's unusual skillset. That raises the question of how much value BMW has for the near future. I don't think his skillset is fast eroding, yet I'm not particularly optimistic about his worth to this team.

Of course, whenever a veteran player sticks around on a young team but doesn't perform, the story always goes around that he's providing veteran guidance and leadership, and the same is true for Mike Williams. That's not to say he's not providing said veteran guidance, obviously he is, but I've heard this story a million times if I've heard it once, and it's not something that changes my valuation of BMW for the long term in any significant way. That noted, there's some insightful material in the Cosell Shutdown Corner podcast at about the 24 minute mark where they discuss wide receivers reading routes. Farrar notes how in this last Rams game Baldwin couldn't read the coverage in the first half, which was hampering his performance. BMW pointed out certain things at halftime and then Baldwin came out 4-4 to start the second half. That's pretty awesome.

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My roommate is not much of an NFL fan. He likes football, but he much prefers college football. He'll root for the Seahawks, but he's a not a fan that's going to follow the players or the games. I'm sure there are a lot of people just like this.

Last night though, while watching the Seahawks beat the Rams, it was easy to tell that he was at least becoming a huge fan of one player in particular: Marshawn Lynch. And, I'm sure there are a lot of people just like this.

It kept happening over and over again. Lynch would take a hand-off, he'd scramble for more yards than you'd expect him to, and no matter what kind of a fan you are, you'd say "Wow."

First play: Lynch to the left side, pushed out of bounds after a 13 yard gain.

"Wow."

Second quarter: Lynch fights for four yards when it looks like he's stopped in the backfield.

"Wow."

Third quarter: Lynch scrambles up the middle to the Rams 10 for 12 yards.

"Wow."

Fourth quarter: Lynch runs up the left side for a 16 yard touchdown.

"Holy shit. Wow."

This season, we've seen the maturation of Marshawn Lynch. If you've watched every game for the last two years, then you've found out what "Beast Mode" really means, because that's really the best way to describe how Lynch runs.

I am not trying to give Lynch yet another nickname right now, but I can't help but think of him as "Mr. Plus 3." He consistently gets extra yardage on each run, providing just an extra yard, or two, or 67, on seemingly every run. He has the most exciting "No Gain" runs in the NFL, and with a patchwork offensive line, that's an amazing quality to have right now.

Marshawn Lynch doesn't just not go stag to parties, he brings at least three extra ladies with him.

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Safety play can not be analyzed without access to all All-22 tape. You can see when a player is outstandingly bad or outstandingly good, in general, but since you don't get a snap-for-snap read you don't really know what the player is doing on the average play, and you don't know what kind of assignments he has, how much he's asked to do. It's so much different from analyzing any other player on the field, though wide receivers and cornerbacks come close at times. So, first thing's first, I think both our safeties are pretty great, especially considering how young they are.

The problem for me comes in the way the debate is skewed by how present a player is on broadcast footage. Earl Thomas has his A-gap blitzes which he does well, as explained in-depth by Charlie, but he spends a lot of the rest of his time very deep in covering a very wide range on the field. Kam Chancellor spends relatively more time in the box and head-hunting in the middle, resulting in very noticeable plays, particularly big hits, which in turn led to him being named on Peter King's midseason all-pro (Peter of course being one of the least knowledgeable NFL writers around), pro bowl top-5s going only to Jon Ryan and Kam Chancellor, as well as to declaration of love from Kenneth Arthur. Advanced NFL Stats has Kam Chancellor as the best safety in the league, and Earl Thomas as fifth best, but those familiar with the WPA stat know it is more useful for teams than for individual safety play.

Tracking Kam Chancellor from last year to now, first and foremost we have to note how outstanding he's been, how much he's exceeded expectations in pass coverage. But it's also worth noting he was used in man coverage on tight ends more at the start of the season than later on, while we've struggled against tight ends all season. This is definitely a role Pete Carroll would want him in, considering the modern-day tight end's role in a passing offense, which basically calls for a "big nickel" type player, a role we had last season with Jordan Babineaux, but Kam Chancellor has struggled filling those shoes.

Then there's the hits. Glorious hits are easy to cheer as a fan, and I usually do, but this isn't your grandfather's NFL, and you can't really look at it and ignore the team perspective. If Kam keeps this up, he will eventually get suspended for it, and this will hurt the team. But even in games it hurts the team. Penalty wise, according to the NFL's own tracking via NFLGSIS, our biggest problem has been on the offensive line, with 31 false starts (1st in the NFL) and 23 offensive holding penalties (6th in the NFL), but our secondary and overall physical defense are also badly ranked, 8 unnecessary roughness calls (5th in the NFL), 8 defensive pass interference (8th in the NFL) and 6 illegal contact penalties (2nd in the NFL).

