Seahawks: Midweek Musings
By Rob Shumate
Daniel Shirey-USA TODAY Sports
I took a moment today to read a few Seahawk articles and I was encouraged by what I saw. There was a smattering of different topics e.g. team rankings, upcoming schedule, fantasy football predictions, analysis of the game against Atlanta…but more intriguing was an article talking about the status of our injured players.
A common theme of late has been a laundry list of injured players, what their loss means to the team and how long they are going to be out of action. This week’s articles took a different tone… a laundry list of players coming back. In the immortal words of Dave Niehaus-”My oh my”!
In my opinion Russell Okung is the highlight of this group. He is our all-pro left offensive tackle, you know, the one that is paid big bucks to protect Russell Wilson’s blind side? How good would it feel to have that stout body manning the perimeter and imposing his will on the other team’s defensive end? My confidence in this team would increase by a factor of 10.
Max Unger who sustained a concussion two weeks ago should be back, taking his place as the keystone of our offensive line. His knowledge of defensive schemes and experience in making the right offensive adjustments will help this team immensely. He will immediately help to neutralize the nose tackle and open holes for Marshawn Lynch. We can’t underestimate his impact on this team.
On the opposite side we might see Breno Giacomini’s nastiness return. It seems like it has been forever since we have seen him play a down of football. I can do without his holding penalties, so please don’t bring that to the party, but a solid offensive tackle is a necessity to bulwark our most important commodity, Russell Wilson.
Hold the phone! You say there is an outside chance that we could get all three of our injured offensive linemen back for the game this week? Okay wait, take a deep breath, count to ten, pinch my arm…ouch! Okay not dreaming, just making sure. The beauty of what has happened over the last several weeks is that suddenly we have a very deep and experienced offensive line that Tom Cable (Seahawks’ offensive line coach) can experiment with. “Get out the rye bread grandma…”…okay, that didn’t work so well. Apologies to Mr. Niehaus.
And just for good measure Red Bryant may return this week after sitting out with concussive symptoms. This position has been absorbed well by all the other defensive linemen, but don’t underestimate the essential need for a big-body to close the gaps. He definitely fits the bill.
Hum…it seems like I am forgetting something?…hum….oh yeah, Percy Harvin may make his season debut against the team that lost him in the off-season. I really don’t even know what to say about this because I can’t assess this team with him. I know what we are without him…an elite team with firm aspirations on a Super bowl appearance. With him, I have to assume our chances get substantially better. A very entertaining team suddenly becomes the greatest show on turf (apologies to St. Louis for using this phrase).
Of course all of this is speculation until we hear Coach Carroll say for sure who is going to play, but don’t deprive me of dreaming on a Wednesday…it is hump day after all. Woo Hoo! Go Hawks!