Jordyn Brooks: He's back!

The Seahawks now have three inside linebackers who they really like, 8/15/2023

The Seattle Seahawks announced on Tuesday that linebacker Jordyn Brooks has passed a physical, only seven months after surgery to repair a torn ACL. The expected average recovery time for a torn ACL is 9-12 months, putting Brooks (extremely) ahead of schedule and now undoubtedly on pace to be available for Week 1 against the Los Angeles Rams.

The news comes one week after Pete Carroll told the media that Brooks was “really close” to returning, making Seattle’s head coach a real truther in my book. As in, he tells the truth!

I know I just got lucky, but I have been putting Brooks on my Seahawks 53-man roster projections since last month, when most others were stashing him on PUP to add another player (understandably so) and now that fantasy is a reality. Because I also choose to believe the Devin Bush hype—even a Steelers fan site is buying that he looks more like the player that he was as a top-10 rookie—Tuesday’s news could mean that one of Seattle’s greatest weaknesses is now a strength with multiple options.

At the end of the Seahawks 2022 wild card loss to the 49ers, the team had no Jordyn Brooks and Cody Barton was all but set to leave in free agency. The linebacker corps behind them was Jon Rhattigan, Vi Jones, Ben Burr-Kirven, and Tanner Muse.

As of Tuesday, the Seahawks have Brooks, Bobby Wagner, and Devin Bush, in addition to Rhattigan, Jones, and BBK.

Let’s talk about that and more Seattle Seahawks news that is on my desk this week, but first…

“How I make six figures on Substack” …

Was a newsletter that was mass e-mailed to thousands of writers on Substack on Monday. (For those unaware, Substack is the platform I use to get these newsletters to you and it also helps facilitate the potential for Seaside Joe to be full-time.) The author, Emma Gannon, sounds like a person a lot like me: She’s been blogging for well over 10 years, she believes that ad-free journalism is the only way for creators to be completely authentic, and she’s been on Substack for the last 18 months, which is almost exactly as long as I’ve used this platform.

As some of you know, I’ve spent the last few months developing a newsletter about newsletters and blogging—this is something I think about all the time because it’s what I do all the time—and I do love her post because there’s so much in it that I agree with and will also write about one day. However, there is one thing she said that I completely disagree with and that’s her advice to make almost all of your content exclusive to paid subscribers:

I made a decision after a year of Substack, that I wouldn’t write for free anymore. I have spent years writing for free at this point, and so I made the choice to focus only on my members. 

I do not wish for Seaside Joe to be exclusive to paid subscribers, it is too important that there is a Seahawks website EXACTLY LIKE THIS ONE that is able to share the BEST information about the team for free, which is why I’ve sent out a FREE Seahawks newsletter every single day for the last 1,627 days in a row as of Tuesday morning’s post on Geno Smith.

“Did he say a newsletter about newsletters?”

I know that every content creator’s goals and needs are going to be different. Something that works for one writer isn’t going to necessarily apply to every writer, so for Gannon, that is probably the best thing to do for her newsletter. I don’t fault her for it and as emphasized in the headline of her article, she’s making six figures per year on Substack. I’m not, and I’m not going to say that I know better than her.

I just know that for us at Seaside Joe, we like having an authentic Seahawks website/blog/newsletter that mostly puts out FREE content, making us like the Wikipedia of the Seattle Seahawks football team…except fewer factual errors and inconsistencies.

However, also like Wikipedia, “free” comes at a cost of asking your supporters to give if they have the means to give.

Another thing that Gannon wrote that I would at least amend is this part:

Treat your paid subscribers like VIPs. My members get access to everything first — my book covers, any events I’m doing, giveaways, exclusive information. I’m also thinking about increasing my prices soon, but my current members will be able to stick to the original membership price.

Literally everybody subscribed to Seaside Joe is a VIP. I’ve even had people message me some of the worst things you can imagine saying to a person who is just writing about football and I treat them just the same. Yes, someone can be here out of hate for me (people have done it) and I still appreciate that that person would take time out of their day to read Seaside Joe.

You do not have to be a Regular Joes subscriber to be a VIP, I want everybody here to be treated exactly the same and as we saw in this week’s “Where are Seahawks fans from?” article, we reach amazing people all over the world!; the difference is that premium subscribers get extra content. Seems fair! And having some incentive so that people pay for the work is what makes doing this Seahawks newsletter as work a possibility in the future.

Gannon also notes that she’s going to raise prices, something that I have never done or considered. Gannon’s newsletter is $9 per month, typical for a Substack newsletter. This is $5 per month, much less than the average Substack despite creating at least 10 times the amount of monthly content than the average Substack.

As we embark on another season, which will be the fifth Seattle Seahawks season that I have covered at Seaside Joe without missing a day of the newsletter in that time, I simply ask that if you have been supporting us as a free subscriber for a while and you have the means to give then please consider being the reader who makes my day today and upgrades to premium.

Not only will you be getting the additional Seahawks content—over 100 bonus articles per year like this one about former players on other teams—you can help me prove that a writer can make something awesome that’s free and also doing it for a living.

That’s my pitch to join, if you’re already a Regular Joes subscriber and you want to know how else you can support, sharing us with other Seahawks fans (forwarding emails is always on the table), getting someone a gift subscription, or giving at a higher level is also an option. But I’m just happy you’re here—all of you, whether it’s free, paid, or Super Joes, everybody who reads this is responsible for our success and making sure this place continues to exist.

Back to Jordyn Brooks

If you skipped everything I just wrote about the newsletter, I TOTALLY understand and do not blame you! I may have skimmed or skipped it too, if I was you. I just want to get across one message: If you can support, please do because you’ll help Seaside Joe continue to defy the “rules” that you must put everything behind a paywall OR sponsored by sketchy companies in order to making a living as a blogger. Not true. We’re proving it’s not true.

The return of Jordyn Brooks this week gives the Seahawks a little less than four weeks to ramp up his workload to be ready for the Rams on September 10th. I am merely an amateur injury analyst going off of “common sense”, which can be misleading, but that does seem like enough time for Brooks to be ready for Week 1.

How does this news impact Wagner, Bush, and Seattle’s 2024 salary cap space knowing that the team decided earlier this year to not pick up Brooks’ fifth-year option? How much could Jordyn Brooks make IF he finally reaches his first round potential? Could the Seahawks afford that and what does Brooks need to do to prove that he’s worth as much as he would have made on his option? That’s what I’ll go over for the rest of this bonus article!