I've started my post out this years with a warning of sorts. I know myself well enough by now, as many of your do, that I'm incapable of "keeping it short. So if you are in a hurry or don''t like wading through a long arse post, I invite you to skip right on by my post and move on to the next, Taking my inventory or slinging insults related to my long windedness hasn't prompted or produced any changes in too many years of posting here to reference.
This post is an exceptionally long one, because it triggered a number of issues that have been gnawing at me for most of this season and I figured I might just as well speak my mind and try to shorten things up some n my next post lol.
I'm always the Homer to throw a wrench in the works and put a different spin on things here at the net. KJ has been on my mind lately. His knee job early in this season, definitely diluted the overall effectiveness of our defense. KJ, in unison with Bwags, manages the defense in live time.
I know that he was working his ass off to rehab from his knee scoping and get back in the game ASAP, I worry however that everyone might have rushed his return a little too fast and am praying that due to that move that we don't end up trying work our way through the playoff picture without him playing along side of Bobby Wagner and the rest of our Defensive line up.
I don't want to diminish the importance of the players that have and are filling in for KJ. Griff, Calitro, Mingo have all shown great promise and all three are able to play at a professional level. There is no substitute for baptism under fire, and that is something that KJ has more of than his backup players, they will all arrive there eventually but it take time under fire.
I don't agree or support the notion that our current defense isn't capable of defending against any offense in the NFL today. I have seen much evidence this season that would support the thought that LOB is alive and well, and that with a little more time and experience, will be even more of a force than the initial defense, that was christened as the LOB.
I will agree that our defense, while making rookie mistakes, which frustrate them and us as well I'm sure, all continues to grow together as a cohesive unit, and with each passing game, demonstrating a remarkable improvement as a complete defensive package.
I'm no more qualified than the man in the moon to make personnel decisions about player assignments. Every week this season that we have played, I find myself thinking that we should have left Shaquill or Shaq if you prefer, in his former position, he was really excelling there last season and appeared to be able to cover there as well as any other player in the game.
Sherm's position does not appear to be the same fit for him. I'm not trying to diminish the transitions he's had to make in order to step into Sherm's position, he may very well grow into it given more time, like he did playing the opposing side of the field. In the meantime most of our opponents have targeted Shaquill, and have had more success than they did going against him on the other side off the field. In part possibly due to Earl's absence, but I think that the safety positions have been being played almost most as effectually by Tedrick and Bradley in Earl and Kam's absences. .
We signed Byron Maxwell, last year to play Sherm's position, and thought that he was a pretty decent replacement, albeit he was no Richard Sherman. I'm not at all pleased with how this one has played out this season. Maxy realized that he was going to have to compete for his position in 2018 - 2019,, with a group of young hungry players, and that he was going to have to work hard to earn his spot and to keep it.
His contract allowed an out for the Seahawks, if Maxwell didn't perform up to expectations. In Short No Play No Pay! So suddenly early on in training camp, Maxwell announces that he has a new pain in his hip (resulting from a "Hip Flexor") that is going to prevent him from practicing, or playing for an indeterminable period of time. Perhaps the entire season.
The end result of that move, is that Maxwell has announced what is easily the most difficult injury in football to diagnose, or to challenge as an injury. The diagnosis of a hip flexor injury, is completely subjective, and relies completely upon the persons reporting of symptoms, real or imagined.
If I report that my hip hurts when I walk, or move it in one direction or another, the diagnosing physician has to make his diagnosis, relying almost solely upon my statements. Maxwell says ouch and we have a bonafide diagnosis of a hip flexor, which then qualifies me to be placed on the injured reserve list, and drawing a paycheck with out having to meet the terms of my contract.
By making this claim, Maxwell, guaranteed himself a paycheck for the 2018-2019 season, or so he thought, without having to take the field for even one snap, and technically prevented the Seahawks organization from acting on his failure to perform the terms of their contract with them, avoiding a clear breach of his contract, and with that, the forfeiture of any monies otherwise due to him from the Seattle Seahawks organization.
We ended up getting little to nothing for our investment in him and had to give him a fat payment to unload him off the roster and free up room for someone who did want to play football.
I mentioned that I had some serous thoughts and feeling that I'd been stewing over for a time and that I was going to be overly long winded in this post, well the bit above was my short story, and now for the rest of the story, lol, which is seriously long winded. Nobody is twisting your arm to read further LOL, you do so at your own peril.
Now last but certainly not least, the matter of Earl Thomas III. I am a really big ET fan, but I've got some pretty serious thoughts and questions about what transpired with him dating back to the collision with Kam, where he broke his leg for the first time, and was out for the remainder of the season.
Earl had some rehab decisions to make following that injury, the same decisions that Tyler had to make. One choice was to set it, cast it and let it heal, which is known to be a faster road to recovery, and if your not going to continue to subject your leg to further abuse or situations where re breakage might likely occur, then is not necessarily a bad way to go. Everything I've read suggest that this was the course that Earl opted for himself.
