To the doomers and the optimists:

Both groups, the doomers and the optimists, are equally naive.

Fact: This team has been slowly trending downward overall since we lost the Super Bowl to the Patriots. This has been visible the whole time if you care to accurately evaluate the product you see on the field.
Fact: We're not in blow-up-the-franchise mode.
Fact: We're also not "just fine" - if you make posts in the main forum saying you still have faith we can win the Super Bowl (and I'm talking about having done that at any time this whole season), then you are purposely sticking your head in the sand, and your mentality places being a fan higher than accepting the facts, which is not uncommon, but incredibly frustrating to witness.
Fact: I would like everyone to wake the hell up, take off the rose-colored glasses - and BOTH EXTREME SIDES OF THIS ARGUMENT ARE WEARING THEM - and start being realistic.
Fact: We should make some big changes this off-season, but we won't, because Pete is too loyal to his coaches.
Very strong likelihood: Unless we do make some big changes, we are resigned to another "almost" season next year, where we will make the playoffs and win one playoff game at most before being bounced out again, which is what will also happen this year.
Fact that applies to my state of mind, but probably some others around here as well: I had more fun watching the Seahawks in Pete Carroll's second season here where we still went 7-9 and missed the playoffs, but the overall improvement in the product on the field was palpable and exciting, and we just KNEW things were only getting better.

I'm not a bandwagon fan. I was around the prior iteration of this forum for years before my registration date here. Ah, the Scout days...Also, I've been a Seahawks fan as far back as I can remember, including the second half of my childhood which was spent in Wisconsin during the Favre glory years (screw the Packers and their toothless hunting-is-everything Miller-swilling fan base), and that was NOT an easy time to be a Seahawks fan in public schools in Packerland; I took a lot of crap for it from the natives, especially with Behring trying to move our team to L.A.

I will still watch every single game no matter what. I love this team and that will never change. However, I'm facing the music - if there aren't some big changes made by the start of next season, our downhill trend will continue, and that's really hard to watch because I love the Seahawks so much and I also know what Pete Carroll is capable of doing. Perhaps old age is making him more stubborn than he realizes; I don't know, but I hope to Christ he wakes up before it's too late.

To the extremists on both sides - those who preach eternal doom and gloom, and to those that are eternal optimists: take both of your points of view and shove 'em where the sun don't shine (grammatical error intentional), and take a really close look at what's ACTUALLY happening...and try to post more accordingly.

:salute:

I like carrot cake!

Good post Ro

The other team that used to win with defense and had to make the transition to winning with offense?

The Steelers.

They have not really been a threat to seriously win it all since but they haven't turned into a doormat either.

This team is probably good for at least 8 wins or more a year, for at least a few years.

But the window is probably closed, even if mathematically open.

I wouldn't mind so much if they would bother to actually play the full football game instead of just trying to convert downs and milk clock with no urgency to actually score, at least until they get behind.

Still, the Steelers dealt with losing their coaches too, having their best coordinators hired away, etc. And constantly losing FAs.

It isn't a terrible future if that is the analogy for next few years...just not as bright as we had hoped.

Well said.

Terrible, disgusting injuries.

Yet, we still have a chance to win the division without needing anyone else to lose. Just win the games in front of us, and we're in.

It's going to be tough, but I would rather be optimistic about competing with what we've got. And critical about what I hope will change (*cough*new play caller*cough*).

We already got a legit LT, which is something I have wanted for a long time and will pay dividends in the coming games and seasons. Also a very good backup safety in Bradley McDougald, which was missing last year at this time.

Well said, agree 100%.

Garbage post. Disguising facts as opinions doesn't warrant much credibility. Aside from some pretty big injuries, the Hawks are fine as a whole and the system produces a Super Bowl contender each and every year.

*cough*new play caller*cough*

:2thumbs:

I think you're right on the money for most of those points. "Fact that applies to my state of mind" is just an opinion though LOL. I think the injuries really played a part in our suckiness this year. I do 100% agree to you that even with most of the team healthy, we were worse than 2012-2014, but man, if we had our guys healthy that's probably good for 2 more wins. That would put us in contention for a bye and possible #1 seed right now. It's a luck-based game when it comes to injuries unfortunately, though I agree with you that aging players will increase our risks of injury.

