Do we need to get over it with the line and WR's?

A few months ago there was an interesting article about Pete's defensive and roster philosophies. Long and short of it; its his belief that to succeed he needs around 15 starters on defense. That means he allots dollars and uses draft capitol to meet that requirement.

So, by default, wont a Pete Carroll team always be slightly "deficient" on offense? Isn't it Pete's sole principle to spend money's on the Williams, McDaniels, Bennett' and Avrils? Use the draft picks to build defensive depth over offensive depth? Pete's built depth in on his defense by drafting Hill, Lane, Simon etc. When it comes to the offensive line, Cable gets one guy a year, and the rest is filled out scraping the barrel. Also, it sure seems like for every OL guy picked, there's at least one DL guy selected and another two DL brought in via FA. Doesn't that tell us something?

More importantly, isn't that working? I mean, the opposite would be GB, right? Does GB scare you away from Lambeau? No, they don't, because they spend their resources on offense.

I'm kind of rambling, but I guess the point is under Pete the offense will always kind of be rookie contract and cast off types. Offense is literally secondary to what he's trying to accomplish overall. So, we're kind of bitching about a mans proven record of winning games and building a program.

Yeah I think Pete is starting to prove that even though we will be frustrated with the lack of a great Offense, he knows how to build a team that is good enough to win.

We all hate it because we know the Offense could be much better if they just got some different players in there, but we often forget that it would come at the expense of the Defense we have draft resources and money tied into.

If we want a better Offense, the only area to sacrifice is the Defense.

Very good post. I will take the dominant defense with the sub-par passing game. This formula is working great and I hope we can ride it to more Super Bowl victories.

This team making the investment they did in Percy Harvin, and then spending two of our first four draft picks this past offseason, indicates that Pete is perfectly willing to balance the team out and spend capital to improve the passing game. We're just in a transitional phase right now because obviously we can't do anything more with our receiver position until the offseason, but I don't think at all that Pete is perfectly satisfied with just having mediocre wideouts.

Pete is the opposite of most of us (and the majority of scouts and football "experts" for that matter), in that he hyper focuses on the positive attributes of a player, as opposed to what that player does poorly.

So while we spend countless hours discussing how average Kearse is, or how Britt's a horrible pass blocker, Pete hammers home in his pressers on what an amazing game Britt had run blocking.

Do we need to get over some of this stuff? idk, we don't have a direct impact on these players, so I don't think it hurts to discuss. Now if you're one of the jackass fans that tweets to players telling them how horrible they played? Then yes, you need to STFU and get over it.

MidwestHawker":24t9no9v said:

This team making the investment they did in Percy Harvin, and then spending two of our first four draft picks this past offseason, indicates that Pete is perfectly willing to balance the team out and spend capital to improve the passing game. We're just in a transitional phase right now because obviously we can't do anything more with our receiver position until the offseason, but I don't think at all that Pete is perfectly satisfied with just having mediocre wideouts.

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How many offensive draft picks vs defensive though? I didn't say they'll never spend or select offensive players. But, I think it'll be less than he does on the defensive side of the ball. Preference being rookie contract/low $ guys.

Yes we should, because it's not going to be changing anytime soon. At least in regards to the o-line.

Okung and Sweezy are under contract for another year, Unger another 2, Britt another 3. Carpenter will most likely be gone after this year, so shuffle time again!

I agree for the most part. We'll never have an aggressive offense, Wilson's role as a game manager is key to the success of the team, and comparing passing/receiving yards to other teams is a mistake.

However the Seahawks have spent a lot of draft capital on O-Line and WRs so I do think this is an area they are constantly looking to improve. We've just had some misses (moffitt, bowie, carpenter, durham), some injury problems (okung, unger, carpenter), some attitude problems (harvin), and some rookie growing pains (britt, richardson, norwood).

pehawk":txjniwc8 said:

MidwestHawker":txjniwc8 said:

This team making the investment they did in Percy Harvin, and then spending two of our first four draft picks this past offseason, indicates that Pete is perfectly willing to balance the team out and spend capital to improve the passing game. We're just in a transitional phase right now because obviously we can't do anything more with our receiver position until the offseason, but I don't think at all that Pete is perfectly satisfied with just having mediocre wideouts.

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How many offensive draft picks vs defensive though? I didn't say they'll never spend or select offensive players. But, I think it'll be less than he does on the defensive side of the ball. Preference being rookie contract/low $ guys.

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Just off the top of my head I'm sure we go defense more often, but it's also problematic to just treat all draft picks as equal. The higher the round, the greater the capital we're spending. For the 2013 draft we functionally used our first on a receiver (Harvin) and used our second on a RB (Michael). For the 2014 draft we used our highest pick, a second, on a receiver (P-Rich) then another receiver in the fourth (Norwood).

It's true that we may prefer to gamble and hit gold on rookie contracts, but of course that's optimal for every position. Again, there's only been one major splash in terms of bringing an outside player in on a huge contract, and that was Harvin, a receiver.

I just don't think I buy into the premise that Pete wishes to have a significant imbalance weighted toward the defense in how he spends his available resources in bringing in new players. I don't think the moves he and JS have made bear that notion out. Seems like maybe a slight preference for defense, but since they've hit on some late-round superstars on that side it looks more pronounced.

I think we need to get over the idea of having a true #1 WR like you see with so many other teams. I just don't think we're going to ever have that kind of passing game.

