Seahawks Fan Survey: Post-Preseason Opener Edition
Which Seahawks player is being slept on? Seaside Joe 1623
The Seahawks opened their exhibition schedule on Thursday night against the Minnesota Vikings by getting just their season preseason win in the last four years. Seattle’s 24-13 win over the Vikings follows an 0-3 preseason in 2022, preceded by 1-2 and 0-0 when the games were cancelled because of the pandemic.
For a comprehensive instant reaction recap, including standout performances and not-so-standout, read Seaside Joe’s immediate post-game recap from Thursday night.
If you didn’t catch the game, don’t worry, you can still vote in today’s polls. I won’t tell anyone your secret.
These surveys don’t strive to find “right answers” because no right answers will exist. The purpose is to gauge fan feelings at a certain point in time, an emotional timestamp if you will, and then to have the opportunity to re-visit them at some point in the future. For the final answers, be sure to be subscribed to the Seaside Joe newsletter and you won’t miss a thing.
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Onto the show.
How do you grade the Seahawks performance vs Vikings?
The Seahawks get a 24-13 win, Drew Lock plays nice, the passing offense looks efficient, the run game is good enough, the defense allows 13 points. But there were a few familiar problems from last season, namely tackling and offensive line play. We know that these are mainly backups, although tackling was a problem in the 2022 preseason with backups and then it was a problem in the regular season with starters.
Vote from the heart…
Who is being slept on?
We know that maybe nationally there are a few players who maybe the world doesn’t realize are as great as they are (Tyler Lockett) or could be (Jaxon Smith-Njigba) but who do you think is maybe being slept on even by Seahawks fans? Players who are either underappreciated or perhaps in line for a breakout season.
I’ve noticed that 99% of training camp reports so far are either about QBs, WRs, RBs, TEs, or injuries. Is this because of fantasy football obsession or because most writers don’t know what to assess if it’s not a player with the ball in his hands? (No judgment.)
I’ll give you an example: Coby Bryant. Is he being slept on because he’s getting pushed out of a cornerback role? Bryant mentioned after the game that he did play safety as a freshman in college, so it’s not entirely new to him, and then he laid out the biggest hit of the game.
Bryant was wearing a Legion of Boom shirt at the post-game press conference.
Charles Cross hasn’t been mentioned that much, but then I hear rumblings that he could be the second-year player showing the most improvement, perhaps even more than Boye Mafe. It would make sense if a top-10 pick at tackle was much better in year two than year one.
We don’t hear a word out of camp about Bryant Koback, Easop Winston, Jacob Sykes, or Devin Bush, then they all had nice games on Thursday
The Substack poll gives me 5 options and I need to use one of those on “Other” just so you don’t have to vote for my four options.
Drew Lock’s first game at Lumen Field
Lock went nearly 12 months without playing in a football game and he also made his debut as a Seahawks quarterback in Seattle. (I could say “at Lumen Field” but not many players played at Lumen Field until recently.)
Given what he was having to deal with from his blindside on the interception, Lock was otherwise near-perfect in his home debut, throwing two touchdowns and otherwise protecting the football, as Pete Carroll desperately hopes he can consistently do in the NFL.
How would Lock perform in a real game against a starting defense? Well, how would Lock perform if he had a starting offensive line, Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf, and a full playbook?
Good news: I chose random numbers for this poll question.
Devin Bush goes with “Super Bowl” after the preseason win
Looking for just the right combination of words to describe his feelings after beating the Vikings in the preseason opener, linebacker Devin Bush went with “Super” and “Bowl”.
Bush feels like the Seahawks and not the 49ers are “the powerhouse in the division” and I don’t mind the confidence. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I don’t mind it.
Bush hasn’t won as many games as he would like in his football career: Michigan went 8-5 and 10-3 in his two seasons as a starter (fun fact: all three teams that the Wolverines lost to in 2018 had current Seahawks. Those teams were Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Florida, can you name the players?) and then the Steelers never won a playoff game during his four years in Pittsburgh.
He’s still looking for some postseason success, can Devin Bush help Seattle be the powerhouse that he believes that they are?
Remember to share and subscribe, I’ll post the answers next week!
Answers: Notre Dame (Julian Love), Ohio State (Dre’Mont Jones, Tyreke Smith), and Florida (Stone Forsythe)
Don’t know if he can reproduce it, but Sykes looked good on the d-line. Didn’t really expect anything from him given nobody’s talked about him, but he was really active in the middle.
Yes, a b- or c+ would have been more precise.
Sleeper: the one player that really stood out for me was Koback. He was not on any radar much before the game, then came out ‘on fire’ I think was Joe’s comment on an earlier post. It’s only 1 game though, so we’ll see if he can repeat the performance in the next game.