5 reasons to be optimistic about the future of the Seattle Seahawks
Seaside Joe 1212: It's 1212 day, so let's celebrate!
To borrow and butcher a line from Oldboy:
If I had known in the beginning that I would send out a Seahawks newsletter for 1,212 days in a row, would that have made it easier or harder?
I started Seaside Joe in March of 2019 as a side experiment to toy around with the idea of newsletters. There was just something about the concept of newsletters that felt like the future, even though this form of content dates back further than the United States of America. I had no intention to start a streak, the first one went out on a lark.
Then I must have some idea that sparked a reason to send out another the next day. After about a week of that, I decided to test my willpower to send out Seaside Joe for a whole month without fail. Then 100 days. Then 200 days. Then a year.
I contemplated quitting or pausing several times, until finally I had gotten close enough to 1,000 to set that as the final destination.
When I got to 1,000, I didn’t feel like having a final destination yet. So I’ve kept it going and now we’re nearly three and a half years into this newsletter, with an average of almost two per day being sent out since the Russell Wilson trade on March 8.
It’s interesting because even though I’ve done the Seaside Joe newsletter purely out of hobby for three and a half years, and been covering the Seahawks on a daily basis for over 10 years, I don’t feel anything close to “burn out.” As a matter of fact, as I’m working through my third edition of “10,000 hours” in this field, I have the feeling that I’ve finally reached the starting gates.
And there are few times in Seattle Seahawks history that I think compare to the EXCITING POSSIBILITIES that exist for the franchise today, even as they do seem headed for a collision course with dark times but hopefully for only one season and nothing more.
Will Seaside Joe go out for another 1,212 days in a row? I’ll keep the answer to that in line with how I started the newsletter originally and say that I won’t plan that far ahead. But don’t expect any changes as we barrel through the next phase of this rebuild because there will be so many fascinating turns between now and next year’s draft—and there is a lot more to be optimistic about with regards to the Seahawks than the anti-Pete Carroll rhetoric on social media will care to admit.
If you’ve enjoyed any part of the last 1,212 days and want to help us push through to day 1,500 and beyond, consider a paid subscription and sharing this with friends.
I’m sure those Seahawks fans you know will be delighted to know or be reminded of these five things.
Quandre Diggs has been the steal of the century
Since 2019, Quandre Diggs has intercepted 13 passes, which is nine more than any other player on the Seahawks in that time—and Diggs only played five games with the team in 2019, intercepting three passes. And the next two closest to him (D.J. Reed, K.J. Wright) are no longer with Seattle, though Wright seems to want to keep that door open.
What’s even more amazing is that Diggs played in 65 games for the Detroit Lions and “only” intercepted six passes in four and a half years; he has also made his first two Pro Bowls as a member of the Seahawks. Matthew Stafford isn’t the only player to find out that mo’town, mo’problems.
But it would have only felt like heartbreak if the Seahawks had allowed Quandre Diggs to leave in free agency 2.5 seasons after only giving up a fifth (and getting back a seventh too) to acquire the best defensive back on their roster. That’s why I had to single out Diggs as Seattle’s top priority when I laid out a plan that seemed logical to me prior to free agency in March: Re-sign Diggs, Rashaad Penny, Sidney Jones (all came true), Gerald Everett (right contract for the right position, but wrong TE), and Rasheem Green.
3.5 out of 5 ain’t bad, especially considering that I was right about everyone who they would choose to part with except for Al Woods and I also called the Austin Blythe signing; now if the Seahawks trade Gabe Jackson, that will cap off the offseason predictions perfectly.
That doesn’t mean that it was an easy call for me to project Diggs as a player who was absolutely returning because a) Could the Seahawks convince Diggs that the team wasn’t in a full rebuild and b) Could the Seahawks convince themselves that they weren’t in a full rebuild, knowing that they were potentially also giving up a third round compensatory pick by not letting him sign elsewhere?
Forget Comp Picks!
Diggs is only 29, he’s actually been playing safety for less than five years, he’s one of the top players on the entire roster, and he’s legitimately one of the best Twitter accounts of any athlete.
Consider this like politics: If you’re going to criticize the Seahawks for the Jamal Adams trade*, you need to give equal coverage to the immense value of the Quandre Diggs trade.
*The Jamal Adams trade has always been fine and it is still fine, if not trending towards being a win for Seattle given the fact that this could be the best safety duo in the NFL
The Seahawks have two first and two second round picks in the 2023 NFL Draft
Nobody did a better job of covering the 2022 Seahawks draft than Seaside Joe. That’s not me bragging—that’s just an observation of Seaside Joe! I am he, he is I?
Nobody will ever know.
But I added the Seaside Joe substack newsletter early last year as a dedication to the Seahawks 2022 draft and that’s what helped me hit the ground with a full head of steam after Seattle traded Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos for two first and two second round picks+more.
Seaside Joe’s first post-trade mock draft had the Seahawks picking Charles Cross with the number nine pick. Between the trade and the draft, I had made it clear that the first three picks would probably be used in some combination on a left tackle, a pass rusher, and either a running back or a cornerback.
