20 Comments

Excellent piece of writing - might be the most-honest and objective take i've seen. Congrats!

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Excellent article that is applicable far beyond my beloved Seahawks, the NFL, or even sports. Digital echo chambers fuel BS loops in politics (on BOTH extremes) with serious life altering effects.

Nonetheless, your article on BS about the ‘Hawks provides a focused look at how BS gets gets created, consumed, and repeated. The payoff for BSers is views, sponsors, ego, and sometimes $. Calling out BSers is noble work, and hard work. Great respect to you for your effort.

Sadly, the very characteristic that makes Twitter so popular (immediacy and brevity) make it ideal for BS trafficking.

Your article is long. To many viewers (I hesitate to call them “readers”), that would be an insult instead of the subjective observation it was. It should be long. You made an argument, a conclusion supported by several verifiable premises. Evidence often requires words and other details. Some say we should simply give up on society’s apparent addiction to all things quick and (frankly) bullshitty. Or those of us who give a f@@@ about truth can refer others to your argument and maybe form a few of their own.

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I enjoyed your rant. The same thing has happened to science publications. However, I get really tired of hearing that all media is rigged and evil. Post Trump, people love to paint the media with the same brush that colors all politicians. It's just not true. There are honest, committed politicians and professional journalists who work for unbiased outlets. Our society desperately needs to support and honor the people who report the news and ferret out the truth.

Okay, now a football question. Watson will almost certainly miss part if not all of 2022 so the Browns knowingly sacrificed 2022 for a future with Watson. Given his injury history and off field issues what are the odds Watson has a long and storied career with Cleveland?

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I love your work! It’s sad that a top-ranked journalism school like Northwestern had produced Mr. Editor. I wish the erosion of journalistic integrity was isolated to only sports but it’s rampant everywhere and it’s extremely dangerous to our democratic society.

Your story touched on the reason why I have such a huge issue with Jake Heaps and 710. It had brought out so much vitriol from me on Twitter that I would often get embarrassed at myself but I couldn’t help it. His “journalistic” integrity was greatly compromised and 710 allowed it to happen. I understand qualifying him as anything close to a “journalist” is being very generous. However , I would think there has to be some level of standards for radio work. A radio host was being paid by Wilson, whether directly or indirectly, to push his agendas on the radio while being paid by 710. I hope most of the listeners knew that whatever he said about Wilson was totally biased and had zero credibility. But I had doubts. At the time, I thought the type of audience listening to his sports show during that time of the day was unlikely to decipher or care about the issue.

For two years, in my mind it seemed like I was the only one caring about it and I kept on screaming at the world. My wife wondered why I would get so bothered by a nondescript radio-host talking about football. It doesn’t change our lives or our children’s livelihood in any shape or form. My argument is that it does. Because of the decay of great journalism to shine the light on the prevalent deception and lies for the public to see, it is more important than ever for parents like me to educate our kids at an early age by pointing out these types of people and their deceptive agendas, tactics and policies. These are everywhere and not just sports!

Thankfully, I wasn’t alone. Upon hearing about him quitting 710, there were a handful of people on Twitter expressed similar sentiments to mine. That really made me very happy! It brought closure to the Wilson’s saga for me!

Honestly, Im not savvy with social media in general and a lot of it is by choice. I have learned a lot from you about the tricks of Twitter in your articles discussing about Ben Baldwin and now Josina Anderson. I had often wondered to myself how Tweeting stuff out that required zero intellect or seems like a dumb story would get hundreds of likes or followers. You helped to answer some of those questions.

Anyway, keep doing what you’re doing! I’m

a big fan of your work! There may be only a handful of people left that truly appreciate your worlk. I really hope that I am wrong!!!

