Seattle Seahawks news, rumors, links, info, interviews, analysis, and more! Happy Friday y'all. What, oh what, will happen today? It's anyone's guess.
Kevin Kolb traded to Cardinals with $63M deal? - CBSSports.com: Since the lockout ended, we've waited with baited breath to find out when Kevin Kolb would get traded from the Eagles (presumably to the Cardinals). It's a "done deal," a league source told CBSSports.com's Mike Freeman, who notes that Arizona will give up exactly what we noted earlier -- Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and a high draft pick, believed to be a second-rounder. CBSSports.com's Clark Judge notes, however, that while the terms of compensation have been agreed upon, the Eagles have yet to officially sign off on the deal, though it's expected they will within the next few hours.
Twitter / @gregcosell: Greg Cosell: Surprised Rice signed w/SEA. Also interesting when a WR goes to a team without quality starting NFL QB. Interesting to watch that play out.
Alluding to a possible additional quarterback signing by Seattle? Seems that way. Which leads me to...
17 Power, A Seattle Seahawks Blog: Why the Carson Palmer Trade Isn't Dead Yet: ...And I don't quite believe that a potentially top-flight receiver like Sidney Rice was signed to catch passes from Tarvaris Jackson. So I'm not going back to the drawing board just yet. But although the rumor isn't quite dead, I think we can consider it on life support.
Day one for rookie "Pep Levingston" - Blog - MyNorthwest.com: Rookie defensive lineman Lazarius "Pep" Levingston has had his playbook for one day and just signed his contract late last night. So late, in fact, that he missed the first team meeting. Today he was on the practice field.
Seahawks Blog | Q&A: Charlie Whitehurst | Seattle Times Newspaper: Quarterback Charlie Whitehurst entered training camp with every intention of establishing himself as Seattle's starting quarterback. That's not any different a mindset than he had last season, but he admitted Thursday, that this time it's a more realistic goal: Here's a transcript of his interview after Thursday's practice:
Whitehurst: ‘I’m confident I can make it happen’ | Seahawks Insider: The Seahawks had 73 players out on the field today, including six of Seattle’s nine draft picks. Players the team has reached agreement with include fourth-round pick Kris Durham, fifth-round picks Richard Sherman and Mark Legree, sixth-round pick Byron Maxwell, and seventh-round picks Pep Levingston and Malcolm Smith.
Local News | Seahawks sign 6 of 9 draft picks | Seattle Times Newspaper: The Seattle Seahawks have signed six of their nine picks from the 2011 draft, including fourth-round pick wide receiver Kris Durham. The six players were on the field for the Seahawks' first walkthrough practice of training camp on Thursday morning.
Seahawks agree to terms with Sidney Rice: 5 years, $41 million - Shutdown Corner - NFL Blog - Yahoo! Sports: Well, at the very least, Seattle's oft-toasted secondary won't have to deal with these types of nightmare images anymore ... only in practice situations. The Seattle Seahawks may not know who their next franchise quarterback will be, but now (and perhaps for the first time since the glory days of Steve Largent), they know who their franchise receiver is. On Wednesday afternoon, several sources reported the news that we intimated in Wednesday's scouting report — the Seahawks agreed to terms with former Minnesota Vikings receiver Sidney Rice(notes) on a five-year, $41 million contract that includes $18 million in guaranteed money.
17 Power, A Seattle Seahawks Blog: Lockout Hangover: Seattle's Defensive Free Agents: Continuing a look at Seattle's own free agents waiting to be re-signed, starting with the most important.
Luck expects 2011 to be his last year at Stanford - CBSSports.com: The 2012 NFL Draft could officially become the Andrew Luck Sweepstakes after the redshirt junior quarterback announced this week that he's unlikely to return to Palo Alto for his senior season.
NFL.com news: Trash into treasure: Fits for five released players: If it's true that one man's trash is another man's treasure, then there are plenty of gems suddenly available on the free-agent market. Teams have started shedding veterans due to the salary cap considerations and declining performance, but that doesn't mean those graybeards can't provide a new team with a surprising boost. Let's take a look at a handful of discarded veterans with the ability to make an impact in new locations:
Seahawks.com Blog | Returning to work ": They’re back. The Seahawks took the field for the traditional camp-opening conditioning test today, signaling the official start to Bing Training Camp 2011. "We’re finally here," Coach Pete Carroll told the players to close out the 45-minute workout. A team meeting at 5:45 p.m. is the next order of business today. Check out some images from this afternoon’s conditioning test at Virginia Mason Athletic Center:
Unger ready to toe the line | Seattle Seahawks - The News Tribune: One of the first to arrive early Wednesday morning at Seahawks headquarters was Max Unger, who was particularly eager to get the 2011 training camp under way. Sure, he’s pushed by all that inherent competitiveness and self-motivation common to good young offensive linemen. But he’ll confess to an added incentive. For the past 11 months, whenever someone asked him why he missed 15 games last season, he had to offer a response somewhat humbling to a powerful 305-pound lineman: "I hurt my toe."
