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Chris H's avatar

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.

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Dale's avatar

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.

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Luis Guilherme's avatar

Time flies. It's nice to see those guys who were fans of LoB (Bryant, Witherspoon, probably others altogether) growing up getting to play for the team they idolized as teenagers.

As for Devin Bush, like I said in the depth chart post, "no news is good news". Guy should be a starter based on his college career and draft pedigree, and he being the other starter MLB was expected. So, no surprises here.

I voted "other" for the guy being slept on. And that guy is Griffin Hebert. Not only he got positional flexibility (plays TE, WR, and fullback, can do some emergency work at halfback), he got huge points with Pete by shining in his first appearance by recovering a muffed punt. "Another other" is Levi Bell. Once he entered the game, he was everywhere.

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Nicholas Donsky's avatar

Ahlers may be the best FA this years . Bobo will be the 4th reciever. Eskridge is out of chances. The game shows the Hawks will be signing a vet Nose Tackle soon.

Every year my sons ask me " who's going to the Super Bowl" and i always tell them, " you tell me who's going to be injured and for how long," and then I will give you an answer".

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Hawkman54's avatar

OK - Lots of Real youngin's out there- I didn't see any improvement in Nickle corner play, Lot's of missed tackles- Outside contain wasn't very good until the second half- All things from last year that need improvement!

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MJDarby15's avatar

I answered Devin Bush for sleep but I'm gonna be honest, the guy I feel my fellow 12s are underrating right now is JAMAL FUCKING ADAMS. I know, I know, he's been hurt alot, he got beat pretty badly in coverage last time we saw him blahblahblah: this whole defense has been designed having him at 100% and utilising his blitzing ability on passing downs. He is the straw that stirs the secret sauce of an impenetrable wall and all the other metaphors you wanna mix in. PCJS believe in his ability so much that they spent a bunch of assets and cap space on him then redesigned their whole defense to make him pop. Dude is gonna ball out.

My optimism around Lock was tempered for a few reasons:

-The Vikes defense sucked last year

-He struggled to generate much offense in the first few drives, only really popping once most of the D was youngsters fighting for a roster spot/trying to break into the starting lineup

-Minny are implementing a new defense and had the most vanilla gameplan possible. Not tasty vanilla like you get from a pod, the kind of vanilla you get in off-brand ice cream from the corner store that's been sat in the freezer for a half-decade.

I'm also a teensy bit concerned about the lack of success in the run game during the first half, iirc Charbs had a solid gain or two and Deejay hit the gaps he was supposed to but not alot of open space or explosiveness. I may be totally off with this as I missed a few plays in the 1st half, in fact I'm hoping I am entirely incorrect!

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Dale's avatar

I thought Koback popped. A nice surprise there.

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MJDarby15's avatar

100% I hadn't even heard of him before the game and now I'm feeling bullish about the RB room even with K9 and McIntosh banged up, he looked like a bulkier Travis Homer 9ut there

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Luis Guilherme's avatar

I think that it's expected that preseason features defensive dominance. Teams don't want to open the playbook, and usually feature something between unflavored and vanilla, adding a few toppings here and there if they're so overmatched that aren't able to gauge talent.

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Joel's avatar

I missed so much of the game that I couldn't credibly answer a couple questions but thanks for the recap and all your impressions of things, really helped to fill in blanks on missing virtually every scoring play in the game and a good chunk of the Seahawks offensive drives.

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D. Wade's avatar

The game play was what it was considering pre-season and its perhaps laughable to think watching on the TV some 50 miles away I could sense it. But tell you what, the vibe last night was immaculate. Really feels like this team is playing for each other and playing with tenacity and passion that will set them up to do big things.

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Dale's avatar

Yes, they seem to be hunting for those big hits when they can and loving it when they succeed. I love it too and hope they keep it going. Let’s be that team that others fear to play!

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Sum monkey's avatar

As a first year subscriber to Seaside Joe, I’ve got to say, as a lifelong Seahawks fan, I have never felt more prepared and knowledgeable about the hawks than I did going into this game. Thanks for the hard work, Ken! You’ve provided great info from the top to the bottom of the roster and even beyond. Truly felt like there wasn’t a player on the field I didn’t have at least a working knowledge of, due to your DAILY efforts! Woot woot! My guy.

