Tariq Woolen's bad news is Artie Burns' good news

Read Jaxon Smith-Njigba's origin story FOR FREE right now! Seaside Joe 1543

Before we see Dial of Destiny next month, Seaside Jay and I have been re-visiting the first four Indiana Jones movies and last night was our trip through The Last Crusade. It was during the opening sequence with River Phoenix as “young Indy” that I was reminded of a popular trope: “Everybody loves an origin story.”

Or at least, enough people are curious about hero origins that millions of hours of content have been created to satisfy that burning question, “How did this interesting character come to be so interesting?”

Such as in The Godfather: Part II, Batman Begins, and Kermit’s Swamp Years:

And coming to an e-mail near you this summer: Seaside Joe will keep creating in-depth, well-researched origin stories for new members of the Seattle Seahawks.

A week ago, I started with first round receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba and how he came to be one of the most dominant high school football players in the history of Texas. Soon after posting it as a bonus article for people who opted to subscribe at the $120 per year premium level, I decided that it was a post I wanted every Seasider to be able to read eventually because as far as I know, Seahawks fans won’t find content like this anywhere else. So as of Tuesday morning, the Jaxon Smith-Njigba post is now public and if you’re a free subscriber, I implore you check it out to see if I’m telling no lies:

Then only three days after JSN, I gave the same treatment to seventh round running back Kenny McIntosh and how he got the nickname of “The Blueprint” as an 8-year-old peewee football player who would continue to dominate on the field through most of high school and then on his way to winning two national championships at Georgia. The McIntosh article was created for premium subscribers at the $5/month or $55/year level and as of this morning it is also now public for free subscribers to read:

I share these posts—and all the daily free articles—because I think they’re a good use of your time (your most valuable asset) as a Seahawks fan. Remember, I’m not only the Seaside Joe club president, but I’m also a client.

My own origin story is that I started blogging over 20 years ago simply because I would look for certain types of sports content on the Internet, not find it, and then have to create it myself. I do the research, I share the findings, and I know that for sure the one thing we’ll all definitely share is interest in the Seattle Seahawks.

Seahawks series like the one on Kenneth Walker III last summer, articles like last week’s on JSN and McIntosh, you won’t find them anywhere else or from any other Seattle writer. So if you read them and think, “These are good, I want to read more and I want to empower the writer to create more,” then consider joining the Regular Joes or Super Joes club when you’re finished. Just enter your email below to get started:

The last week of paid subscriptions has been the most successful seven days in the history of Seaside Joe. If we have 52 weeks just like the past week, Seaside Joe will become that “number one story of Seattle media” that I’ve been saying we will become as we continue to grow. There are so many fake numbers on the Internet—fake view counts, meaningless follower numbers, juiced up “downloads”—but the one thing you can’t make up is paid subscribers. Those are the numbers that will get other members of the media to perk up and want to know, “What’s Seaside Joe’s secret?”

No secrets. It’s all out in the open: 1,543 straight days of in-depth coverage of the Seattle Seahawks and 95% of it is free. People join the premium section not because they have to but because they want to, so if you read JSN or McIntosh and decide you want to sign up, great. If you want to read the free stuff, great. Just consider sharing us with other Seahawks fans—forward the e-mails, share the articles on social media, or simply talk about “Seaside Joe” at Starbucks for all I care—so that we can continue to get bigger and attract a larger audience.

Because remember, we’re still living inside of the origin story of “How Seaside Joe became the number one Seahawks writer in the world”. You’re helping create it as we speak.

By the way, did you know that access to The Seattle Times digital is $5…per week?!?!

That’s 2-4 times more than Seaside Joe. We’re an even better deal than I thought.

Tariq Woolen “out until training camp”

The Seahawks are not expecting to get Tariq Woolen back until training camp after the second-year cornerback underwent arthriscopic surgery on his knee on Tuesday. The optimistic view of the news is that nobody seems to be freaking out, with ESPN’s Brady Henderson noting “it wasn’t a significant injury” and that the team has no reservations about him being ready for camp.

The understandably pessimistic angle to take here for fans is…”Oh God why? No. No! Why God, why?”

Football players have bad shit happen to their bodies all the time, that’s the nature of the game and thankfully Woolen has no injury history that would give me pause about believing that he will recover and be fine. Woolen played in basically 100% of the snaps after Week 1 and he’s a physical specimen who wouldn’t be so speciministic if not for the fact that he takes good care of his body.

But it is doubly unfortunate that the Seahawks entered camp with Devon Witherspoon “nursing a hamstring injury” and on the second day of camp announce minor knee surgery for their other star cornerback.

The ideal here would be “Everybody’s fine, nobody’s hurt” but that’s just not realistic in the NFL. Ever. And it’s better for these issues to be on the docket for May than popping up in September, although it is also a reminder for fans that bad things will happen during the season. Now is the chance to find out how the depth is looking at every position and as far as cornerbacks go, that’s why the team re-signed Artie Burns on Monday.

Burns, still only 28, has the injury history that no cornerback wants. He played in 9% of the snaps with the Steelers in 2019, missed 2020, played in 39% of the snaps with the Bears in 2021, and played in 16 snaps with the Seahawks in 2022. He wasn’t going to have much of a role with Seattle anyway, but Burns is nonetheless nothing more than insurance and a veteran to help run plays in OTAs. Without him, the most veteran cornerbacks on the roster (not including safeties) would be Mike Jackson (year 5), Tre Brown and Isaiah Dunn (year 3), and then Woolen, Coby Bryant.

All things being healthy, I don’t expect Burns to make the 53-man roster. All things being football, the Seahawks have to be ready because of days like today.