Seahawks Bye Week: Good news, Bad News Edition
By Justin Floor
BAD NEWS
The offensive tackles are far below average players. You don’t have to look very hard to find articles downplaying the issue of having bad football players acting as bookends with the responsibility of making sure Russell Wilson doesn’t get hurt. Those articles are written through the lens of very, very thick blue-and-green glasses.
I prefer reality. Reality is Bradley Sowell was available for a song because he failed as a left tackle in Arizona and simply doesn’t have the ability to play at a high level there. He might be a really nice backup option but he’s not starter quality.
Having said that, Garry Gilliam is somehow worse. He couldn’t beat out Sowell at LT and was handed the RT job out of a sheer lack of viable alternatives. Once purported to be a player with really high upside, wonderful feet as a converted tight end and a willing learner, his position coach has failed to rally him up to even something resembling a starting caliber player.
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These two must improve a great deal in order to not ruin things for everyone.
Russell Wilson is hobbled and may be for a while. Sure, he’ll look more spry next week than he has lately, but Russ is dealing with mid-major injuries in a MCL sprain and high ankle sprain. Both are susceptible to aggravation as a result of one failed block. Hopefully he can avoid re-injury and be back to 100% or close to it for the second half run, but for a few weeks every dropback will be one I watch with held breath, knowing the heightened chance of chaos caused by faulty protection.
The drafted rookies have been riddled with injuries. Like, almost ALL of them. Germain Ifedi, Jarran Reed, C.J. Prosise, Nick Vannett, and Quinton Jefferson are either hurt now or just returning from injury and it has hampered the team’s plan to see what they have in these promising players. In order to get through the season, the star players that carry the bulk of the load must get help from the young guns in order to have the stamina to play well in January.
Thankfully none of the ailments are season-ending. These guys just have to find a way to stay out of the cold tub and contribute.
Turnovers are not coming naturally for the defense. Sure, they got some last week, but any game played against Ryan Fitzpatrick shouldn’t count because of the staggering volume of opportunities to intercept passes that just aren’t made available by any other quarterback.
It’s hard to find fault with this defense considering its consistency over the last five years, but comparisons to the 2013 D are laughable at this point. Not even close. That team forced 2.4 turnovers per game. This squad forces just one per game, even after picking Fitz three times last Sunday, and hasn’t faced a top-15 quarterback yet.
The D needs to be far more opportunistic as we get deeper into the schedule.
Seattle gave away another division game. The week two loss to LA is doubly painful because divisional records are important factors when it comes to tiebreaker scenarios. Had they lost to Miami week one, it would have sucked but in the grand scheme, a loss to an AFC team hurts far less than a NFC setback.
Conversely, piddling away divisional games to jabronis like Jeff Fisher and Case Keenum is never a good idea and could come back to bite the team at the end of the year.
Alright- that’s enough negative vibes. Time to get to the good news, and thankfully there’s plenty of it!
Next: Good News