Seattle Stopped Cooking
With this year being as chaotic as it is, there have been several candidates for the biggest disappointment of the year. The Chiefs looked absolutely broken for the first half of the season but seem to have put themselves back together for the moment and are now back in front. The Chargers, a team with so much potential after last season, started strong but have become the Chargers once more. The 49ers also struggled mightily for the first half and have also found a rhythm. But until recently, the Dolphins felt like far and away the huge disappointment. I even already made a comic on it. But the Dolphins have figured something out. Tua is playing good football. The defense is doing good. The Dolphins may not reach the playoffs, but everyone involved appears to have saved themselves provided they don’t plummet off the cliff after this.
I cannot say the same for the Seattle Seahawks. Maybe it was lost in the noise of all the other disappointing teams, or maybe the Russ finger injury blinded us, but the Seahawks are trash this year. This isn’t a good team held back by injuries, ala the Browns or Saints. This team is just bad. At this point, in week 13, they currently have a higher draft pick than the woeful New York Jets. What adds insult to injury is that they don’t own that pick. The woeful New York Jets own that pick thanks to last year’s Jamal Adams trade.
The Seahawks have been slowly slipping down the slope into mediocrity and failure since the Malcolm Butler pick, but it’s been a very slow and methodical slip until this year. This year they fell off a cliff. Even Russ just kinda sucks now. DK Metcalf isn’t getting any targets for some reason. They can’t run no matter how much Pete Carrol wants to. It seems like the team’s terrible drafting has finally truly caught up to them. Last year the Hawks were in contention for the #1 seed very late into the year. They settled for 1st in the NFCW and the #3 seed. They promptly got manhandled by a dominant Rams defense in the wildcard and they’ve been shit since. This team has had flaws for a while but I don’t think anyone could have envisioned it would get this ugly.
The Hawks remaining games are a mixed bag. They get to play the Texans, Lions, and Bears, but also the Cardinals, Rams, and 49ers. The Cardinals are competeting for the top seed. The Rams and 49ers are making a play right behind them for two wildcards. The Hawks have 3 wins. They’d have 9 wins if they won out, which won’t happen. This team finally hit the wall and they won’t even get to fuck up a first round pick for their efforts. Maybe the era of the Hawks we knew is finally over and they’ll spend the next half decade trying to rebuild around Russ, hoping he hasn’t lost his touch. Been a hell of a decade but everything has to end sometime.
Looks like they’re taking a play from the Giants playbook. Win a Super Bowl, assume QB can do everything, do nothing as team around QB crumbles, wasting the remaining years QB could have been a contenda’. Then complain QB is the problem, draft a successor, do nothing else of value, then wonder why your new toy isn’t working like the old one used to, before you broke it. Fire a few coaches in the middle.
At the end of the season, Pete Carroll is going “resign,” and during his speech, Russ will start crying. Pete will say, “No, Russ! It’s not your fault, son! I called terrible plays, and when I lose, we all lose.”
Didn’t we recently hear pretty much this same story about the Packers?
I’m admittedly biased, but thanks to Rodgers’ godawful handling of his “immunized” lie, I now believe every single “Aaron Rodgers is a %&#^y teammate story!!” from the guys who played with him, so I’m of the mind that he actively sabotaged the team with his mental a$$hattery and broke himself.
Also, in fairness to putting all of it on the management… the mega contracts these guys get play a part. As much as I love Eli, he put the Giants in a position where they had to nail the draft ever year… and they did not. Russ and Rodgers have similarly crippled their teams when it comes to retaining and acquiring stud veterans. They deserve to be paid, so I don’t fault them for taking as much as they can get, but it plays a role.
Nah, Eli’s contract wasn’t that outsized. The main problem was that the Giants were consistently at the bottom of the league in money spent on non-QB offensive players.
Plus some of the draft picks were bad enough to defy logic, like Eli Apple.
Also the colts
Unfortunately it does. The Giants have been shitty for a good 8 years now and I expect next year to be another. The Hawks did get one Lombardi out of it.
Giants are actually a fair comparison, although we fell off the wagon way faster
One thing that sucks is despite the Seahawks being trash, the Seahawks have some sort of spell on the 49ers and almost always beat them. Even if the 49ers win they have to be a top-tier team and win by single digits. It reminds me of the Cowboys in the early 90’s and the Packers in the mid/late 90’s had the 49ers number.
If it’s any consolation, we (that is to say, Seattle) are guaranteed to lose to the Rams every time we play against them, usually in embarrassing and confusing fashion. So it all comes full circle.
That’s true. I still remember the year SF went 2-14, with the 2 wins against the Cardinals, lol. Full circle cheers
“Everything has to end sometime.” Tell that to Coach Hoodie.
If he didn’t listen to Tom Brady he isn’t going to listen to us
“The Chargers, a team with so much potential after last season, started strong but have become the Chargers once more.”
I hope by that you mean that the Chargers are an inconsistent, middle of the road team, which they definitely are this year, and not a team that blows leads and finds unusual, heartbreaking ways to lose, which they definitely aren’t (although the Pittsburgh game came close). I think the real issue here is the GM/owner’s son in the personnel department are at odds with the coach on some of their draft picks that haven’t panned out (cough cough Jerry Tillery). Given another off-season or two, I hope Staley will find the guys he needs to run the schemes he wants to run. His #1 defense last year needed an Aaron Donald to make it work, and we definitely don’t have that.
Anyway Dave, here’s your late pool update post week 12:
You got a 9* because I didn’t see that you had changed your MIN/SF pick until it was too late, hence the asterisk. The difference wouldn’t have been enough to win the week, though, but close – there was one 10 and one 11. The current leader only managed a 6 though, bringing the top of the standings very close once again.
Overall you got a 106*, good for 11th – 13th place. The current leader has a 117.
Every team crashes and burns eventually. I took us a lot longer than just about every other team that rode high in that span of time. The Broncos, Falcons, and Eagles all won and then faded to irrelevance or even downright joke status in quick succession while we were still winning 10+ games every year. And no matter how bad things get, there’s always next year, as they say in Cleveland.
Haha! In speaking of the games the Seachickens have left this year, notice how he didn’t mention the Bears?
…..because the Bears are irrelevant.
As a Hawks fan, the only problem I have with this comic is this: no self-respecting 12 would have the classic Hawks logo on an Action Green pillow. That shit would be silver, blue, or white.
That is all. You may all carry on.
My problem is he called us the Rainy city Bitch Chickens, when actually it’s the Rainy City Bitch Pidgeons.
“Rain City Bitch Chickens” 🙂 Now I need that energy for the other 31 franchises.
No no, they went with Kraken instead.
I have no idea why, but i hate the Seahawks.
I’m not from that area, they haven’t beaten my team in a crucial game, I don’t know any obnoxious fans of theirs, no real rivalry. I just hate them and want them to suck.
Anybody else?
Yup. Part of it is I just hate watching Russ run around the backfield like a jackass fifteen second every play before memechucking to another PI call, but even before Russ was on the team I’ve wanted them to fail.
Probably the puke green color scheme.