As for the line, I'm not sure. We've spent a good bit of draft capital there - 2 1sts and a 2nd during PC/JS's tenure, but we haven't hit on strong all-around guys like Dallas has. It might be that we have a weakness when it comes to scouting the O-line, or it might be how the O-line is being coached (and THAT discussion could be whether we're doing a poor job coaching or it's something intentional).

MidwestHawker":3khrl0ty said:

This team making the investment they did in Percy Harvin, and then spending two of our first four draft picks this past offseason, indicates that Pete is perfectly willing to balance the team out and spend capital to improve the passing game. We're just in a transitional phase right now because obviously we can't do anything more with our receiver position until the offseason, but I don't think at all that Pete is perfectly satisfied with just having mediocre wideouts.

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This. Pete has shown he will spend high draft capital on the offense, and also pay FA's like Harvin if he thinks they're difference makers. Potentially, Harvin would've made this team very explosive. I doubt much that his on field performance had much to do with him being shipped out, and it just goes to show you how very toxic that player was.

If you look at the cap numbers, Pete has spent identically on offense and defense. Next year, that might be scewed with all the larger contracts they just wrote on the defensive side, but they jettisoned Harvin's contract on the offensive side, which will balance out a lot of Russ's new deal.

I think we're going to see some roster churn with our RB's (after Lynch), and the bottom of the rotation on the WR's. The RB's in particular can come in right away and make an impact at a lower rookie price.

Which position has this regime drafted better; oline or dline? I'd say they've done better with the OL, considering only Hill is a draft pick, right? Yet, Pete will NOT settle for a bad dline. He'll sign FA's and make moves. Offensive line gets one pick a year and no free agency. That says something, doesn't it?

pehawk":1c9wrbpi said:

Which position has this regime drafted better; oline or dline? I'd say they've done better with the OL, considering only Hill is a draft pick, right? Yet, Pete will NOT settle for a bad dline. He'll sign FA's and make moves. Offensive line gets one pick a year and no free agency. That says something, doesn't it?

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It might say that solid O-line prospects don't see free agency.

D-line guys might see free agency more since they tend to rotate in and out of games more, making their value per snap a little less in the eyes of the GMs.

I just went to the store where I have an ongoing conversation with the mgr. who is a cowboy fan.

We talked about a bunch of things and even after last year he insists we don't have enough offense to win.

I pointed out that we have allowed only 27 points in 4 games, and I said do you think the Cowboys could do that?

Silence....crickets.

pehawk":4h2eu5dd said:

Which position has this regime drafted better; oline or dline? I'd say they've done better with the OL, considering only Hill is a draft pick, right? Yet, Pete will NOT settle for a bad dline. He'll sign FA's and make moves. Offensive line gets one pick a year and no free agency. That says something, doesn't it?

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I could buy that PC/JS put higher value on DL than OL, but I'm not sure it's conclusive from available data. I wouldn't have expected them to go out searching for replacements for Okung or Unger, or now Sweezy. Only the long-term insistence on sticking with Carp is really puzzling.

Get over O-Line? Defintely not. It NEEDS to be addressed in the offseason. Wilson has been doing a good job running for his life out there but one day he is going to get hit hard and we are not going to like it. So no, I'll never get over our pass protection.

I've said before, that if we had a pure pocket passer, the O LINE would be killing us.

We have #3 RW.
YES, a stouter o line would be nice but as long as we keep shutting down opposing offenses, we don't need to score 50 points a game to win.

We know this staff's philosophy is to play Killer "D" and run the ball.
I see us continuing along those lines and if we get to pick up some hidden "o line" gems along the way, great. I'd be really surprised to see us actively seek any high profile o line men. WR is another story and I have mixed feelings. We sure could use a true #1 like Dez or Megatron but as long as we keep getting the job done, I'd rather spend our money on the current model.

I don't think he wants it the way it is currently given he will spend money on offense (Harvin) or any other player he deems as a "special" talent for offense but he's looking for specific criteria. Even without Harvin currently the cap is split like this (Offense: $41,187,144 Defense: $48,518,524). That isn't horribly imbalanced to me.

Interestingly here's Green Bay (Offense: $52,150,362 Defense: $63,250,214), New England (Offense: $53,988,550 Defense: $43,965,297), Kansas City (Offense: $52,981,138 Defense: $39,248,030), Detroit (Offense: $56,470,920 Defense: $51,790,647).

Green Bay is an offensive team yet their money is skewed heavy to the defense while New England is what you would expect. Then you have a middle of the road type team in Kansas City that by looking at it has there money in the wrong places and to finish up you have Detroit, a team similar to us with a quarterback already signed to a longterm contract. I would bet that we look similar to Detroit starting next year.

I think partly that PC/JS are using the 'Moneyball' mentality to build this team. They are looking at players differently that the norm. Rather than have the player fit your system, its 'let's being this guy in, see what he can do, and how to find a spot/scheme to best utilize his talents'. Doesn't always work (PH), but when it does (ML, RW) you build a system around that. Over the years our O will probably swing up and down depending on who we get and who we lose, but given the focus on our D it should remain pretty consistent.

What a great time to be a 12!

For the records I'm not saying "get over it" like it's not okay to discuss. Maybe I phrased that poorly (sorry Anthony!...kisses).

Well, the Hawks go 5 deep at CB, a position that only starts two. How deep on the Oline? And, have they cared about that depth at all? Ie spent draft picks on it?