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Seattle Seahawks: Why They’re Poised to Get Back to the Super Bowl

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Gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, whatever you want to call it… that one was tough. To come so close to repeating and get that close to scoring. This one will stay with Seattle, team and fans alike, for a long time.

Still, the Seahawks will be back strong for next season, and you can bet that coaches and players alike will be looking to make up for the Super Bowl loss with a ring next year. Here’s why they’re poised to get back to the Super Bowl-

1. Returning Talent

For the most part, the band will be back together next season. The Seahawks will see a small number of their core hit free agency, most notably Byron Maxwell and Jermaine Kearse (more on that later). Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch, should he return, will be rejoined on offense by promising receiver Paul Richardson (once he returns from injury), the emerging Riccardo Lockette, Super Bowl breakout Chris Matthews and the vastly underrated Doug Baldwin. Kearse could return, while Luke Willson and Tony Moeaki provide a solid outlet for passes at the tight end position. Like Richardson, Zach Miller will also be coming back from injury.

Defensively, Seattle will welcome back a host of players from injured reserve. Brandon Mebane, one of the game’s best defensive tackles, will be healthy. Promising youngsters Jordan Hill, Jesse Williams, Cassius Marsh and Kevin Pierre-Louis will return as well.

Other than the returning injured players, the majority of the starting defense is under contract with Maxwell, Malcolm Smith and Kevin Williams the only prominent free agents.

2. Few Free Agent Priorities

One of the main reasons the Hawks won their first Super Bowl was due to the additions of Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril, players they were able to poach from other teams in free agency. Last offseason, the team was limited in free agency and had to spend most of their offseason cash on retaining the likes of Bennett and Avril.

While Seattle will spend this offseason thanks to potential extensions for Russell Wilson, Marshawn Lynch and Bobby Wagner, the team won’t have as many key players hit free agency as last season when the team lost Golden Tate, Breno Giacomini, Paul McQuistan, Brandon Browner, Clinton McDonald and Walter Thurmond. The team also had to cut defensive lineman Red Bryant and Chris Clemons.

Things will be much different this time around. Notable Seahawks hitting free agency include Byron Maxwell, Jermaine Kearse, James Carpenter, Malcolm Smith and Kevin Williams.

Besides handing out potential extensions, the ‘Hawks should focus on bringing back Maxwell. Since last season he’s seamlessly stepped in the Legion of Boom’s starting contingent. The cornerback will be one of the most sought-after free agents should he hit the open market. The question becomes whether the Seahawks brass trusts Tharold Simon to take over for Maxwell, similar to the recent transition of Maxwell for Browner.

While Carpenter may be brought back, the team can withstand the potential losses of Smith and Williams. The respective emergences of Kevin Pierre-Louis as well as Jordan Hill (5.5 sacks in the last six regular season game) should more than make up for the respective Super Bowl MVP and former Viking if Smith and Williams aren’t retained.

3. Continued Youth Development

Seattle can afford to let Smith and Williams go thanks to the development and potential of the aforementioned duo of Pierre-Louis and Hill. These two are just two of the latest players undervalued in the draft that Seattle has developed into quality contributors or starters, joining the likes of Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Wilson, Wagner, J.R. Sweezy, Kearse, Baldwin, Willson, K.J. Wright, Smith, Lockette, Jeremy Lane, Simon and Robert Turbin among others.

Quite frankly, Seattle is the best at finding and developing talent—few NFL teams come close.

The continued development of players like Chris Matthews, Sweezy, Simon, Hill, Pierre-Louis and Cassius Marsh will only improve the Seahawks’ depth and quality heading into next season.

In Conclusion

The Seahawks loss in the Super Bowl was incredibly tough, it may go down as one of the most gut-wrenching and painful losses in the history of the NFL, let alone American sports. Still, if there was ever a group to rebound from it, come back strong and make good, it would be the current group of Seahawks.

Remember, the last time Seattle was dealt a heartbreaking (albeit less painful) playoff loss it was Atlanta a few years ago. The Hawks responded with a ring the next year.

They’ll be back.

All stats courtesy of http://www.pro-football-reference.com/ unless otherwise noted.

Seattle Seahawks’ Repeat and Dynasty Potential: Why Team’s Superb Player Development is the Key

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The Seattle Seahawks have experienced some of the usual perks of winning a Super Bowl. The parade, the sudden interest shown by media in the team’s players, etc.

Another result of the Super Bowl win has been a number of teams taking interest in the Seahawks’ free agents. Other teams are/were looking to take some of the Seahawks’ exceptional depth. The team has already lost supporting players Chris Maragos, Paul McQuistan and Clinton McDonald to free agency while key players like Golden Tate, Red Bryant, Walter Thurmond and Chris Clemons have also left town.

In addition to those players, the team also lost cornerback Brandon Browner and tackle Breno Giacomini, while players such as Sidney Rice and Michael Robinson could be brought back, but nothing is certain.

All of these losses will be felt in one way or another, but the team’s superb player development will help them sustain their winning ways.