In the NFL where the likelihood of re breakage is a potentially strong possibility, then taking the course that Tyler opted and that most NFL players are recommended to take, involves surgery wherein the broken bones are reconstructed and in most instances involved the introduction of reinforcing materials, to include steel rods, pins, screws, nuts, bolts and so on, so that when the healing and rehabilitation process is completed, the injured areas are as a rule, much stronger and more durable than they were before the injury and are much less likely to experience a similar trauma in their future involvements in the NFL
The recovery process is longer and for most more challenging, but the benefits of having opted the more complex method by far outweigh the other and offers greater assurances to the player, and to the contracting organizations, that a repeat of that injury in their return to the field is less likely to occur.
Thus why Earl was pushing so hard for the sweet, lock tight, fail safe guaranteed long term contract with the Seahawks, and when he realized that the Seahawks might not be willing to gamble on Earl's ability, to not re injure his leg, given the course of recovery that he initially opted, and the greater potential for that to reoccur, prompted Earl to race down the tunnel at the end of the Cowboys game, and whisper sweet nothings in Garrett's ear, hoping to score his sweet long term deal there instead.
I have maintained that Earl knew all along, that his leg was susceptible to re braking, I commented on it in several of my post, following his return to the Seahawks. Citing that as talented and skilled as he may be, that he was not the Earl of old and that there were many revealing instances where the potential for another train wreck lied ahead.
Chasing a blown coverage down the field and unable to catch up to him, backing off and grabbing at the backs of his legs as though they were cramping up, and then slowly working his way to the sidelines after our opponents scored. I know that if I recognized these signs, that surely both the Seahawk's and the Cowboys Organizations recognized it.
Thus no sweet long term deal were being extended to Earl from either organization. They both had to have serious concerns about Earl's potential for another broken leg, or related injuries. There are medical studies and statistics that indicated the almost absolute inevitability of Earl breaking his leg in the same again, should he opt to continue playing NFL Football. Those same medical studies and statistics also show that when surgical reconstruction and introduction of steel rods, pins, screws, and what have you, is opted as the course of treatment, that the incidents of a reoccurance of breakage in that same location is highly rare, and that in fact the site, once healed is substantially stronger than what it was prior the injury or repair.
Earl had a really tough decision to make once Earl's hand was called when he re broke his leg. The Seahawks and Cowboy's had both already shown their hands when neither of them was willing to gamble with Earl on a long term deal, Earl's rejoining, the Seahawks team this fall, was solely based on his reasoning that he had played his hand and that no one blinked and that his hand was called.
He could forgo his paycheck for this 2018-2019 season and hope that a miracle would occur, and that he would be offered a sweet long term deal as a free agent by some organization willing to gamble on him when the Cowboys and Seahawks wouldn't. Every other team in the NFL smelled something fishy in Seattle and it wasn't the Salmon down at Pike Street Market either. No one was buying Earl's pitch, and I'm sure that even he knew, that in his present condition that he was a high risk for re-injury.
So with his options limited and not wanting to pass up guaranteed money on the table, he made his way back to the Emerald City and reported for duty with the Seahawks. By doing so, he'd secure his paychecks for the remainder of the season. He was holding out hopes against all hopes, that he could perform well enough to convince everyone that he was still a safe bet and worthy of the sweet long term contract that he was trying to command at seasons end.
Many of us didn't buy the whole "I came back because of my love for the 12 and my brothers on the field", and became even more convinced of that, when he announced that if he thought he might have even so much as a runny nose, that he was skipping practice. I remember the day I heard him say that, thinking that it was all but guaranteed that he was going to go down and out injured for the season,
That episode, convinced me without a doubt that Earl knew his leg was tender and that he was playing on borrowed time and luck. When you go back and watch the film footage it's clear that it was all but ready to go, he tripped a little over the opponent laying on the ground in the end zone. There was certainly nothing that would have caused a normal healthy leg to break and certainly not in the same place as his leg had broken previously.
When I reflect back on Earl's one finger parting salute to the Seahawks and all of his fans, as he was being carted off the filed, I couldn't help but ask why he wasn't flipping himself off. What happened in that moment in time, was 100% of Earl's doing, a result of his own choices.
I wondered that day and still do, if Earl actually believed his own victim BS, or if he was just pissed off, and embarrassed that his whole charade had just been revealed in that moment. That the whole world suddenly saw him as he truly was, a spider who had tried to weave a trap, for an unknowing and unsuspecting prey, hoping that he could draw them into signing a long term deal with him before his truth was uncovered.
The Seahawks, the Cardinals, and certainly not the Cowboys, deserved the sign of appreciation and respect that Earl shared with the world that day as he lifted his finger, filled with anger, resentment and self pity at the camera's on his way off the field. Someone needed to clue Earl that Denial isn't a river in Egypt, and that if he needs to row ashore and get real with himself and accept responsibility for his choices and the rehab & recovery path that Earl chose when he first broke his leg, which gave birth to this monster that has ruled his life and career ever since.
Earl again was faced with some hard choices following his most recent breakage of his leg. It appears that this time he opted the tract that he should have chosen the first time he broke it. Earl's still plenty young enough to undergo the proper surgical procedures to repair his broken leg properly, and then get his all pro, phenomenal football playing ass back out on the field and fulfill his legacy as one of the greatest, if not the greatest free safeties in the history of the NFL.