2013 was a lucky year for us, injury-wise. I think we didn't have Clem for quite a few games and Browner was suspended (or hurt?). 2014, we lost Bwagz and Kam for some time, but still managed the #1 seed. 2015 we lost Kam for a while, but it was a bad year where we were blowing fourth quarter leads like nobody's business early in the season. 2016, Russ and Earl were hurt. This year..... just awful injury wise. I swear, even if we had one more win and had maybe Sherm, Wagner, and Carson healthy, we'd be feeling much better.

Siouxhawk":38uc7c15 said:

Garbage post. Disguising facts as opinions doesn't warrant much credibility. Aside from some pretty big injuries, the Hawks are fine as a whole and the system produces a Super Bowl contender each and every year.

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Garbage reply. Confusing having an opinion with thinking it's worth reading doesn't warrant much credibility.

adeltaY":38uc7c15 said:

"Fact that applies to my state of mind" is just an opinion though LOL.

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I know. I thought it sounded more interesting than "my strong opinion," lol.

RolandDeschain":3bep0bof said:

Siouxhawk":3bep0bof said:

Garbage post. Disguising facts as opinions doesn't warrant much credibility. Aside from some pretty big injuries, the Hawks are fine as a whole and the system produces a Super Bowl contender each and every year.

Click to expand...

Garbage reply. Confusing having an opinion with thinking it's worth reading doesn't warrant much credibility.

adeltaY":3bep0bof said:

"Fact that applies to my state of mind" is just an opinion though LOL.

Click to expand...

I know. I thought it sounded more interesting than "my strong opinion," lol.

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I tip my cap it was funny haha

The Hawks can beat any team in the NFL. They also can lose to any team.

The_Z_Man":3gzgax0d said:

Good points across the board, Roland.

The problem is there is no fixing it because Pete's belief system is about loyalty.

As the Patriots have proved for the last 20 years... the ONLY player you can be loyal to is the Franchise Quarterback. If you're loyal to anyone else you will end up with old injury prone players at an inflated salary, coaches that were hot at one time, but are now burned out and can't function at the top end of the game, and you find yourself in perpetual limbo where you are barely good enough to make the playoffs every year - and then get washed out by the "hot teams" that you have no chance of competing with... like, as someone mentioned above, the Steelers, and also the Packers of the last 5 to 6 years.

Patriots took heavy heat for "disloyalty" -- think about those "elite" players they cut bait on right as they were starting to get a little long in the tooth -- Laywer Milloy, Curtis Martin, Troy Brown, Terry Glenn, Richard Seymore, Randy Moss, Vince Woolfork -- all of them had the carpet just yanked from them, and all of them were upset and complained about lack of loyalty.

That "lack of loyalty" may mean something for fan and player emotions, but emotions don't win championships -- good coaching, cap management, good talent evaluation, tons of draft picks, and ruthless, ballsy decision making win championships.

It resulted in 7 Superbowl appearances and 5 wins.

In a perfect world Pete's system would work. Unfortunately, it isn't a perfect world.

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Good points as well.

I have to agree with Bevells biggest fan. You can't just say fact and then state a bunch of opinions. Do you also overuse the word "literally"?

And he's full of beans for putting a bow on this season already. I still think we'll be the 3 or 4 seed in the playoffs and taking down the Vikings or Eagles on the road doesn't really worry me much. We will be prepared.

Fact Seattle doesn't have enough talent around Wilson on Offense we might not even make the playoffs this year. Seattle needs to find a really good RB another WR at least as good as DB and more help on the O-line. We might have the RB position covered with Davis and Carson . We also need to get better on the DL . I think the secondary is still good same with LB. The bottom line is this to many 3 and outs to many halfs with 3 points or less. . Everyone has there opinion some think just changing the OC is all we need to do i'm not in that camp at all, we don't have the talent needed on offense. Lynch covered up a lot of weaknesses that have gotten worse and guys like PR and Tyler Lockett aren't the answer to our problems on offense.

And Sioux/BFS/Leaf goes on to prove iRo’s point without realizing it, LOL. Go figure!

Sports Hernia":3rqitb6k said:

And Sioux/BFS/Leaf goes on to prove iRo’s point without realizing it, LOL. Go figure!

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Actually, if you look at track records for accuracy, he eats my dust. And so do you.

TLDNR LOL

FACT: My butt hurts!!!!