We let go of Sherm and ET TOO SOON

[SantaClaraHawk]

ET? No way. He could have done a Jalen Ramseyesque "back injury" that miraculously healed after a trade. But he showed up and balled until his leg was broken. He didn't.

As far as Sherm we don't know if he was offered a "come to Jesus and shut up" moment before the Hawks declined to match the 9ers. If he declined, that was stupid of him as he's clearly doing that with JimmyG who has more flaws and more accolades. But if he said yes, that could have easily been the understanding for a couple years.

 

[Hawkpower]

So wait. Their deals were both deals we'd pay for now for a player of that caliber, but you're saying that these two wouldn't have just shut up, gotten with the program and played if extended?

THat was what they were both angry over, not getting extended. They're both vets and would have shut up as they are currently for the teams they play for.

ET and Sherm are decidedly mediocre, have baggage in terms of attitude, and are only going to get slower/worse as time goes on.

Why on earth would we want them back? Id take mediocre young, hungry guys with hope for a future any day of the week.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

Pete got rid of the players that were no longer "on board" and we became a better team because of it.

Our secondary is one of the worst in the league.

 

[John63]

Pete got rid of the players that were no longer "on board" and we became a better team because of it.

Our secondary is one of the worst in the league.

Okay great we keep Sherman our 2nd is better, but you have no clue if his attitude and need to be the center of attention in a team he feels is his might impact the other players including on offense. is it really worth it? It's a huge gamble, not to mention you keep and sign Sherman nd ET you might not have kept Wilson, not enough money for all 3. And again not sure it could be Wilson's team with Sherman on it.

 

[xray]

Age and wear and tear makes them just average players now ; Wagner and Wright are playing just average now too . It happens to everyone eventually .

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Yeah, because their attitudes clearly were in the right place and they should have kept them around :?
They stopped being team guys as soon as they made it all about them. Pete had their backs the entire time they were here, all those two guys did was stab that same back. But, Pete and Russ have never ONCE bad mouthed either of those guys. Funny how that works.
I miss their play, but enough dwelling, they are GONE, get over it.

 

[Sox-n-Hawks]

You can't measure their negative impact within the lockerroom. Above and beyond any salary B.S. they were pushing on, football is a Team Sport. If a player can't put the team above everything, adios mofo.

 

[kmeleon]

Locker room culture was going downhill. It was time for a change of scenery and it benefitted both parties

DING DING DING.

WINNER

 

[kmeleon]

Pete got rid of the players that were no longer "on board" and we became a better team because of it.

This as well. They needed to go. It's a shame but they no longer bought into Pete and thought they were bigger then the team. Remember all the negativity ruminating from this team for the last couple of years after SB49. It was destroying them internally. I don't miss that part now, we're a team and it's all positives coming out of that locker room now. We'll see if Pete can recapture that magic or if he was just lucky. I'm hopeful.

 

[TwistedHusky]

How are we better?

Sherm and ET were right. They were understandably pissed off because half the game was the defense pulling us out of the fire, while the offense was content to punt or kick FGs for a full half. It was garbage football.

And it was a dumb strategy, because we got our doors blown off in the playoffs every time we played a team that was not a wildcard team.

They were pissed off because they knew we could score points and chose not to even try. Just put everything on the defense, take the air out of the ball and keep it close for the 4th. It won lots of games in the regular season but utterly failed us in getting ready for the playoffs.

And the annoying thing was we COULD score. When we lost our leads or got too far behind, we often immediately mounted a drive to score a TD. We as fans saw that, you think a defensive player that spent their whole lives understanding football didn't? Of course they were irritated.

Let's not spin what Carroll did as a success. After that SB loss we chose not to bother with an offense, that paired with that defense would have been a regular in divisional and conference games. And we had the ability to have an offense because when we needed to have a shootout we often did (remember the Steeler games?).

Carroll squandered the opportunity to win playoff games with a great QB because he is a dinosaur that wants to win games with defense and running the ball. Nobody sane wants him gone, but let's not pretend we couldn't have done better with the roster we had.

