The Seahawks OL has not smashed anyone in the mouth for a long time, due respect to Alex Boone. The OL does have a lot to prove (mostly, I think, on the health front) but predicting they will be bottom 5 in the league is… bold.
I wonder, do you agree with Alex Boone? Are the Seahawks less likely to bully their opponents and be ready for a physical dog fight than the team 5-10 years ago? I wonder what players now fit or don’t fit with that, of course Witherspoon is as physical as it gets.
Seahawks as the “bully” relates to the Marshawn-era Seahawks, and they really haven’t been that since Marshawn retired. The Seahawks have tried to replace him (Chris Carson, and Rawls who was good for about half a season) but it is not maybe a replicable or sustainable style of play.—certainly not when most of the good college talent was on the D-side of the LOS.
So, yeah, I don’t think Boone’s “bully” comments hold much water really, and that is not going to be the standard by which we will grade out the current OL I would say.
What they've been, to me, is irrelevant now. Mike Mac has talked about how he wants the team to play. He wants other teams to not want to play the Seahawks. He wants to be the hammer, not the nail. He wants his team to play with 'shocking effort'. If he can get the players there, Boone's words will be only accurate in the historical context. But in the historical context (last 7 or 8 years) he's not wrong.
As to players that fit, don't fit, Spoon fits for sure. I think Abe Lucas fits, as he was a pancake machine in his rookie year. If putting people on their backs isn't physical enough, I don't know what is. Haynes looks mean as heck on tape. Tyrice is a thumper, allegedly. There is some physicality on the d-line for sure. The big thing will be to take a guy like Cross, and get him strong enough so he can move people, and be more aggressive. Be 'athletic' when you're on the move, but at the point of attack, put people on their backs, don't just get in their way. That's the difference between doing your job, and being hard to play against.
We're missing a thumper at safety I think. Safety is a spot where you need someone to give pause to crossing wide receiver's. I don't think we have that. That hasn't been Julian Love's game. I mean, he has 'love' as his last name for heaven's sake. Julian Hate is what we want!
Thing is, the Ref's are flagging them for 15, telling us that type of play will not be 'allowed'. Hard hits draw a flag, every time. If lucky, someone reviews it, but odds are it stands.
Boone has put the challenge out, the kind that really gets Big Men pissed. To add to motivation, give them a new kick-ass coordinator, full of unexpected surprises. Give them their own trash-talk on their opponents, no brag, just fact. And Buddy, we are just getting started. When the cameras were off and it was just the guys in the locker room, Coach Bill Walsh was a terror. He invoked his boxing experience to get them to understand how important it was to hit hard and hit early. "Put them on their heels, then knock them on their ass". And the Niners responded. The 12's volume will tell them all they need to know.
No I don’t see them as bullies and with Grubb in I don’t expect either and that is a bummer. As I tried to imply on your daily post, I want a bully in there. I don’t need 5 top OLine ranked players I want an OLine that dominates. Grubbs though had “lighter” guys at UW.
I’m not perturbed at the ranking of our OL. They didn’t play well as a unit last season. Injuries killed any shot at continuity. And injuries will likely define the Seahawk OL this season.
If Lucas can’t come back fully, if another starter or three is out for substantial periods, there likely won’t be much improvement. Then the prognosticators are right.
if Lucas is fine for the regular season, and the injury bug in general stays away, I think this line could well be at least middle of the pack.
I love me what I’ve seen here with the dives into the Grubb offense and how the line schemes work. I think the roster moves (both draft and FA) look good and make the unit appear to better deal with injuries.
I haven't watched any videos yet except for the McAfee one, and I usually try to wait to post until I've at least gotten the gist of each, but you put SIX, Joe! So pardon me if I say something that is repeated by people way smarter than me (who have a really sweet gig reporting on football) in one of the other five.. But I found myself chomping at the bit to interrupt Pat and Mike Lombardi. Good grief, Mike just wanted to talk about the defense when asked about the offense and certainly never addressed our O line; which was the question. And considering his job- dammit he should know. AND he managed to not remotely answer anything Pat asked.
But the O line will affect K9 and Geno and all of the people we cheer for. And I don't see how we can think that it looks any better than last year's squad. One good rookie showing out, our tackles talking a leap and staying healthy, even our UFDAs turning into starters has been mentioned as reasons we could have a great OL. But not every player reaches their potential at the highest level. And injuries and chronic knee conditions derail promising careers all the time. I hope Grubb and company can make the best of our talent and lead the league in scoring, like we all do. I'm just way lower on this unit than most and my hopes aren't high for them to be even league average.
No. Actually, I think most players do reach their potential. Mostly, we're wrong about what we think their potential is. Injuries are a big thing, Steve Emtman comes to mind, but mostly players really do reach their potential.
Man I don’t know how smashmouth the 2013 line was. Okung was worthy of a 1st round pick but wouldn’t say he was mean or intimidating like a Trent Williams for example. Carpenter either — good guard but not a Conrad Dobler or a Steve Hutchison. Unger was a fantastic center but I’d have him more as heady rather than smashmouth. Sweezy I think was smashmouth, he prob is the one guy I might agree with. And Giacomini was so bad I don’t think any categorization is relevant.
