Unit cohesion is big in the Marines. Gathering the force of many men believing themselves akin to Family is key to making the Whole more than the sum of its' individuals. It is in our Nature. Somehow, our Marines can generate it even with personalities like Russ or DK, but it escapes even Master Coaches like Pete Carroll from doing so in civilian life. A few years ago, Nick Bellore was busy "interviewing" his teammates in hilarious fashion. I suspect he and Pete had this 'cohesion' in mind. I found his talk with DK particularly illuminating (3-4 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxphK8Sk29E&pp=ygU0IkJldHdlZW4gVHdvIEJlbGxvcmVzIiB3aXRoIE5pY2sgQmVsbG9yZS4gREsgTWV0Y2FsZg%3D%3D
I can use a little of my coaching experience (not American football, but I have been qualified as a coach in two different sports) to help the final question of the article.
It's not a case of "well just pay the best guys the most, and teams that are cheap have bad coaches". Same way we are all, hopefully, aware it's very very very hard to draft hits every time. If you could just identify the best coaches, you'd identify the best draft options, and never lose a game ever again.
I think at the NFL level there are no bad coaches. Even Urban Meyer wasn't bad. They can have outdated or mismatched philosophy, or clashing and under baked styles. But we're at the pinnacle of sport here, and if any of these coaches went to HS team they'd smash it.
Andy Reid and the Chiefs are basically assumed as the best coaches. I don't know how you quantify that. They are all aligned in philosophy. Have players bought into their ideas. And get a lot of mileage from some truly generational talents.
Pete was not a bad coach at the end. But players were not bought in, and most of his issues were more stubbornness and philosophy than bad coaching.
Player buy in and establishment of working philosophy are huge. It's the Chiefs boom. It's Tomlins book. It was the Pats book. That plays far more role than a raw coaching skill. This was very rambling and not at all clear sorry. Basically think of it similar to drafting. From the outside it must look easy, but it's incredibly nuanced, and fundamentally more about the overall team culture than any specific individual contributions.
Being a head coach in the NFL is hard. Incredibly nuanced as you say and that may be understating it. X’s and O’s might be 10% of where their time goes. Higher for MacDonald as he’s hard wired to the elegance of football so likely will always spend more time there.
In the NFL every single HC, OC, DC and every single other coach knows X's & O's like the back of their hand. Each and every one, inside and out. The creation of X's & O's into a viable gameplan is also probably the smallest aspect of the overall coaching programme.
And I can say that from experience. When i've been coaching, the actual gameplan design is pretty quick. Devising useful training sessions that get those ideas into players is the hard part, especially when players bring their own pre-learned elements to bear as well.
The most successful coaches, in any sport, are those who can adapt to their players. It's less about "coaching up" (to Madden it, turning a 75 into an 85) and more about sanding edges of a square peg and a round hole so we end up with a triangle (horrible metaphor but accurate).
PC at the end was too much either forcing squares into circles, or just going with less good circles. MM's strength so far has been spotting those he can reshape into triangles (still a horrible but accurate metaphor). This was the Grubb issue at heart for me last year. The fundamental X's & O's plan and coaching was not bad, it was just clearly not suited to the players. Grubb wasn't making players worse, or failing to improve players (i've spent enough time talking about the OLine for example to point out where he was able to get some improvements, and very few actual regressions), it was just that clash of philosophy to the tools at hand.
These concepts apply outwards as well to all your other quality coaches, position coaches, fitness coaches and so on. None of them at the NFL level are bad and doing bad coaching. But the good coaches, the best coaches, are able to package everything up with player buy-in and adapatability. And that you cannot throw wages at to get. This is why we see so many coaching trees, as those trees have roots in adaptation and cooperation with player buy-in.
What is the "correct" amount of appreciation? From what I see Hawks fans are happily aware of Alexander's contributions, and equally aware they were not earth shattering at a wider NFL scale. I don't think he'll be HOF and for me that's also correct. He was good, never great.
I guess the balance is that the LoB era and beyond notably skews the appreciation curve. Those players are much more famous, and delivered more great moments. Therefore are more openly commemorated, especially at a wider league level.
I also doubt that Shaun Alexander will be voted into the HOF, however I have a related piece of information about the subject.
A few years ago, before going into the stadium, I was chatting with Mr. Alexander and asked him that when he was voted into the Hall, would he enter as a Seahawk or as a R*dS**n? He laughed and said “Seahawk!”
