Re-visiting Seahawks fan surveys: Seattle has blown past pre-season expectations
How did Seahawks fans grade Russell Wilson trade, the 2022 draft class featuring Ken Walker, and Pete Carroll's offseason?
Seahawks fan surveys have always been a common theme at Seaside Joe, but I have rarely done the “look back” to see how predictions are holding up. Not intentionally, I’m just not the type of person to look back, usually.
However, because the Seattle Seahawks season is going so far away from pre-season expectations—something fans never had to really deal with during the Russell Wilson era, as they were often about as good as expected—I wanted to run a new survey today. But what fun would that be without re-visiting our answers to certain questions from the beginning of the season?
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Okay, at the BOTTOM of this survey recap is a NEW SURVEY. However, if you just want to jump right into taking a new 12-question survey first, go for it:
Here is a NEW “12 Questions for 12s!” Seahawks fan survey
On September 6, 2022, one week before the opener, I shared the “Did Pete Carroll sway your expectations?” survey for Seahawks fans.
Here were the results posted on September 9:
“The number of Seahawks fans who expected a 6-11 or worse record went from 2.5% before the Wilson trade…to 45% after the trade!!!”
“41.7% of Seahawks fans expect the team to be 6-11 or worse, 26.5% expect 7-10, and 23.8% expect the team to be around .500.”
“Only 3-percent of Seahawks fans felt that Geno *won* the job, rather than being the default. Almost 50% of fans were either frustrated by the competition or felt there was no actual competition.”
“Most Seahawks fans did not care who won the job either way, given the two options.”
“Over two-thirds of Seahawks fans believe that Drew Lock will replace Geno before Seattle’s Week 11 bye, while only 11% think that Smith will retain the job for the entire season.”
“Over 40% of Seahawks fans support Pete Carroll regardless of 2022 outcome. The majority of fans felt that Carroll’s job would be safe, even though most expected a losing record.”
“Over 52%$ of Seahawks fans believe that the team will have a good rushing attack, but not a dominant one. Just under 40% of fans believe the defense will be good but that it may not matter because similar to the troubles of 2021, the offense will constantly be putting them in a tough position.”
The Seahawks rank first in yards per carry and fifth in points scored and points per drive. Defensively, Seattle is still 28th in points allowed and 29th in rushing yards allowed, but by DVOA they’ve ranked first over the last two weeks.
On July 31, the “Are you biased?” Seahawks fan survey and PART I, PART II results:
“When asked “How did the Seahawks offseason go?”, 44% of Seahawks fans gave the offseason a 4/5, followed by 30% at 3/5 and 17.6% answering with 5/5. Less than 2-percent of Seahawks fans think the Seahawks had a terrible offseason.”
“86% of Seahawks fans expect the Seahawks to miss the playoffs.”
“Almost 50% of Seahawks fans expect either starting quarterback to be bad. Another 37% voted in the “Mediocre” range, with less than 5-percent believing that Lock or Smith could be “Good” or better.”
“When asked if the Seahawks should have added a better QB than Lock and/or Geno, almost 85% of Seahawks fans said “No””
“50% of Seahawks fans cite Pete as their favorite coach. 63% believe Carroll is a good coach, 18% feel he’s average, and 15% feel he’s great.”
“38.8% of Seahawks fans gave the Ken Walker pick a 4 out of 5 grade, 32.1% gave it a 5/5, and 21.3% gave it a 3/5; only 7.8-percent Seahawks fans gave the Ken Walker pick a 1 or 2 out of 5 in this survey.”
“How many future starters did Seahawks draft in 2022? 4 was the most popular answer at 31%, followed by 5 at 30%, and 3 and 19%. Fans actually trended more to the cautious and safe side than to the wildly-successful side.”
Of course, I would love to focus here on the draft questions and the playoff question. It’s not even a debate of the future, the Seahawks are starting all six of their top six draft picks: Charles Cross, Boye Mafe, Ken Walker, Abe Lucas, Coby Bryant, and Tariq Woolen.
I also did “5 Questions” with you on September 13, the day after Seattle’s victory over the Broncos:
I asked if both DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett would reach 1,000 yards: Almost all of you, except for Seasider Rozone, answered no. Rozone said: “Yes, and they won’t have to stick to the sidelines. It was great seeing them in the middle to make themselves more difficult to cover.”
I asked if Shane Waldron or Clint Hurtt had a better Week 1 game and most answered that it was Hurtt. Said AndyMcGinn: “The goal-line stops were the truly extraordinary efforts by the seahawks as a team. So, Hurtt. We would have won by more were it not for some dropped easy INT's.”
I asked what the biggest overreaction to Week 1 was and ucme4dk said: “That Geno is a game changer. He had the best half of his life last night. People are thinking that they can expect similar results on the games moving forward. Based on his career I just don't see that happening” and I replied in agreement!
I asked to grade Geno Smith and most fell into the 7-8 range.
Finally, let’s go back to March 8, two days after the Russell Wilson trade. I posted these survey results:
“When asked “How happy are you with the fact that Russell Wilson was traded?”, the least popular answer, with under 5-percent of the vote, was being elated (5/5) with the deal. And 30% voted mid (3/3), 29% voted “Pissed” (1/5), and 24% voted 2/5.”
“Almost 30% of fans gave the Wilson trade package a 4/5 grade, but the least popular answer at only 12% was a 5/5 grade. Whereas 14% voted 1/5 and 21% voted 2/5.”
“Are the Seahawks tanking? 34% of Seahawks fans voted YES!, 23% voted NO!, and 43% voted that they didn’t know.”
“When asked what position the Seahawks should address with the ninth overall pick acquired from the Broncos, 40% voted OT, 27% vogted EGE, and 18% voted QB.”
With almost eight months of hindsight, it is interesting to consider how these responses look today. Even just the last six weeks have impacted the answers considerably.
Okay, let’s do it again: Here is a “12 Questions for 12s!” Seahawks fan survey. It should not take more than two minutes. Get your answers in and the results will be posted later this week… and maybe even again next year!
Wonderful idea, but I believe allowing readers the chance to see the old answers before answering the new survey allowed for people to impact how they answered. Memory is a funny thing. It is definitely not reliable when it comes to the ego. The ego can gradually change how we view the past until we actually believe untruths about how we felt in the past.
Anyways, I took the survey before reading the past results. I was one of the few whose opinion of Geno has not changed substantially since last year. How I was so confident in Geno I cannot say for sure, but how he played last year is probably most of it. Plus I am almost always optimistic about our chances which has led to plenty of disappointment.
I stopped blaming our OC's and OL's two seasons ago. I had highly vague doubts about RW3 that have clarified since he has demonstrated his limitations this year in stark relief.
I've loved Pete for almost his entire tenure here. I just love his philosophy. I think it transfers to life. Choose happiness. Choose compassion.
Thanks for the look back Kenneth. It is remarkable how swiftly the rookies have impacted this season. This team is not the same without these picks, and affirms what I thought was the best offseason in a decade.
As someone who doubted Geno, here is my obligatory apology: sorry Geno, thanks for not writing back. Stoked that he's been exactly the kind of bridge QB we needed, what an awesome story. Before the season, I was just hoping he could be TJax, i.e. not awful but not good. That would allow the players to develop and our offense to keep us competitive. He's been far better than that.
Despite our astounding success this year, I'm not really wavering on where I put the team to start the year. I never really pegged us for bottom 5, I thought 7-10 or 8-9 were about right. I still feel comfortable with that, but would be over the moon if we did better and played well into January. I didn't quite expect the division to be this wide open, tbh.