Hi Twelves, here are some great links for you to check out! There are a lot of them today - which is good because Saturday morning is for reading about football.
Matt Hasselbeck speaks about day 2 of informal workouts | Seattle Seahawks & NFL News - seattlepi.com
A good piece here with a ton of quotes from Matt Hasselbeck; worth checking out. Hasselbeck: "(On free agent uncertainty) "Every team's different. Some teams have a little more stability than others. Our team, it's not really the case. There's nothing you can do about that. You've just got to work hard. As an individual it doesn't matter who you are, you've just got to get ready to play football. For us, especially the guys on offense, it's a new offense either way, whether you're on this team or on a different team, so I think the biggest thing is just really focus on those things that you can control and that's your weight, your power, your explosiveness, getting ready to stay healthy, all that kind of stuff. That's where we are, unfortunately.""
Why NFC West linebackers did not register - NFC West Blog - ESPN: Check out who is sitting atop the rankings of defensive linemen in stop rates: Free Agent Alan Branch. 5-tech, 1-tech possibly?
Seahawks best organization in NFC West? - NFC West Blog - ESPN: "12. Seattle Seahawks (37.5 of 60 points) Schein: The facilities are state of the art. The home-field advantage with the '12th man' is significant. Coach Pete Carroll and GM John Schneider inherited a total mess. They were super-active last season, bringing in different combinations of players, leading to a street free-agent gem like Mike Williams. Hiring Tom Cable to coach the offensive line was a great move. Seattle, finally, has a good structure in place.
Sando's thoughts: The Seahawks' ability to resolve the quarterback situation will determine whether they remain on an upward trajectory. Paul Allen is an owner with plenty of resources. He stays out of the way on football decisions. The team would benefit if Allen were more involved at the league level, but that is not his style. Qwest Field provides one of the strongest home-field advantages in sports when there's something to cheer about. Schneider seems to work well with Carroll, creating a positive front-office culture. They fared well in patching holes with Chris Clemons, Raheem Brock and Leon Washington, among others. Replacing the retired Alex Gibbs with Cable stands out as a strong recovery."
These next two articles are interesting because the Houston Texans are switching to a 3-4 defense that has similarities to the Seahawks' 4-3 Under I've been describing in the last week. Most notably, the use of the Elephant defensive end pass rusher and how Mario Williams is making the switch.
How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Elephant - Battle Red Blog: "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Elephant. What is Wade cooking up in his laboratory and which ingredient is Mario?"
NFL.com news: Herring: 'Anxiety for no reason' over Williams switch to OLB: "Texans linebackers coach Reggie Herring calls the swell of speculation around Mario Williams' switch from defensive end to outside linebacker in Wade Phillips' 3-4 defense an "overreaction.""
Judge encourages owners, players to solve it themselves | National Football Post: "Where does it go from here? Well, the two sides held secret meetings earlier this week for two days in St. Charles, Ill., a western suburb of Chicago. They were settlement talks, and scheduled mediation sessions for next week have been cancelled. That’s possibly a very good sign because it could signal more clandestine settlement meetings are on the way."
The Daily Shoutout - CBSSports.com: "The owners are making them in their talks with the players and it's this fact, I'm told, that has allowed the two sides to make so much progress, so quickly (in addition to the lawyers having their asses kicked out of the room). No one will say exactly what the concessions are but significant ones have been made and the players believe they are genuine. My highly educated guess: one of them is the owners continuing to come down significantly from their original demand of taking another $1 billion off the top of player earnings. The players always believed this was an outrageous demand and the players were right.
The players are in turn making concessions of their own so the standoff has become a negotiation, a settlement discussion. In the end, both sides will be unhappy with the deal which means it'll be a fair one."
Appeal is over: instant analysis | National Football Post: "Football's day in court has ended. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals kept the arguments and the schedule tight and stayed within the prescribed guidelines of a half hour each. Here are my thoughts:" (By Andrew Brandt)
There will be football this fall | National Football Post: "Yes, there will be football this fall."
The Good Point - Running backs by committee in the NFL and NCAA: "It started with Mike Shanahan's Denver Broncos, now NFL and NCAA teams everywhere are adopting a running-back-by-committee strategy, spreading their carries out between a series of players." More on the RBBC concept - this piece references my article on the subject and expands upon it. Worth a read.
Stamps rookies going camping: "The Stamps lost a unique player when Brandon Browner headed south to sign with the Seattle Seahawks: a cornerback with size and speed, and the muscle to simply overpower opposing receivers. Stone is a prime candidate to assume the same kind of role Browner handled in the Stamps' secondary."
Nick Foles (QB, Arizona) game tape vs Arizona State " Seahawks Draft Blog: "Nick Foles is destined to hear the words ‘West Coast Offense’ about a million times in the lead up to the 2012 draft. When quarterbacks have limited physical qualities but managed some degree of production in college, the term is lazily thrown around in the same way that ‘moxy’ is also used as a way to avoid addressing a weak arm or a lack of a complex system. I grade Foles as a mid/late round pick next year, but make your own judgement via this tape against ASU."
FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Top 5 QBs: "Seattle Seahawks 1. Matt Hasselbeck. He is one of the most unassuming guys to top a team's quarterback list, and history may not be kind to him. Hasselbeck's "legacy" would look very different if the officiating in Super Bowl XL weren't quite so noteworthy. Give him a Super Bowl ring, and his 2003-07 peak has a lot more sizzle. Without it, he is easy to forget. There isn't much black ink in his stat lines, he probably won't be around much longer, and I don't expect to hear that pennywhistle voice of his doing play-by-play. The 2010 postseason provided a fine endnote for his career. He looked gutty but a little sad injuring himself running for a touchdown during the regular season, and his December stretch drive was a string of miserable games with an awful supporting cast for a laughingstock of a team whose mere presence in the playoff chase was something of an embarrassment to the league. Beating the Saints brought a little redemption and a lot of dignity, and watching Hasselbeck hustle through a series of meaningless late drives against the Bears was downright inspiring. Hasselbeck wasn't a great quarterback, but he really cared about playing well, and it was great to see him go down swinging so hard."
Seahawks Blog | Q & A with Charlie Whitehurst | Seattle Times Newspaper: Danny O'Neil checks in with Chuck Whitehurst:
"Q: How has this offseason been for you?
Whitehurst: Well, we're missing out, everybody's missing out on the OTAs and that's tough, especially for the position I play. That's why this was good. You come out here and see some coverage. I think it served its purpose like that. I think it's going to be a challenge for everybody when they come back, see how fast they can learn what you need and get back on the same page. That's the challenge everybody is facing."
HeraldNet.com - Seahawks blog: Quotes and observations from today's Seahawks workout: John Boyle checks in with the Seahawks' workouts: "A few other notes: --Deon Butler, who broke his leg in December, needing surgery to repair his tibia and fibula, said he is progressing well and was able to job a bit, though he did not participate in any drills. Also watching and not participating was CB Roy Lewis, who had knee surgery at the end of last season. --For all the concern about Williams staying in shape, he looked as fit as he did all of last season, and said between football workouts and lots of basketball, he is getting in five to six hours of workouts per day. --Draft picks LB Malcolm Smith and DT Pep Levingston were among the group working out. I caught up briefly with Smith, who said the uncertainty of his first NFL season is getting tough: "I'm definitely itching to get started. It's hard when you got no income.""