#37 led us to our first Super Bowl. Running behind the best left side ever, and coached by MHolmgren that was an amazing team to watch. We were SCREWED in the Super Bowl. It was like THE BUS is gonna win a Super Bowl. So many questionable calls …. It was complete BS!!! But #37 led us to that first SB, which was amazing…
Part way through the 2006 season, I started to analyze every Seahawks run play. Fans were blaming SA, but he was the lightning rod with a big, new contract. The interior OL consistently failed him. People piled on him when he didn’t waste his energy for another inch on first down, but the reality is that Alexander was often tackled by three defenders and Mo Morris was often taken down by one.
People who assume that Kubiak needs a downhill battering ram don’t understand zone running. The more important skill is to change direction the split second you see grass between two blue helmets. The RB runs to a fixed point, cuts back, then surges forward at the first gap; he doesn’t run straight forward looking for contact. Leave that for short yardage plays. Walker has the right skills, and he can improvise when the scheme breaks down.
Walter Jones is downright reverent talking about SA and what a pleasure it was to block for him. The respect and affection are palpable. In the same interview, he added that SA wanted to score touchdowns more than anyone Jones had ever played with and—somewhat cryptically—that he knew more about how to do it.
I doubt this is original to me, but isn’t Kupp really the replacement for Lockett, not DK? National media insists it’s the other way…also, there’s been talk Arroyo might be the deep threat, but only if he plays…
With a new OC and new system, the roles last year are different or even nonexistent now. There are no replacements of any of the roles. It is a completely new system with new roles and mostly new players fitting into those roles as the coaches see fit. It's such an oversimplification to say "Kupp replaces DK". If DK was still here, KK would use him to get the best out of him. Now, he's going to do that with Kupp and everyone else.
You’re spot on. We did not replace DK or Lockett with a single player. We replaced them in the aggregate. Scantling, Horton and Arroyo will each pick up a piece of DK’s 900 yards and a few TDs from last year. Kupp will likely exceed Lockett’s production and TDs from last year
When I read Andrew’s comment on the Open Post, just knew that was type of SJ question. Figure a more in depth research is likely but at same time it’s subjective. Using Saleh or Jet/Giant/Browns coaches works adversely skew the response as SJ says.
I agree wholeheartedly on K9 taking over the run game this year. I have predicted he gets 1400+ yards carrying the ball at 5 yards per carry. And more receiving to boot. I see the Hawks as a whole rushing for 2400+ yards this year. This will be the main difference in our soon to be very successful season. I think the only thing stopping K9 will be another injury plagued year. I hope he avoids that and gets an extension. I was a little upset at Brady Henderson who felt that it was less than likely K9 will be extended after this season.
Something of interest to run by all of you. Today hawk blogger interviewed Brady Henderson and asked him what was the likelihood of the Seahawks rookie class of 2022 getting second contracts. Brady started off by saying Charles Cross was a 10 out of 10 likely to get extended beyond the 5th year option. He put K9 at 4 out of 10. I think he mentioned how often he’s missed games due to injury as the reason it was less likely. For Lucas, he said he would not be extended until they see how his knee holds up this year, but that if he plays well and without the injury recurring, he would be more likely than not to be extended. The shocker was Woolen. He said there was a 1 out of 10 chance he would be extended. He said this unlikelihood for Woolen was due to his recurring issues with his commitment to bring his “A” game and the need to bench him because of this issue as the reason he thinks this is Wollen’s last year with the Hawks. I think Bryant was a 5 out of 10, and Mafe was in the same neighborhood of about 50/50.
I’m aligned with Henderson on Cross, but I am higher on Bryant getting an extension up to a certain Dollar amount, Mafe as well. If the price is right, extend them. I think there is a higher possibility Wollen gets extended than Brady predicts, but perhaps not until he shows the issues that caused him to get benched are behind him and his performance is consistent and does not have mental lapses occurring regularly. I’m also slightly higher on K9 receiving an extension. If he can stay healthy, I think he could get 1400+ yards this season.
What do you guys think will happen with K9? Does anyone else think this is Woolen’s last year with the Seahawks?
Woolen is elite when he sees the ball early...which is almost never. If he will play the correct style, I'd keep him around, but he won't typically tackle anything aggressively and he plays too often in a 'face guarding' position with his back to the play (which got us beat in OT against the Rams).