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Aug 11, 2023
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Rusty's avatar

Ditto. My wife was glaring at me as I kept dropping what I thought were Seaside Joe knowledge bombs. She apparently wasn’t thrilled to hear me expound on 3rd and 4th string players.

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Shaymus McFamous's avatar

Sheesh. Wives.

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Candy Hughes's avatar

this wife has been listening to Seaside Joe for quite a while, fun to "educate" the spouse

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Shaymus McFamous's avatar

Hells yayah! My wife's favorite part of football is the spinach dip. But, she loves when 'Hawks make me happy. 😁

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Candy Hughes's avatar

spinach dip is green, yeah, but nothing there is blue, I actually make it a point not to eat or drink anything during the game (except halftime) because I want to concentrate on FOOTBALL, specifically Seahawks football .. I've unearthed several of my real jerseys from the years that the throwback ones emulate, and still proud that I went to the same high school that Steve Largent did, and the same college as Pete Carroll, though for only one year (UW grad)

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KHammarling's avatar

Couldn't have given a B-/C+ option for performance? I feel there were as many positives and negatives, maybe edged down slightly when considering the Ahlers TD pass was a fluke. I picked B and now think I agree more with C. Room to improve but there's something there to work with.

Who's being slept on? Read that and said Bryant! Only for you to say Bryant and that feels like the definition of not being slept on if he's being picked by the best 'Hawks writer! So it was Devon Bush. He moved good, keyed in well on his assignments. Didn't blow me away like "wow he should be a starter and All-Pro" but there's something about the former 1st Rd Pick, and this D suits him. He could put together double digit TFL, 80+Tkl, and double digit combination Defl/INT/Sacks. Watch him closely in the next games!

Lock was fine. +10% really for just not blowing the opportunity, but did he really move the needle on being a STARTER?! No. However you ask me if i feel confident he can back-up Geno for two weeks and keep the team on track for the playoffs? That's a +50%.

It's still the 49ers division, until we've won it or they start Darnold for an extended period. We're gonna be close though, close enough to grab the accolade away. But until we beat the 49'ers it's theirs to lose. Expectation management.

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Luis Guilherme's avatar

My view of Lock didn't change much, especially because Forsythe played really terribly. This is his third pre-season, he even had to fill in a few regular season games in the offense, and I never saw him fare this bad.

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Greg Taylor's avatar

I couldn't decide so I went with "incomplete", especially since I don't know exactly what players were asked to do on specific plays and if they did those things even if the results weren't "good".

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zezinhom400's avatar

Almost 100% my answers (almost only bc I think Cross -- and Lucas -- are being criminally slept on) and my frustration also with not being able to grade B- or C+ (would have been a C+).

Reason for the C+: Tre Brown and particularly the run defense in the 1st quarter (the only quarter that has some portion of real NFL players). Swear to god the run defense looked EXACTLY like last year -- 9 yards and a cloud of dust. Got alot better later after more of the respective 53-man rosters were on the bench -- but our 53 against theirs? Not so good.

Not a worse grade bc Seattle did show it had better depth, and was pulling away at the end.

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JohnnyLondon's avatar

Totally agree on the run defense in Q1, no edge setting and big holes to run through - Michael Bennett was having kittens. Once the Minny starters were gone the Hawks stiffened, but it was not a good look up to then and the first few series against the Cowboys will be very telling.

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KHammarling's avatar

It's why I find it a little odd to knock Morris as "well he's good vs the run but not the pass". Our Run D was the issue!

Now certainly we weren't facing Dalvin Cook in this game, but the Run D wasn't awful. I don't mind it being a little under-average still, hopefully show out to Pete and Hurtt they really really need to work on it hard now.

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JohnnyLondon's avatar

I had no idea if it was a systemic issue last year, or it was simply the players were a bad fit - but when they cleaned house along the line, I was hopeful because they were an easy scapegoat. Last night brought on horrors that it might be the system after all. It’s preseason and there were rookies in there, but it’s a lingering doubt that whatever 3 - 4 scheme they have concocted has fundamental flaws that might get badly exposed again.

Oh me of little faith!

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Doug's avatar

Slept on: Boye Mafe. Sure there have been camp reports saying he had a good camp and all of that, but at game speed last night he looked like a legit edge. This could be a big breakout year for him.

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zezinhom400's avatar

Agree. Looked like a starter playing with the scrubs, nose around the ball almost every play and several impact plays.

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