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Kenneth is a national treasure! I suspect this blog is going to grow, and I try to promote when I can without seeming to shill. I'm with you on Heaps. As far as I'm aware, he never even played a snap at QB for the Seahawks, yet was promoted as "former Seahawks quarterback, Jake Heaps" on the station. At worst, he was Russell's mouthpiece as you suggest, but even at best he was too close to him to ever criticize any aspect of him. And his cohost Stacey Rost deferred to his "guru" status. I think she'll be an ESPN television personality one day because she has the look and smarts, but I found her inability to challenge Jake off-putting and only listened to the show when I'd exhausted everything else.

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That’s a good point! He never made the team out of training camp. Again, that’s very deceptive.

I actually enjoy listening to her because she would at times present the contrarian or “non-homer” viewpoints. But again, I don’t listen to show enough because of aforementioned reasons and so I failed to notice what you were saying. I didn’t know “Jake the Guru” was her thing. I thought everyone at the station did that.

Salk did a series of shows in January calling out what Heaps was saying and I thought that was extremely entertaining. At times, he even have Heaps on the show and I could sense Heaps was not comfortable getting grilled by his own Boss.

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Great article. That day Mayfield (I'm not on first-name basis because...well, I don't want to be) said to his buddy on that podcast or whatever media that is that he'd probably end up in Seattle, I knew he'd NEVER end up in Seattle.

It was like a punk 7th grader saying, 'well, I can always take So and So to the dance, but I'm waiting for _____ to break up because she really likes me.'

It was the entitlement of a guy drafted first that apparently didn't read Seaside Joe to know that was his anchor and not his engine, and he really was a third round pick.

I knew at that moment Pete would never bring him in. And, yes, I too will eat these words if it happens, but it won't.

Pete likes chip-on-their-shoulder guys that love their teammates, not themselves. It's why this off-season has been interesting to me because Pete came out swinging that he'd veered off course, and he was going back to his base philosophy. It was an ontology of coaching that looks for guys the system has quit on that have not quit on themselves, and just need an opportunity.

I don't see Lock as a throw-away, has-been that never will be. I know the numbers, I've seen the tape, but he's 26years old, and he's got a skill potential that's super intriguing to me. And Pete's philosophy that he got away from is TO DRAFT good QBs each year to compete. He got away from that not wanting to mess with Wilson, I guess. Egos are funny things.

As for stretching truths or whatever to gain followers? I watch sports as an opportunity to unplug from the lies and nonsense for 3hrs. I LOVE Seahawks football (used to enjoy the Sonics, NBA now dead to me). So hanging out with some other guys that love the Hawks is fun. That's why I do this. I enjoy your comments and takes on why the Hawks do this, that, how they'll play and why, and just to relax a bit.

I don't care about a Tweet speculating on something that really doesn't matter in the scheme of our current messy world.

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Great analogy about the seventh grader. I have mentioned, that I too found Baker's I guess Seattle was very disrespectful to a truley storied franchise. If I cut Baker some slack, Seattle would be his best opportunity. Seattle, play their cards very close to the vest. If they stick with the always compete mantra there is a chance he comes to Seattle. I do not see us giving up any asset to get him, and maybe paying $4.5 million or close to 25% of his salary. The Browns being the Browns, rewarding Watson with the best contract ever. Cleveland knew or should have known Watson could be gone for the season, thus the $1 million salary for this year.

Does anybody think Baker will play for Cleveland this year. A hefty raise maybe enough to make it happen. I enjoyed your well thought out essay.

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Hi Chris, I agree that's possible. In the 'always compete' it means they don't rule out anyone, really. So it's possible, and those numbers could make the financial side work.

Your question is a great one, and I'll grab my popcorn and watch. I cannot recall such a strange situation ever before. Throwing that kind of money into that volatile of a situation, AND alienating an 'asset' like Mayfield at the same time is wild.

Every league seems to have gone through overindulgent contracts at times. Even the WR market now is in uncharted territory it seems, but the situation in Cleveland seems something beyond.

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Bravo!