I’m higher on the likelihood of extending Woolen than Brady Henderson, but I agree he has to step it up a bit to get paid what he’s going to be looking to get. It’d be nice if his run defense takes a step up this year as well. I think the major reason MM has issues with him is his lack of aggressiveness in run defense. Unfortunately for Woolen, MM is looking for certain types of players that can do many things. Woolen is not ideal for MM in the way he plays, especially on run defense. One idea that may be a factor in Henderson’s 1 out of 10 likelihood of extending Woolen might be Spoon. If you pay big bucks to Woolen, what impact will that have on your ability to pay Spoon next year?
I would agree with you. I was shocked he saw it so unlikely. But he’s around the facility all the time, and i have always wondered if Woolen just does something that MM doesn’t like. I’d like to think Woolen will correct it, but who knows.
That’s the thing. From my partial Dynasty Fantasy, love to see it go to Charbo. But K9 is way more like Kamara than Charbo. I’m totally in agreement that Coach K offense is perfect for K9s skills. I hope the OLine can set up these type of blocks. Love Charbo but he’s built for a different offense.
Charbonet is not going anywhere. He might still have a big role with the offense, and if K9 does get hurt, he might have a bigger role with the offense. If anyone can get this Oline to learn how to block a wide zone scheme, it’s these offensive coaches. I wonder what the over under is for Seahawks rushing yards this year? I bet they beat it by 400 yards.
Didn’t say he would. I said I prefer if offense was more his style. But it’s not and K9, if healthy, could be great. With Milroe, Charbo/Martinez, short game should be much improved.
OTAs have very limited use in what you can take away from them. No pads, no contact, yet I think there is one huge take away from the Seahawks OTAs. Every single player on the 90 man roster was there for at least some of it, if not all of it. Listening to Jaran Reed’s press conference, it’s not difficult to see why all 90 players chose to show up for voluntary practices. These players have bought in and are high on the prospects for this team. It’s hard to be a winning team under the best of circumstances, but if commitment, belief and attitude are missing, winning is highly unlikely. These players believe they are winners and are committed to putting in the work to make it a reality.
Unit cohesion is big in the Marines. Gathering the force of many men believing themselves akin to Family is key to making the Whole more than the sum of its' individuals. It is in our Nature. Somehow, our Marines can generate it even with personalities like Russ or DK, but it escapes even Master Coaches like Pete Carroll from doing so in civilian life. A few years ago, Nick Bellore was busy "interviewing" his teammates in hilarious fashion. I suspect he and Pete had this 'cohesion' in mind. I found his talk with DK particularly illuminating (3-4 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxphK8Sk29E&pp=ygU0IkJldHdlZW4gVHdvIEJlbGxvcmVzIiB3aXRoIE5pY2sgQmVsbG9yZS4gREsgTWV0Y2FsZg%3D%3D
https://www.google.com/search?q=Between+two+ferns%EF%BF%BC&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#ebo=0
I can use a little of my coaching experience (not American football, but I have been qualified as a coach in two different sports) to help the final question of the article.
It's not a case of "well just pay the best guys the most, and teams that are cheap have bad coaches". Same way we are all, hopefully, aware it's very very very hard to draft hits every time. If you could just identify the best coaches, you'd identify the best draft options, and never lose a game ever again.
I think at the NFL level there are no bad coaches. Even Urban Meyer wasn't bad. They can have outdated or mismatched philosophy, or clashing and under baked styles. But we're at the pinnacle of sport here, and if any of these coaches went to HS team they'd smash it.
Andy Reid and the Chiefs are basically assumed as the best coaches. I don't know how you quantify that. They are all aligned in philosophy. Have players bought into their ideas. And get a lot of mileage from some truly generational talents.
Pete was not a bad coach at the end. But players were not bought in, and most of his issues were more stubbornness and philosophy than bad coaching.
Player buy in and establishment of working philosophy are huge. It's the Chiefs boom. It's Tomlins book. It was the Pats book. That plays far more role than a raw coaching skill. This was very rambling and not at all clear sorry. Basically think of it similar to drafting. From the outside it must look easy, but it's incredibly nuanced, and fundamentally more about the overall team culture than any specific individual contributions.
Being a head coach in the NFL is hard. Incredibly nuanced as you say and that may be understating it. X’s and O’s might be 10% of where their time goes. Higher for MacDonald as he’s hard wired to the elegance of football so likely will always spend more time there.
In the NFL every single HC, OC, DC and every single other coach knows X's & O's like the back of their hand. Each and every one, inside and out. The creation of X's & O's into a viable gameplan is also probably the smallest aspect of the overall coaching programme.