Most of that comes from Brandon Browner and Kam Chancellor. Browner has 16 penalties (3 declined) for 128 yards and 11 first downs. Kam Chancellor has 7 penalties (2 declined) for 66 yards and 4 first downs. Four of them are unnecessary roughness and one illegal contact. Depending on context, penalties can really hurt a defense. Giving first downs on penalties always hurt the defense. It's easy to grouse and blame it on the refs, and indeed a few calls have been ticky-tacky, but that won't stop it from hurting the team. And what's worse, big hits hurt the player making them too. Physical, hard-playing safeties rarely have long careers (though it does happen), and even more rarely do they lead productive post-career lives. I like that Kam is a sound tackler, but I think there's a balance in physical versus smart play that our defense is fast losing.

That said, that's not a huge amount of criticism on Kam Chancellor. In context, as a second-year player first-year starter, he's playing at an extremely high level. We all know that. This story's here to remind us he's no Earl Thomas.

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Brandon Browner's up-and-down 'rookie season' - rookie in the sense that he played his first regular season game ever in week 1 - has been particularly wild lately. The big play touchdown he allowed versus Washington is just another in a series of mishaps that have driven Seahawks' fans mad. But in true bounce-back fashion, he intercepted two passes - one was gift wrapped - versus the Eagles; pretty apropos back-to-back performances with the way his year has gone.

Browner's season started rough, the Week 2 game in Pittsburgh being the low point. He had no interceptions or passes defended through four games to go along with his handful of penalties. And despite some big plays since, penalties have remained his kryptonite. Pro Football Focus currently has him at 12 defensive penalties with three more on special teams, 15 total for the season. A lot of those penalties happened on crucial third downs, another negated an Earl Thomas interception. Most of them have been untimely, to say the least.

He's struggled locating, tracking and playing the deep ball at times throughout the year, sometimes committing a big yardage penalty and/or giving up the touchdown. He's been too handsy, not quite sure yet how to use his long arms and big frame within the rule book. He doesn't always get a good jam, which should be a strength given his length. His aggressive nature is something the coaches love about him, but the combination of inconsistency locating the football and his style has prompted too many flags. To sum up, he's caused some legitimate frustration.

That said, sometimes habits can be extremely hard to break. Is it fair to expect his transition from a CFL All-Pro to an NFL stud (or even a solid player) to occur overnight? I think not.

As a proponent of the Browner experiment from the beginning, I've managed to also focus on the good. He's a 27 year old rookie that's not really a rookie. After all, he helped his team win the CFL Grey Cup in 2008. He has winning in his history, and in a league that is not about money or fame. In his presser a few days after the Redskins loss, Pete Carroll noted that Browner put the blame on himself. In the few interviews or newspaper pieces I've read focused on Browner, the tone is of hunger and a drive to succeed. Simply starting in the league isn't the end of his journey.

Despite his inconsistency, he's proven to do some of the little things well. In the preseason I noticed how he would hog-tie players' feet if he was going to the ground but still trying to make the tackle. It showed strength and savvy. He's a strong tackler on the edge and around the line of scrimmage - Doug Farrar looked past the early struggles and gave Browner some praise after his performance against Atlanta in Week 4, when he blew up Julio Jones on multiple occasions near the line of scrimmage. Instead of covering multiple topics, Farrar covered "the way a former NFL-to-CFL castoff covered a rookie receiver like glue, and how stats don't always tell the story."

Former Seahawks linebacker Dave Wyman praised Browner after the Redskins loss; "I understand if you want to focus on the penalties and the downside of Browner, but I'll take a guy that will stand toe-to-toe with some of the best athletes in the world, body-slam them when necessary and fight them tooth and nail on every single play. Given what we've in the defensive backfield here in Seattle over the past few years, I for one can swallow a few pass interference and holding penalties on the way to interceptions and deflected passes. Could it be possible that the entire tempo and personality of this defensive team is based on the tone set by a cornerback? I say yes."

Wyman adds; "How many corners in the history of the NFL have been physical enough to get the kind of penalty he got during the Redskins game? He hit a player legally in-bounds, but knocked him so far out-of-bounds that the referees flagged him for unnecessary roughness. Enough said."

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