Pete Carroll and friends find diamonds in the rough. Players like Doug Baldwin, Jermaine Kearse, Richard Sherman and Kam Chancellor. Players who were late-round draft picks or undrafted. These players soon develop into starting players, as evidenced by Sherman’s meteoric rise to elite status.

Developing late-round/undrafted players also gives Seattle a huge boost in terms of the salary cap and money. These players’ rookie contracts are much cheaper than a first or second-round picks’ contract. All of this adds up, thus the team can target more players in free agency to supplement the team.

So far, some of the Seahawks’ more prominent losses in free agency are easily replaceable with much cheaper players who could develop into better players.

For example, Tate’s will be replaced by Jermaine Kearse, while a healthier Percy Harvin will improve the offense even more so. The two should more than make up for the former Notre Dame standout.

Kearse is still on his rookie deal, while Tate signed for five years and as much as 31 million dollars with Detroit. This will save the Hawks lots of cash to funnel into players like Harvin or complementary veterans on shorter contracts.

On the offensive line, McQuistan and Giacomini will be replaced by younger players like Michael Bowie and Alvin Bailey. The team showed confidence in the latter pair last season and could also draft a lineman or two come April. Former first-round pick James Carpenter could also start.

Cornerback Byron Maxwell is another young player who will find himself starting again next year. The former Clemson Tiger filled in admirably for Browner during his suspension and in the process left no doubt that he was the better player for the role, as opposed to Thurmond. Maxwell, as well as young, cheap and talented corners Jeremy Lane, DeShawn Shead and Tharold Simon, will make up for the loss of the departed players.

All in all, players like Kearse, Bowie and Maxwell may or may not turn into star players. Their impact probably won’t be the sole reason the Seahawks turn into a dynasty. What will propel the Seahawks into a dynasty is their ability to continually find and develop under-valued players into impact performers.

Optimizing Optimism: Thoughts on the Seahawks Season and Next Year

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Optimizing Optimism

Everyone got their hearts ripped out Sunday.

The Seahawks lost a really tough game.

I’ll admit, I thought the game was at one o’clock in my time zone. I didn’t realize it was on until I saw a tweet about “a nice throw” by Russell Wilson. A couple minutes and choice-y swear words later I turned on the TV to see Wilson score on a rushing touchdown to cut it to a 13-point game. Obviously you know the rest. We lost to Atlanta, but there are a ton of things to take from this. Maybe it isn’t the end of the world.

  • Atlanta was the number-one seed in the playoffs folks. They lost three games by an average of six points, and two of those losses were by only four. Only one loss was at home. Atlanta is really good (offensively.) This is a huge step up from the team’s last playoff appearance. Chicago was a two seed, and we had as much of a chance of winning as the Kings do of staying in Sacramento. A long shot. We did make it close with the Bears, but that was never our game to win. This was different. Yeah, we didn’t play up to par in the first half, but we killed the Falcons in the second half. If the Seahawks had played with half that much gusto and what not in the first half we would be trash talking the 49ers this week. (Inevitably we still are. How ridiculous is Kapernicking? So ridiculous that it’s a rip off.)
  • Yes, it probably hurt more knowing that we had a legitimate shot at the Super Bowl to lose this game than if we lost it as a Cinderella-Wild Card, but the point is that we were a legitimate Super Bowl contender who took the number-one seed in our conference (who, by the way, easily could have been 16-0) to the last second and went on a three-week scoring rampage with a rookie quarterback. I know Russell Wilson is more than most and/or all rookies, but the fact that this is his basement, imagine what his ceiling is. More so, this team’s ceiling could be very, very high. Chris Clemons, 31, and Marcus Trufant, 32, are the only non-specialists, major contributors over 30. In fact, Heath Farewell, who in his own right is a fantastic special teams player, defensive end Patrick Chukwurah, punter Jon Ryan and stand-in kicker Ryan Longwell are the only guys over 30 on the entire roster. This team has a very high ceiling, and to put it in Pete Carroll’s words, “Can be really cool for us in the future.”
  • Did I mention how good Russell Wilson is? Not only did he set a franchise and NFL record for passing yards in a playoff game with 385 (WHATTTT!?!?!), but he also threw for 3,118 as a rookie as well as running for 489 yards. I can’t stress enough, he is a rookie. Imagine him in three years. (I believe, if this were twitter,  #scary would be appropriate.)
  • Pete Carroll had 15 wins (counting the playoffs) in his first two years. He had 13 this year (again counting playoffs) alone. He had 19 losses over that span (first two years) and less than a third of that number (six, again, counting playoffs) this year. This is a tremendous step up for Carroll and the team. It finally seems like he has the personnel he wants to run the kind of team he needs to win. And he is winning.

The Seahawks have nothing to be ashamed about this year. Yes, they lost and that was heart breaking, but I think most people thought this would be another 7-9 transition year with Matt Flynn as Tavaris Jackson 2.0 in terms of place-holding for the TBD “franchise QB.” But we found Wilson; we found an elite defense (Seriously, best in the league. Period.) We found a lot of things to be proud of this year that might not have shown themselves in a few more years instead. The Seahawks are completely ahead of the curve, and they should be a Super Bowl contender for at least a decade. Count on it.

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