Russellmania VI

Separation comes from preparation- R. Wilson Does it seem like this offseason lasted 7 years rather than 7 months or is that just me? As the dawn of the 2013 Seattle Seahawks season comes upon us I found myself thinking about the critical week 2 matchup against the 49ers and how it very well could be the single most important game of our season. At no point did I stop to think about this Sundays game. Why should I? I thought, it's the Panthers, a team we dispatched last year in Charlotte  before  we established our offensive identity. A team whose biggest free agent acquisition was Ted Ginn Jr. a top-10 kick returner at best. Yet as I watched more and more of the 2012 Panthers I realized that thought-process was a colossal mistake, this is not a Panthers team to be taken lightly. While we left Carolina with the W they certainly made us work harder than many of our 2012 matches. On 21 carries they held Beastmode to a slim 85 yards (4.0 ypc) all the while limiting t...

Dates to look forward to: Monday April 15 - Offseason Program : Activities limited to strength and conditioning and physical rehabilitation only. This will be a good time to see what stages Chris Clemons, Walter Thurmond and other wounded Hawks are in recovery. Thursday April 25th - NFL Draft : Although the draft officially starts Thursday April 25th that is only the first round so it doesn't mean much to us but Friday at 3:30pm is the start of the 2nd round and our eventual first pick. (2nd and 3rd rounds on Friday, rounds 4-7 are Saturday starting at 9am) Monday May 20 - Organized Team Activities : On-field workouts may include individual player instruction and drills as well as team practice conducted on a “separates” basis. No live contact or team offense vs. team defense drills are permitted. I am sure the NFL will keep a close eye on our OTA's as last year we violated the the "no live contact" part and where docked two OTA days. Tuesday June 11 - M...

Wrote this about a week before the Combine and now that it is officially over I plan on doing a Combine Review of these prospects, and few new players that caught my eye. Players to keep an eye on at the combine and into the draft : This is an incredibly deep year for WR's and DT's as well as one of the best years ever to be drafting in the late 20-30 range, at the other end of that spectrum it's an unfortunate year to have a lottery pick as there are no clear cut franchise qb's/other cornerstone positions (sucks for you Arizona!) A lot of people will say that we have enough talent at WR but the fact of the matter is if even one of Rice/Tate/Baldwin goes down we go from being "enough" to below average. Beyond that none of them have the ability to break a tackle and take a catch 80 yards for 6 so for those reasons I will definitely study this year’s WR class. Something that was evident throughout the season was the lack of pressure our Defense was able to...