Now we have a garbage defense so we have no choice, we have to score 30 or we won't win. Amazingly, letting our QB throw the damn ball in the 1st and 2nd quarters and bothering to try to TDs? Is resulting in games we score 30+ and win. We had years where Wilson, one of the best QBs in the league, was throwing for 30 yards in a game at the half. Not even against great defenses.

They were right to be pissed off about because we were peeing away our SB window, while half-killing our defensive players from exhaustion. Now the window is closed, so I can just enjoy the shootouts. But those years of 'Pete ball' were stupid and some of the best defensive players to ever wear a Seahawk uniform knew it.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

How many years are we going to stick up for former players and/or dwell on them? They are GONE. Because somehow it's Pete's fault these guys decided to act like selfish whining babies. He always had their back, they NEVER had his. At some point, you need to get over it. They're not coming back, and both contributed to their own exit.
We get it already, Carroll is the worst coach of all time. Sherm and ET are perfect Angels who should still be here and the way they acted is no big deal at all. Better?
I miss their play like everyone else, and I miss the years of them being all about team and not calling out coaches and other players, and flipping off the guy who always had their back.
Keep dwelling if you want to, I don't get it, but oh well. Go Hawks.

 

[johnnyfever]

Bottom line is we couldn't afford them, and their attitude was trash. It had to be done. We dont have the cap space for all top level guys.

I think we made the right decision, we just havent developed or coached up well enough yet on the defensive side of the ball. Look at the difference Solaris made over cable. It was nearly instant and keeps getting better. This is eith pretty much the same guys.

Whoever is the position coach in charge of the pass rush, as well as Norton for lack of creativity on scheme is mostly to blame. Pressure on the QB would drastically improve the abilities on the back end. Opposing QB's have forever to let guys get open. I think we have the horses, but the coaching is lacking. If you watch the pass rush, we rush most of the time straight ahead in respective lanes. This makes it much easier on the opposing OL as they can just match up what is in front of them. We need to use criss cross patterns to through the opposing OL out of balance, basically a pick play on the line of scrimmage. Puts the big boys on the OL off balance. I'm not seeing much of this. Get the opposing OL sidestepping and you can get through them much easier. Create confusion. This also creates more OL holding penalties as we are attacking from the sides forcing guards and tackles to grab.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Absolutely, coaching is an issue on Defense.

 

[TwistedHusky]

Pete is the best Seahawk coach of all time. There is no disputing that. I don't want him gone, even through the frustration with him.

But he is also more concerned with doing things his way than doing things the way that work.

He is willing to lose doing things the 'Pete way' instead of doing things that way that wins. There is an ego thing there where how he wants to do things supersedes what he can or should be doing. And the ego always wins, despite what reality should be saying.

Want proof?

The challenge on the iffy PI in the game recently where he literally admitted he knew that they would not overturn it, but he challenged it anyway.

Again, a year or two ago, we were content with a strategy where Wilson throws for less than 50 yards or no TDs in a half. This same Wilson is an MVP frontrunner now that we are scoring TDs in the 1st half. We were using an MVP caliber player the way you would use Hoyer or a 3rd string QB from the Browns. It was stupid.

It worked because half the teams we played where worse than us. So we got a winning record, but we missed the playoffs one year because of it and got blown out in the playoffs the other years.

In this case, he had a great defense. And he had the opportunity to field a great offense. He literally just chose not to. It was more important to play 'Pete ball' than to use our best player to win games the way we could.

And that was why we turned from a Super Bowl contender into a team that scratches for wildcards then gets blown out in the first real playoff games outside the wildcards.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

His stubborn nature is absolutely frustrating, often. However, Sherm and ET is the subject, and it was time to move on from both.

 

[justafan]

We miss the fire and intensity they brought but it also was the downfall of that D. You cant have players and coaches fighting on the sideline. Richards,ET and Sherm all had to go.It was time

 

[TwistedHusky]

They had to go.

But, they were right.

And that was the issue, if we had listened to them and adjusted course due to their feedback?

We would likely have had one more SB visit and a lot more playoff success.

So it completely makes sense why they were upset. And circling back to the OP's point, we would have been better if we have kept them. We wouldn't be able to pay Ansah, but I doubt anyone would mind.