And I can say that from experience. When i've been coaching, the actual gameplan design is pretty quick. Devising useful training sessions that get those ideas into players is the hard part, especially when players bring their own pre-learned elements to bear as well.
The most successful coaches, in any sport, are those who can adapt to their players. It's less about "coaching up" (to Madden it, turning a 75 into an 85) and more about sanding edges of a square peg and a round hole so we end up with a triangle (horrible metaphor but accurate).
PC at the end was too much either forcing squares into circles, or just going with less good circles. MM's strength so far has been spotting those he can reshape into triangles (still a horrible but accurate metaphor). This was the Grubb issue at heart for me last year. The fundamental X's & O's plan and coaching was not bad, it was just clearly not suited to the players. Grubb wasn't making players worse, or failing to improve players (i've spent enough time talking about the OLine for example to point out where he was able to get some improvements, and very few actual regressions), it was just that clash of philosophy to the tools at hand.
These concepts apply outwards as well to all your other quality coaches, position coaches, fitness coaches and so on. None of them at the NFL level are bad and doing bad coaching. But the good coaches, the best coaches, are able to package everything up with player buy-in and adapatability. And that you cannot throw wages at to get. This is why we see so many coaching trees, as those trees have roots in adaptation and cooperation with player buy-in.
What is the "correct" amount of appreciation? From what I see Hawks fans are happily aware of Alexander's contributions, and equally aware they were not earth shattering at a wider NFL scale. I don't think he'll be HOF and for me that's also correct. He was good, never great.
I guess the balance is that the LoB era and beyond notably skews the appreciation curve. Those players are much more famous, and delivered more great moments. Therefore are more openly commemorated, especially at a wider league level.
I also doubt that Shaun Alexander will be voted into the HOF, however I have a related piece of information about the subject.
A few years ago, before going into the stadium, I was chatting with Mr. Alexander and asked him that when he was voted into the Hall, would he enter as a Seahawk or as a R*dS**n? He laughed and said “Seahawk!”
#37 led us to our first Super Bowl. Running behind the best left side ever, and coached by MHolmgren that was an amazing team to watch. We were SCREWED in the Super Bowl. It was like THE BUS is gonna win a Super Bowl. So many questionable calls …. It was complete BS!!! But #37 led us to that first SB, which was amazing…
That SB stung more than the NE loss. We got jobbed, period.
Part way through the 2006 season, I started to analyze every Seahawks run play. Fans were blaming SA, but he was the lightning rod with a big, new contract. The interior OL consistently failed him. People piled on him when he didn’t waste his energy for another inch on first down, but the reality is that Alexander was often tackled by three defenders and Mo Morris was often taken down by one.
People who assume that Kubiak needs a downhill battering ram don’t understand zone running. The more important skill is to change direction the split second you see grass between two blue helmets. The RB runs to a fixed point, cuts back, then surges forward at the first gap; he doesn’t run straight forward looking for contact. Leave that for short yardage plays. Walker has the right skills, and he can improvise when the scheme breaks down.
Wow, talk about "user name chackes out!" Nice description!
Walter Jones is downright reverent talking about SA and what a pleasure it was to block for him. The respect and affection are palpable. In the same interview, he added that SA wanted to score touchdowns more than anyone Jones had ever played with and—somewhat cryptically—that he knew more about how to do it.
Thanks for this, Sea Hawk Run.
I doubt this is original to me, but isn’t Kupp really the replacement for Lockett, not DK? National media insists it’s the other way…also, there’s been talk Arroyo might be the deep threat, but only if he plays…
With a new OC and new system, the roles last year are different or even nonexistent now. There are no replacements of any of the roles. It is a completely new system with new roles and mostly new players fitting into those roles as the coaches see fit. It's such an oversimplification to say "Kupp replaces DK". If DK was still here, KK would use him to get the best out of him. Now, he's going to do that with Kupp and everyone else.
I tend to think that none of the new receivers are necessarily "replacements" for any of the old receivers.
💯
I agree Isaac B. It’s not about replacing players, it’s about working with the players and schemes you’ve got and creating your own brand.
You’re spot on. We did not replace DK or Lockett with a single player. We replaced them in the aggregate. Scantling, Horton and Arroyo will each pick up a piece of DK’s 900 yards and a few TDs from last year. Kupp will likely exceed Lockett’s production and TDs from last year
When I read Andrew’s comment on the Open Post, just knew that was type of SJ question. Figure a more in depth research is likely but at same time it’s subjective. Using Saleh or Jet/Giant/Browns coaches works adversely skew the response as SJ says.