Seahawks Blog | Day two: Making moves | Seattle Times Newspaper: The Seahawks take the field in training camp Thursday morning, though it's a walk-don't-run kind of thing, which is to say a 45-minute walk-through. The next big domino to fall in free agency -- and it is a big domino given the size of the player in question -- is defensive tackle Brandon Mebane. The Seahawks have made re-signing him a priority. That's going to be an expensive proposition with the interest he's attracting on the open market, and John Clayton of ESPN said the Denver Broncos are hot after him, too.
One last look back before moving on - Blog - MyNorthwest.com: It has been a wild 48 hours. First, it was going face to face with Andrew Luck's beard, followed by the news that Matt Hasselbeck was done as a Seahawk, watching Titus get his cast cut off, and finishing with Seattle signing both the Undertaker (aka Robert Gallery) and possibly the best big-play receiver in franchise history, Sidney Rice. Even with all the activity I am still scratching my head over the Hasselbeck move, really for two reasons:
Bill Barnwell updates on NFL free agency - Grantland: The Biggest Surprise Watch, as the Seahawks attempt to set the world record for sticking the most forks into one light socket! The five-year, $41-million deal that Seattle gave Sidney Rice on Wednesday is just the latest in a series of huge wide receiver contracts shelled out by the Seahawks. So far, those contracts have had one thing in common: They've all failed. It's the curse of Darrell Jackson.
HeraldNet.com - Seahawks blog: Notes from the first practice of training camp (including draft-pick signing update): OK, OK, so it was technically a walk-through, not practice, but we're not going to worry about the little details when everyone's been waiting so long for football.
None of the big free agent additions--Sidney Rice, Tarvaris Jackson and Robert Gallery--were on hand, but there were tons of new faces thanks to the 21 undrafted rookie free agents plus six of the nine draft picks who have signed (all but the top three picks, James Carpenter, John Moffitt and K.J. Wright) were present.
HeraldNet.com - Seahawks blog: Whitehurst talks about the start of camp, potentially replacing Hasselbeck, and more: With Tarvaris Jackson unable to sign until tomorrow, Charlie Whitehurst was the only veteran quarterback at today's practice. Once Jackson--and who knows, perhaps another quarterback we don't know about yet--shows up, Whitehurst will be in a battle to take over the starting job that Matt Hasselbeck held down for a decade. Here's what he had to say about that battle:
Perched on the edge of their tweets - NFC West Blog - ESPN: Yes, NFL free agency has come to this: reading between the tweets. Brandon Mebane, free-agent defensive tackle for the Seattle Seahawks, posted and then deleted from his timeline a tweet reading, "I pray I made the right choice."
Williams says Whitehurst will get fair shot | Seahawks Insider: Wide receiver Mike Williams talked with reporters after this afternoon’s practice. He appears to be in good shape, and said that offensive line/assistant head coach Tom Cable set to tone for the offense during team meeting on Wednesday. "Just from last night when Coach Cable got up and talked about the attitude he wanted from the offense, and I’m sure the same thing was said over in the other room. It was good to get out here today," Williams said. "Guys were running around, and you could tell guys been working. You could tell Charlie’s (Whitehurst) been working."
Mike Williams "it feels a little awkward" - Blog - MyNorthwest.com: Big Mike Williams was back on the field today and the Seahawks wide receiver spoke to the media after the team's afternoon walk-through.
It's Tru: Cornerback is elder statesman: Suddenly, and somewhat shockingly, Marcus Trufant has become the elder statesman of the Seahawks.
When 69 players took to the practice fields at Virginia Mason Athletic Center on Thursday for a pair of walk-thru sessions to kick off the team's second training camp under coach Pete Carroll, none had more than Trufant's nine NFL seasons on his resume.
Texans give Okoye, Anderson permission to seek trades | Houston Texans Football | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle; The Texans have given defensive tackle Amobi Okoye and receiver David Anderson permission to seek trades. Okoye has been a starter in his first four seasons. He's more suited for defensive tackle in a 4-3 rather than end or nose tackle in a 3-4.
As the NFL's Talent Grab Begins, Many Dangers Lurk - WSJ.com: Making a Major Course Correction: In a sport where the playbook is sometimes thicker than a Michener novel, it's always a risky idea to change the way you do things all at once. This is doubly true when you have a lot less time to prepare for the season. The Seattle Seahawks are one team that seems to be rolling the dice. They won a playoff game last season, incredibly, against the defending Super Bowl champion Saints, with an in-your-face running game and good defense. Now they've switched streams, hiring star wide-receiver Sidney Rice and backup quarterback Tavaris Jackson, both from the Vikings. Former NFL GM Charlie Casserly points out that Rice has had injury problems and that as a quarterback, Jackson has been "inconsistent." Andrew Brandt, a former Green Bay Packers executive who teaches at the Wharton School in Philadelphia, said if a team had a plan before the end of the lockout it needs to stick with it and resist sprinting after high-priced talent just because it's available. He noted that the quality franchises known for drafting well and focusing on developing mid-tier players—Green Bay, Indianapolis and New England—seem to be doing just that.
Follow @FieldGulls on Twitter | Like Field Gulls on Facebook