For those who’ve adopted Mike Sando’s work through the years, you already know that one in every of his common options is polling nameless NFL executives on varied subjects in and across the league. This column on The Athletic focuses on convention rankings, and in the event you’re a Seattle Seahawks fan, you’ll doubtless not be stunned on the opinions.
5 execs have been requested to rank the groups within the AFC and NFC from greatest to worst. We don’t actually care in regards to the AFC however in the event you do, the Denver Broncos are solely seventh. As for the NFC and the Seahawks? Yeah it’s ugly. The very best rating one govt gave was eleventh — that very same exec additionally had the Carolina Panthers at fifth and Washington Commanders at sixth — however everybody else was both 14th or fifteenth. When averaged out, the Seahawks are ranked because the 2nd worst group within the convention forward of solely the Atlanta Falcons.
Right here’s the blurb:
The Seahawks will most certainly must be superb on protection and particular groups — higher than they’ve been lately — to approximate their relative success in 2010 and 2011, the one seasons below coach Pete Carroll when Russell Wilson wasn’t the beginning quarterback. Seattle went 7-9 twice on the time.
“It didn’t look good this preseason,” an exec mentioned. “When you might have two quarterbacks, you might have none. I feel it might be dangerous.”
Carroll has by no means completed worse than 6-10 in 17 seasons as an NFL head coach.
“The 2 tackles they drafted can play, however they don’t have a quarterback,” the voter who ranked Seattle eleventh mentioned. “Geno Smith isn’t superb and Drew Lock, he did it within the preseason sport in opposition to Pittsburgh when he received sacked late within the sport. He impresses you and you’re like, ‘All proper, right here you go,’ however his errors are game-changing. Unhealthy interceptions, dangerous sacks, dangerous fumbles.”
Final yr, identical survey, the Seahawks have been third, so that is the heaviest of falls. The anticipated dropoff from Wilson to Geno/Lock is clearly the primary cause for this, however that’s additionally one other method of claiming the roster as a complete isn’t ok to beat below-average QB play.
It could be an annoyance that this offseason has simply been one massive dogpiling on the Seahawks from nationwide media and league insiders, however when the group hasn’t had a lot playoff success over the previous six seasons, had a foul 2021 after which traded away its greatest ever quarterback, what do you suppose goes to be mentioned? The Seahawks (Pete Carroll and John Schneider particularly) are going to should re-earn their repute the laborious method, even when it’s not an in a single day course of.