I agree wholeheartedly on K9 taking over the run game this year. I have predicted he gets 1400+ yards carrying the ball at 5 yards per carry. And more receiving to boot. I see the Hawks as a whole rushing for 2400+ yards this year. This will be the main difference in our soon to be very successful season. I think the only thing stopping K9 will be another injury plagued year. I hope he avoids that and gets an extension. I was a little upset at Brady Henderson who felt that it was less than likely K9 will be extended after this season.
Something of interest to run by all of you. Today hawk blogger interviewed Brady Henderson and asked him what was the likelihood of the Seahawks rookie class of 2022 getting second contracts. Brady started off by saying Charles Cross was a 10 out of 10 likely to get extended beyond the 5th year option. He put K9 at 4 out of 10. I think he mentioned how often he’s missed games due to injury as the reason it was less likely. For Lucas, he said he would not be extended until they see how his knee holds up this year, but that if he plays well and without the injury recurring, he would be more likely than not to be extended. The shocker was Woolen. He said there was a 1 out of 10 chance he would be extended. He said this unlikelihood for Woolen was due to his recurring issues with his commitment to bring his “A” game and the need to bench him because of this issue as the reason he thinks this is Wollen’s last year with the Hawks. I think Bryant was a 5 out of 10, and Mafe was in the same neighborhood of about 50/50.
I’m aligned with Henderson on Cross, but I am higher on Bryant getting an extension up to a certain Dollar amount, Mafe as well. If the price is right, extend them. I think there is a higher possibility Wollen gets extended than Brady predicts, but perhaps not until he shows the issues that caused him to get benched are behind him and his performance is consistent and does not have mental lapses occurring regularly. I’m also slightly higher on K9 receiving an extension. If he can stay healthy, I think he could get 1400+ yards this season.
What do you guys think will happen with K9? Does anyone else think this is Woolen’s last year with the Seahawks?
Woolen is elite when he sees the ball early...which is almost never. If he will play the correct style, I'd keep him around, but he won't typically tackle anything aggressively and he plays too often in a 'face guarding' position with his back to the play (which got us beat in OT against the Rams).
I’m higher on the likelihood of extending Woolen than Brady Henderson, but I agree he has to step it up a bit to get paid what he’s going to be looking to get. It’d be nice if his run defense takes a step up this year as well. I think the major reason MM has issues with him is his lack of aggressiveness in run defense. Unfortunately for Woolen, MM is looking for certain types of players that can do many things. Woolen is not ideal for MM in the way he plays, especially on run defense. One idea that may be a factor in Henderson’s 1 out of 10 likelihood of extending Woolen might be Spoon. If you pay big bucks to Woolen, what impact will that have on your ability to pay Spoon next year?
If Woolen really has a 1:10 chance of being extended, he would already have been traded.
I would agree with you. I was shocked he saw it so unlikely. But he’s around the facility all the time, and i have always wondered if Woolen just does something that MM doesn’t like. I’d like to think Woolen will correct it, but who knows.
That’s the thing. From my partial Dynasty Fantasy, love to see it go to Charbo. But K9 is way more like Kamara than Charbo. I’m totally in agreement that Coach K offense is perfect for K9s skills. I hope the OLine can set up these type of blocks. Love Charbo but he’s built for a different offense.
Charbonet is not going anywhere. He might still have a big role with the offense, and if K9 does get hurt, he might have a bigger role with the offense. If anyone can get this Oline to learn how to block a wide zone scheme, it’s these offensive coaches. I wonder what the over under is for Seahawks rushing yards this year? I bet they beat it by 400 yards.
Didn’t say he would. I said I prefer if offense was more his style. But it’s not and K9, if healthy, could be great. With Milroe, Charbo/Martinez, short game should be much improved.
OTAs have very limited use in what you can take away from them. No pads, no contact, yet I think there is one huge take away from the Seahawks OTAs. Every single player on the 90 man roster was there for at least some of it, if not all of it. Listening to Jaran Reed’s press conference, it’s not difficult to see why all 90 players chose to show up for voluntary practices. These players have bought in and are high on the prospects for this team. It’s hard to be a winning team under the best of circumstances, but if commitment, belief and attitude are missing, winning is highly unlikely. These players believe they are winners and are committed to putting in the work to make it a reality.
Looks like KenJoe, Seaside Jay, Clark 'n This Community are also.
We B Good. We're Ready. We All We Got! We All We Need!
Stoked for mini camp in 4 days!