 

[Mad Dog]

Pete is the best Seahawk coach of all time. There is no disputing that. I don't want him gone, even through the frustration with him.

But he is also more concerned with doing things his way than doing things the way that work.

He is willing to lose doing things the 'Pete way' instead of doing things that way that wins. There is an ego thing there where how he wants to do things supersedes what he can or should be doing. And the ego always wins, despite what reality should be saying.

Want proof?

The challenge on the iffy PI in the game recently where he literally admitted he knew that they would not overturn it, but he challenged it anyway.

Again, a year or two ago, we were content with a strategy where Wilson throws for less than 50 yards or no TDs in a half. This same Wilson is an MVP frontrunner now that we are scoring TDs in the 1st half. We were using an MVP caliber player the way you would use Hoyer or a 3rd string QB from the Browns. It was stupid.

It worked because half the teams we played where worse than us. So we got a winning record, but we missed the playoffs one year because of it and got blown out in the playoffs the other years.

In this case, he had a great defense. And he had the opportunity to field a great offense. He literally just chose not to. It was more important to play 'Pete ball' than to use our best player to win games the way we could.

And that was why we turned from a Super Bowl contender into a team that scratches for wildcards then gets blown out in the first real playoff games outside the wildcards.

So you don't think we turned from a SB team to a wildcard team for all the same reasons every team not named Patriots does? It happened to NO. It happened to GB. It happened to PHI. It happened to BAL. It got even worse for teams like NYG and DEN who started totally sucking.

It's a very myopic tunnel vision view to think that it is normal to sustain success after back to back SB appearances. That means you are basing opinions on only two teams on the planet: NE and SEA.

If you take a broader view that the NFL structure is designed to break apart dynasties with such interventions as draft order, season schedules, salary caps, waiver claim order, etc., then you can understand why success is hard to sustain and has little to do with coach's egos.

Pete has stated very clearly that he tried doing things like the way you think they should be done and got fired. He soul searched and decided that the best way was to develop your core beliefs and be true to them. So that's the central tenet of his program. It's less about ego and more about consistent messaging and having a consistent winning plan that doesn't waver.

Pete Ball is about balanced offense, tough running, opportunistic passing, stout run defense, keep everything in front pass defense and winning the turnover battle. Its a pretty simple formula but he's been true to it and won with it. Whether the team gets a wild card or a high conference seed is more about the players executing his plan than about his stubborn ways.

Chasing the elusive "Way that works" has led to the downfall of many a coach. Because many times you guess wrong if your name is anyone but Bill Belichek. Pete believes that if he follows his plan, develops his players, sticks to his core beliefs, that he can win championships. And guess what, he's won at both the NFL and college level. So why argue he's doing something wrong by not having a more fluid philosophy?

 

[TwistedHusky]

That is a laughable assertion.

Bill adapts his strategy to his personnel. He in fact changes his gameplan to target opponent weaknesses and exploit them.

Bill's philosophy is the very definition of fluid.

Pete has always won by 'outathleting' the other team. In college, in the pros. Because he has an amazing eye for talent, is a fantastic talent developer, and a tremendous motivator. Mon-Sat he is the best coach in the league.

But he is a terrible, terrible gameday coach. And he squandered years of great defense (hence the issue with the great defensive players being a problem here) by fielding a 'barely there' offense for close to 5 years. The issue was that he did not change his philosophy when his roster no longer supported that philosophy.

He doggedly stuck with it, despite all the incredible resources that would have produced for him had he leveraged them. You win championships and playoff berths by riding your best players. Pete rode a tired game philosophy that only worked because he had one of the best QBs in the league and one of the best defenses in the league.

Any even then, it wasn't enough because we didn't bother to get good at playing offense for 4 quarters so our doors were blown off the moment we played playoff caliber teams in playoff games that mattered.

Pete ball worked when he had the people for it. When his people changed, he refused to change with it. That was the problem. Now he has no choice, but the great defenders are gone. We would have been better with them.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

And yet his team is 7-2. But I'm sure he had nothing to do with it.