I only hope and pray that Earl has finally looked himself in the mirror, and given himself that one finger salute that he gave all of the people that loved and cared about him all these years, and decided it was time to put on his big boy pants, man up and take responsibility for the choices he makes, and what happens for the rest of his life, going forward, rewards and consequences.
If in fact Earl has accepted responsibility for his has situation in life, and one day soon, owns up to everyone that he lashed out at and blamed for his own poor choices, as it appears he may be in the process of doing, having opted to pursue the proper course of repairing his leg, this second time around.
I'm hoping his election to go this route somehow signifies that he is acknowledging to himself and the NFL community that he is serous about wanting to return to the field and fulfill his legacy. I'm not sure if Earl's ego will afford him the humility that is required to right things with all of those that he has blamed and held resentment and anger towards, these past couple of years, when he is solely responsible for everything that has occurred in his life. That old saying that when you point the finger at someone you will always find 3 more pointing right back at you. That has never held truer than in the case of Earl Thomas III.
With all of that said, I would be the first to support the e prospects of the Seahawks extending to Earl, the sweet heart long term deal he wanted with us, once recovered and given that he has made that transition from adolescents to adulthood and has manned up so to speak, and taken responsibility for his life and his choices, and has quit blaming everyone else.
I would imagine that the Cowboy's, after watching this whole thing play out, are feeling like they narrowly missed getting snake bit by a rattler. It could have been them that got stuck paying Earl to set home in Texas for the next 3 or 4 years drawing a paycheck and rooting for the Cowboys, instead of Seattle. I don't mind that Earl is a Cowboy fan, I get it, I grew up in the Northwest and I love the Seahawks more that I do most people in my life LOL, but I also think Earl needs to backup and give props to the Seattle Seahawks, who gave him the opportunity to become the successfully player that he is and, that stuck with him and supported him through thick and thin, even when he was being disrespectful and lashing out at them in his irrational state of mind.
I imagine, and actually hope, that the Seahawks will do the right thing by Earl, once he has recovered, and provided, of course, that he wants to resume his career, and fulfill his destiny. I don't see the Cowboy's tipping their hat to Earl again anytime to soon, not now, not knowing that they nearly missed a stray bullet, in their pocket books, compliments of Mr. Thomas the 3rd, and his deceitful pursuit of their contractual commitment to him, that would have ended in identical fashion to what the Seahawks now are facing, or even worse if they had committed to the long term deal that Earl was seeking from them and from the Seahawks.
Of the four year contract, the Seahawks have honored with Earl, in both commitment and wealth, by the end of his current contract, the Seahawks will have fulfilled their financial commitments to Earl with, Earl having played on two of those four years that he was contracted to play for us. I have a difficult time reasoning why Earl feels, or at least has felt previously justified to hold anger, resentment and contempt towards the Seahawks organization and his fans.
I know that in his mind he has "out performed or exceeded his contractual expectations", and while in some regard achieved that, he is also about two years shy of his four years due to us for the money he has been paid. Maybe it's time that Earl acknowledges that he has put his glasses on backwards and that if he would stop and turn them around, he might see that the Seahawks Organization and it's fans have by far "out performed and exceeded his expectations of them and us".
I think that Earl Thomas III owes a lot of folks a sincere heart felt apology for his hurtful behavior these past couple of years, so many have stood behind him and supported him, even when he was deceiving all of us and lashing out in anger for circumstances in his life that were of his own making.
It would not surprise me to learn that Seattle will offer or already has offered Earl his long term sweet heart deal, with some serious strings attached regarding his performance and production playing it forward. If in fact he is at all serious about owing up to his responsibility in creating all of these circumstances that have plagued his career the past couple of years. Of course he couldn't have predicted that his leg would break the first time, but it was his choice how to face that situation down and, what would come of each option he was presented with.
He opted what appeared to be the softer, easier and faster way to get through it and back on the field, believing that he was not going to face the same potential consequences that everyone else that went that route would be faced with. It's been my experience in life, that the softer, easier way, is always the longer and harder way, once taken. It appears that in that regard that Earl has learned that life lesson the hard way.
Can you imagine the impact that Earl Thomas's life story would have on the lives of millions upon millions of people around the world, if he chooses to stand up dust himself off and pursue what is his for the taking? I can, it's humbling to imagine.
The next few months of Earl's life will reveal to the world, if he's really made of the stuff, that world class champions are. I'd like to think he is. I would love to see Earl, step up, and come clean with himself first and with his teammates and the fans, both here and in Texas, that were hurt by his deception and manipulation.
I would love to hear him make a commitment to himself and his fans, to return to the NFL and fulfill his promise as a hall of fame caliber Safety. It's all still there for the taking, if he's man enough complete the journey. Only time will tell I guess.
I know, this has been another one of Pacific101's long ass post, more of a book to most I'm sure. I'll never be the one to post anything short or to the point. it's not because I like to write long articles or hear myself talk. I'm long winded by nature and figure if I'm gonna shoot my mouth off and say something, then I need to take the time to say what I mean and mean what I say.
Go Seahawks!