The Seahawks picked a left tackle, a pass rusher, and a running back.
I also said that I expected double-downs on offensive tackle and edge rusher. The Seahawks doubled down at offensive tackle and edge rusher.
Seaside Joe also could have pandered to the fans and posted 30 articles about Malik Willis, Desmond Ridder, and the quarterback market. It would have increased readership and views and given Seaside Joe more exposure to the Seattle market at a time of great interest with regards to the Seahawks and the quarterbacks in this draft.
And even though I had spent more than a year studying Willis, Ridder, Kenny Pickett, Matt Corral, Sam Howell, and the 2022 quarterback class, which was clearly a year more than a lot of people who were writing about Seattle’s potential “interest” in those players, I didn’t waste your time by dedicating newsletters to players who I knew weren’t going to become Seahawks.
Instead of pandering to fiction for exposure and subscriptions, Seaside Joe spent the entire 2022 draft season focusing on what was likely, what was probable, and what was logical. The end result was a very close projection to what actually happened in the draft, right down to a preview of undrafted free agent Joshua Onujiogu a week before he signed with Seattle, and an emphasis on the probability that the Seahawks are holding off their quarterback interest until the 2023 draft.
Therefore, Seaside Joe will have the best coverage of the Seahawks’ 2023 draft too. It’s already started:
Top 5 QB rankings for 2023 NFL Draft / 152 college quarterbacks to start thinking about now / Why Pete Carroll will draft a QB in 2023 / 2023 NFL Draft Quarterbacks Primer: The Good, the Bad, and the Transferred / Hypothesizing Seahawks 2023 draft picks and order
It is because of the 2022 AND THE 2023 drafts that the Seahawks have actually had one of the best offseasons of any NFL team this year, not the worst. It amazes me that any NFL writer could be “pro analytics” and against Seattle’s “moneyball” team building strategy at the same time. But being “anti-Pete Carroll” has become so en vogue, it’s hard for many to go against the grain because of their fear of ostracization and criticism.
Seaside Joe is PRO-OSTRACIZATION and DESPERATE FOR CRITICISM. Come at me over the next year, please. Question everything. But I’m confident that the 2023 draft coverage here will be even better than what was written and podcasted about in 2022… because I’ve been studying most of these quarterbacks for at least two years.
The Seahawks will likely have at least one high draft pick in 2023, but perhaps even more valuable than that one pick will be the additional selections in the first two rounds that give Seattle an early head start on having the most capital to work with next April.
There will be a lot to write about and Seaside Joe won’t need to make up “things I’m hearing around the league” to be able to create content. The future is bright enough without it.
Darrell Taylor could be the light at the Edge of the tunnel
It’s only rational to say that quarterbacks play the most important position in football. It’s logical to argue that the Seahawks took care of one of the other top-four positions when they selected Charles Cross in the draft.
And obviously somewhere in that top four is a premier edge rusher, if not two, if not three. T.J. Watt, Joey Bosa, and Myles Garrett are all paid at least $25 million per season. Three of the top-five picks in the 2022 NFL Draft were edge rushers.
The Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl with Von Miller on the edge and Aaron Donald providing pressure from the inside>out. Carroll noted in the recent The Sound of the Seahawks episode that Seattle will start everything from the inside of their defense, working out to the speed that the Seahawks have on the edges.
But which defensive tackle does he expect that to start with? Poona Ford, Al Woods, and Bryan Mone combined for five sacks in 2021. Quinton Jefferson was brought back after recording 4.5 sacks with the Las Vegas Raiders last season. But could any of those players become “star pass rushers” at this point in their career?
Maybe not. But Darrell Taylor could.
The Seahawks drafted Taylor with the 48th pick in the 2020 NFL Draft after he had recorded 17 sacks over his final two seasons at Tennessee. He sat out all of his rookie season, meaning that 2021 was Taylor’s first opportunity to gauge true NFL speed and power by opposing offensive linemen and it turned out that he’s naturally gifted beyond the talent of most peers.
Taylor appeared in 16 of 17 games and recorded 6.5 sacks with 13 QB hits and 36 pressures, but that came in only 543 snaps out of a possible 1,250. Different position, different players, but Rasheem Green had 6.5 sacks and 24 pressures on 846 snaps so the comparison warrants that “big eyes” emoji.
If Darrell Taylor is turned up to 800 snaps next season with Clint Hurtt’s expectedly more-aggressive Seattle defense, there is valid reason to expect at least 10 sacks to pair with Taylor’s growing highlight reel of backfield run stops.
He’s barely 25, he was productive in limited action, and yet he stayed healthy enough to put his missed rookie season out of mind for the time being. The Seahawks have Taylor signed through 2023.
If he has another season like the last one, with more time and more opportunities to get to the quarterback, Seattle will extend Taylor well beyond his rookie contract.
And what would that look like? I’d use Maxx Crosby’s recent extension as a framework: four years, $94 million, but only $26.5 million guaranteed.