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All of us Seasiders read your columns for basically the same reasons. Mostly we are true blue Seahawks fans who would rather read about what makes Kenneth Walker a promising rookie, or how Clint Hurt is going to elevate Seattle's defense. None of us are here for sensationalism or poorly researched comments. Personally I have been impressed with a number of your predictions that have come true. There is not a single player on the 90 man roster that I haven't researched in some small way. Could I name all 90 players not without hints or a cheat sheet. I find all of their stories to be interesting, where do they come from, the adversity they have over come to get this far. After that I like to guess who is the next Jake Curhan, Doug Baldwin etc.

I do not have a Twitter account but I did see that we were willing to extend Baker. At that point I stopped reading as it was to far fetched.

Perhaps because I worked in Radio for 8 years doing news and sports. My last year I worked at the BC legislature covering our Premier and opposition everyday. I can't help if you take offense to this, I hope not, when you reach a certain level in Canadian Journalism there are rules that you must follow. In politics it is honestly providing both sides of an issue without bias. Your Fox "News" is the worst Orwellian reporting I have ever seen. The British tabloids are the same way. The same as I would not have a friend who lied to me everyday, I will not consume news or sports that do the same thing.

I think Kenneth said there are 700 Seasiders and we are here because of the effort and honesty Ken puts into his stories. Kenneth is our pal on the inside. I don't need PFF to tell me we have the worst offensive line in the league before one snap. Our interior line is tough our center is a serviceable player if not above, and we have a couple of rookie tackles with bright futures. Tell me how they have done in run blocking and what will it take for them to start dominating. As I have said before I was disappointed Russell was traded, but now I am excited to see how OUR teams plans workout. Thanks Kenneth. Victoria Chris PS sign DK before training camp, we won the Lottery when we were able to draft him when we did. Every year barring injury he will get better and better.

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AMEN! Josina sure loves Tweets that start with "I'm told..."

I do tend to think odds are that we're adding a new signal caller before training camp. And there's roughly a 1 in 3 chance it will be Baker. So by this logic, I could make about 9 contradictory tweets and one would likely hit. That's all she does and it's tiring. Prisco, Florio and others seem to do the same. It's entirely without value unless you think people arguing in the comments has value.

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The only reason a new QB would be added now is if Geno or Drew got injured.

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You don't think if Smith and Lock looked sorry in OTAs that wouldn't be enough?

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I don’t think that would be enough this year. Pete looks committed to running with two backups and Eason. Like when Pete first came to Seattle, maybe he’s hoping he can motivate the players he has into a winning team.

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I can see both yours and Rogers points here. If Schneider &Co had really wanted a third wheel, I would think they wanted to do that at the outset because it’s the QB position. They need the player to assimilate the playbook and culture ASAP.

On the other hand, they have got to have back up options if both Smith and Lock falter. I’m not sure the available of options of Baker and Jimmy G are good enough to elevate our current roster and have to commit lots of financial capital that could be used to sign players at other positions that may become available after roster cuts.

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They strive for the longest threads, most likes and retweets. Before Twitter took over, blogs were where people went to chat on topics. The long threads usually had the same few people in them and the places I frequented called them "blog cloggers." 🤣🤣

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Florio often says things about Seattle that are truly stupid. Pushing for a complete Seahawk rebuild to stock up with young talent. In his next breath he says trade DK Metcalf, who has the most upside and is only 24. I do like Chris Simms player rankings, he is honest and tells us what he see's, and puts in the work. He has not given up on Drew Lock, and like Pete thinks he would be the best QB if he were in this class. I enjoyed All In The Family but the arguing became to much. Like you astutely pointed out fake arguing (Skip Bayless) is awful.

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He was pushing the narratives fed to him by Wilson’s agent. It seemed very obvious to me. Yet sometimes he would mock guys like Adam Schefter like as if he’s hollier than thou. Truly the pot calling the kettle black.

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Great article. And Twitter isn't the only place this stuff happens. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TV, newspapers, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, the list is endless. And it's all garbage. Most of it isn't facts, it's opinions. And you know what they say about opinions...

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