Just my own personal observation - many are welcome to disagree.
This team was mentally traumatized by the Super Bowl XLIX loss via "The Play" and has never fully recovered from that controversial ending to a remarkable game and season.
Last year the team had flashes of brilliance, though nearly as many flashes of tepid mediocrity.
Lynch hangs it up, the Legion of Boom is a couple years older, increasingly hobbled, and not nearly so feared as they once were. And then there's the now-infamous O-Line of course - that mishmash of inexperience-and-a-prayer that has done little more than place further mental scarring upon a still young and (hopefully) developing Russel Wilson.
Yes, there's been injuries to the backfield, injuries to Wilson, (O-Line related?) etc., but injuries accompany every team during a season. The difference between those who hope they can overcome them and those who KNOW they can overcome them, is that intangible "thing" - difficult to define, but undeniably there...or not.
The Seahawks used to have "IT."
Last season I thought perhaps they had lost that intangible quality.
This season it has become undeniably clear they have.
The 2016-2017 Hawks are a sometimes good team, but have yet to be a great one, and almost as often, a terrible thing to behold. Previous versions of this team wouldn't allow themselves to descend into terrible. Now? They seem more and more willing to accept it with shrugs and "we'll do better" platitudes.
That kind of approach is a sickness to any athletic team, but even more so at the professional level. Call it greed, laziness, or perhaps just the accumulated aches and pains of being older and having endured multiple seasons in a sport that puts bodies and minds through hell for several weeks at a time.
Our offense overall is a pathetic, mangled mess to watch at times. There have been exceptions this year, but not nearly so many to lessen increasing concern. And regardless of what we are being told, this week did not showcase the same Russel Wilson of 2015. Leaving out the O-Line issues, he is slower to react, sometimes fearful/panicked, and missing targets far more often than when he was a younger and more inexperienced player.
Wilson had the benefit of entering the league behind a competent O-Line, and a literal BEAST of a running back who was hitting his prime. Now without the benefit of both, Russel Wilson's inherent weaknesses have been magnified. Teams work to eliminate his scrambling threat, and in doing so, reveal him to be a merely average NFL passer when facing consistent rush pressure.
The question is, will Wilson continue to improve, or has he already reached his peak and perhaps even begun his career-decline? As he continues to get older, and lose a half-step, will his physical/mental limitations prevent him another realistic shot at a Super Bowl?
And who is to blame for THAT? Who exposed Wilson to hit after hit after hit over the last two seasons? Who has allowed an offense to have play-calling that is at times so out of touch with this team's reality as to leave even the casual fan stunned at its sometimes stupidity?
Pete Carroll.
Caroll can no longer merely smile and nod and shucks yeah, man, it's not how you start it's how you finish, man, his way out of this one. Big props to the oldest coach in the league. He took us to the Big Show and brought home the hardware. That was three years ago, and if you're only as good as your last big win, well...
Seattle fans want to at least believe we have a shot. We demand a team that is competitive and too often this season, we've been anything but. Yes, perhaps that's an odd thing to say for a team that is 8-4-1 and atop the NFC West, but its how bad those losses were, and how bad Russel Wilson has repeatedly revealed himself capable of being, that has left more than a few fans now wondering if perhaps the end of the Carroll era is upon us.
Perhaps this team will astonish once more. Perhaps in a few weeks I'll be happily eating crow.
Perhaps.
This team was mentally traumatized by the Super Bowl XLIX loss via "The Play" and has never fully recovered from that controversial ending to a remarkable game and season.
Last year the team had flashes of brilliance, though nearly as many flashes of tepid mediocrity.
Lynch hangs it up, the Legion of Boom is a couple years older, increasingly hobbled, and not nearly so feared as they once were. And then there's the now-infamous O-Line of course - that mishmash of inexperience-and-a-prayer that has done little more than place further mental scarring upon a still young and (hopefully) developing Russel Wilson.
Yes, there's been injuries to the backfield, injuries to Wilson, (O-Line related?) etc., but injuries accompany every team during a season. The difference between those who hope they can overcome them and those who KNOW they can overcome them, is that intangible "thing" - difficult to define, but undeniably there...or not.
The Seahawks used to have "IT."
Last season I thought perhaps they had lost that intangible quality.
This season it has become undeniably clear they have.
The 2016-2017 Hawks are a sometimes good team, but have yet to be a great one, and almost as often, a terrible thing to behold. Previous versions of this team wouldn't allow themselves to descend into terrible. Now? They seem more and more willing to accept it with shrugs and "we'll do better" platitudes.
That kind of approach is a sickness to any athletic team, but even more so at the professional level. Call it greed, laziness, or perhaps just the accumulated aches and pains of being older and having endured multiple seasons in a sport that puts bodies and minds through hell for several weeks at a time.
Our offense overall is a pathetic, mangled mess to watch at times. There have been exceptions this year, but not nearly so many to lessen increasing concern. And regardless of what we are being told, this week did not showcase the same Russel Wilson of 2015. Leaving out the O-Line issues, he is slower to react, sometimes fearful/panicked, and missing targets far more often than when he was a younger and more inexperienced player.
Wilson had the benefit of entering the league behind a competent O-Line, and a literal BEAST of a running back who was hitting his prime. Now without the benefit of both, Russel Wilson's inherent weaknesses have been magnified. Teams work to eliminate his scrambling threat, and in doing so, reveal him to be a merely average NFL passer when facing consistent rush pressure.
The question is, will Wilson continue to improve, or has he already reached his peak and perhaps even begun his career-decline? As he continues to get older, and lose a half-step, will his physical/mental limitations prevent him another realistic shot at a Super Bowl?
And who is to blame for THAT? Who exposed Wilson to hit after hit after hit over the last two seasons? Who has allowed an offense to have play-calling that is at times so out of touch with this team's reality as to leave even the casual fan stunned at its sometimes stupidity?
Pete Carroll.
Caroll can no longer merely smile and nod and shucks yeah, man, it's not how you start it's how you finish, man, his way out of this one. Big props to the oldest coach in the league. He took us to the Big Show and brought home the hardware. That was three years ago, and if you're only as good as your last big win, well...
Seattle fans want to at least believe we have a shot. We demand a team that is competitive and too often this season, we've been anything but. Yes, perhaps that's an odd thing to say for a team that is 8-4-1 and atop the NFC West, but its how bad those losses were, and how bad Russel Wilson has repeatedly revealed himself capable of being, that has left more than a few fans now wondering if perhaps the end of the Carroll era is upon us.
Perhaps this team will astonish once more. Perhaps in a few weeks I'll be happily eating crow.
Perhaps.