Charles Cross was the right pick and he couldn’t have come at a better time
The following examples ARE NOT COMPARISONS OR EXPECTATIONS. The following examples are merely reminders that choosing a left tackle has been a phenomenal way to kickstart a rebuild in the past:
1997 - Walter Jones
The Seahawks went from 16th in scoring and 19th in yards before Walter Jones to ninth in scoring and third in yards during Jones’ rookie campaign. Without Jones, what becomes of Shaun Alexander, Matt Hasselbeck, Mike Holmgren, or even Steve Hutchinson during the 2000s?
2010 - Russell Okung
Clearly in a different class than Jones, Russell Okung no less provided a hugely important building block towards Seattle’s offensive success with Wilson and Marshawn Lynch over the 2012-2015 seasons. The period at left tackle between Okung and Duane Brown proved how detrimental a weakness at that position can be to an offense.
I actually think that Charles Cross is a better prospect than Okung, even if nobody can ever reach the benchmark provided by Walter Jones 13 years earlier.
Seattle got the #9 pick from the Broncos almost as if they had been telegraphing Cross as the player who they most needed right now. Without a Wilson trade, the Seahawks would have had to either re-sign Brown (who remains a free agent, indicating that Seattle certainly had hit a point where an upgrade/restart was necessary) or drafted a much lesser tackle to man the position, if not turning it over to Stone Forsythe or Eric Fisher.
Bad.
Without a Wilson trade, that also would have meant that the Seahawks would have only had their second and third round picks, not enough to take Boye Mafe, Kenneth Walker, and Abe Lucas. Maybe at best, Seattle would have drafted Mafe and Lucas.
By trading Wilson, they have Cross, Mafe, Walker, and Lucas.
My initial read on Cross was that his combine measurements didn’t meet the bar that the Seahawks had set with virtually all of their other offensive tackles under Pete Carroll. But then it turned out that actually there was one exception to that rule before: Russell Okung in 2010.
Charles Cross appears to be the right pick and that pick could not have come at a more perfect time. When the Seahawks draft their QBOTF in 2023, they’ll already have the LT, RB, WR1, and potentially WR2, RT set in place to help support him.
DK Metcalf headlines stout 25-and-under club
And he will be extended too. I promise you. We have a framework for it too.
On Wednesday, I covered Seattle’s 11 most-experienced veterans currently on the roster. I won’t overlook the players on the roster who are not yet 26.
25: Will Dissly, Dee Eskridge, Drew Lock, Darrell Taylor, Uchenna Nwosu, Damien Lewis, Cody Barton, Ugo Amadi
24: DK Metcalf, Alton Robinson, Jordyn Brooks, Marquise Blair, Tre Brown, Noah Fant, Jake Curhan
23: Coby Bryant, Abe Lucas, Boye Mafe, Freddie Swain, Tariq Woolen, DeeJay Dallas
22: Tyreke Smith
21: Ken Walker III, Charles Cross
It’s a group. It’s a much better 25-and-under group than what the Seahawks could boast two years ago, or even one year ago. With a good developmental season and a stacked draft class in 2023, it will be an even better group a year from now.
I can’t emphasize enough how many more articles are published on this newsletter than the combined forces of your other favorite Seahawks writers, even ones who have Patreon accounts despite no new articles. Think about cancelling that subscription for one at Seaside Joe today!
I love where the Hawks are and feel optimistic. Really looking forward even though I expect it to be a down season. My hopes are higher for the season following but, that said, I'm under no illusion that a return to the Superbowl is likely to occur anytime soon. Each year, only two teams get to the Superbowl and only one wins so it's not reasonable to expect that level of success.
Younger fans don't get that. Those of us who have been around a while should. In 2013, I remember people remarking that we need to enjoy this season because it may not happen again in our lifetimes. That's all the more true because the Seahawks were fairly dominant that year. Sure, there were moments of luck and the whole thing could have come tumbling down. But overall, that team imposed its will on opponents. In that sense, it was a throwback, as most years anymore a team gets lucky at the right time to win it all. Not entirely lucky -- some combination of skill, desire and luck. But luck is a very significant component. The Rams almost got intercepted at the end of the San Francisco game -- as an example. Was just dumb luck that they won. I'd give them a 20% chance of getting back to the Superbowl this year and a 10% chance of winning back to back. They're good but not great. If Donald, Ramsey or Stafford suffer a significant injury, dial it way back from there.
Fortunately, I don't assess seasons in terms of the result. Rather, for me, it's about the experience. To what extent was I entertained? Only one team wins it all, no one knows who it will be until it happens, and then it's in the past. The next day, we're all in the same boat, thinking and dreaming about "next year". So making it all about winning the biggest prize is a losing proposition and a setup for repeat disappointment.
Even if we don't reclaim that 2013 magic and bring home a championship, these next three years (at least) are going to be a lot of fun, and way more interesting than the last three. The Sound of the Seahawks may not have been great film making, but it got me pumped about the future of our defense, from players to staffing changes to the shift in philosophy. Great offseason! Excited to find our QBOTF! Happy 1212 Kenneth! Go Hawks!!!