But Marshawn was so smashmouth he spilled over onto the entire offense. He’s the guy, period, if Seattle’s offense was smashmouth.
And then there’s the defense which without question was smashmouth in your face smashmouth. OMG. When Kam and Sherm and Earl and Bobby and KJ and Browner and Big Red and Bennett etc were on the field, that was OMG violence esp Kam. Holy crap did that guy lay wood. No offense to Devin cuz he’s the second coming but man oh man did Kam set the tone. That first hit on Demarious Thomas literally set the tone for the entire Super Bowl. And he essentially ended Vernon Davis’s career, was never the same player again after that (completely legal!) hit.
Which whipped our fans into a frenzy, rabid dogs, made Seattle a feared place to enter.
That was it, Marshawn and the defense, not that OL
I wonder...we want to blame, or at least talk about, JS as a cheap guy who doesn't value or wish to pay for the OL. But he's drafted two tackles, an Outland award-winning center, and a pretty well-received guard this year. Maybe one of our tackles had an injury history that he missed, but, still. Sometimes players don't prove out. Injuries happen, and some seasons are defined by those injuries. Now...does he spend free agent money on OL? Not so much. Is he not drafting players who make sense together on the line together? Maybe, but that's beyond my competence.
Because of the salary cap, a GM will wind up economizing somewhere. Schneider isn’t alone in thinking that he can build a good-enough interior OL with second- and third-day draft picks and value FA signings.
Expecting the Seahawks offensive line to be good is the classic optimism over experience conundrum. The reason for optimism this year in my opinion is not the players. My reason for optimism is the offensive of coaches. Most offensive staffs build their game plan around their skill players and getting them the matchups that they want. The great offensive coaches, however, Andy Reid, Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, etc., build their game plan around the offensive line and the blocking plan they believe gets them the best matchups. That’s the same philosophy that I think Grubb and the o-line coach had at the University of Washington and the philosophy that they are putting in with the Seahawks.
The Seahawks OL has not smashed anyone in the mouth for a long time, due respect to Alex Boone. The OL does have a lot to prove (mostly, I think, on the health front) but predicting they will be bottom 5 in the league is… bold.
Pin that comment up in the locker room and let's see where they land...
With all due respect, Alex Boone? He was one step above “just a guy.” When a guy like Alex Boone says:
“ It’s so hard for me to talk about Seattle because when I played Seattle and the Niners, they were a different team, in my opinion.”
I say “yadda yadda.” Boone comes across as just another player who says “It was different back then.”
I wonder, do you agree with Alex Boone? Are the Seahawks less likely to bully their opponents and be ready for a physical dog fight than the team 5-10 years ago? I wonder what players now fit or don’t fit with that, of course Witherspoon is as physical as it gets.
Seahawks as the “bully” relates to the Marshawn-era Seahawks, and they really haven’t been that since Marshawn retired. The Seahawks have tried to replace him (Chris Carson, and Rawls who was good for about half a season) but it is not maybe a replicable or sustainable style of play.—certainly not when most of the good college talent was on the D-side of the LOS.
So, yeah, I don’t think Boone’s “bully” comments hold much water really, and that is not going to be the standard by which we will grade out the current OL I would say.
Rawls had his career ended by a dirty high low tackle. He was never the same after that. He had the right toughness to be a Marshawn successor.
What they've been, to me, is irrelevant now. Mike Mac has talked about how he wants the team to play. He wants other teams to not want to play the Seahawks. He wants to be the hammer, not the nail. He wants his team to play with 'shocking effort'. If he can get the players there, Boone's words will be only accurate in the historical context. But in the historical context (last 7 or 8 years) he's not wrong.
As to players that fit, don't fit, Spoon fits for sure. I think Abe Lucas fits, as he was a pancake machine in his rookie year. If putting people on their backs isn't physical enough, I don't know what is. Haynes looks mean as heck on tape. Tyrice is a thumper, allegedly. There is some physicality on the d-line for sure. The big thing will be to take a guy like Cross, and get him strong enough so he can move people, and be more aggressive. Be 'athletic' when you're on the move, but at the point of attack, put people on their backs, don't just get in their way. That's the difference between doing your job, and being hard to play against.
We're missing a thumper at safety I think. Safety is a spot where you need someone to give pause to crossing wide receiver's. I don't think we have that. That hasn't been Julian Love's game. I mean, he has 'love' as his last name for heaven's sake. Julian Hate is what we want!
Thing is, the Ref's are flagging them for 15, telling us that type of play will not be 'allowed'. Hard hits draw a flag, every time. If lucky, someone reviews it, but odds are it stands.
Boone has put the challenge out, the kind that really gets Big Men pissed. To add to motivation, give them a new kick-ass coordinator, full of unexpected surprises. Give them their own trash-talk on their opponents, no brag, just fact. And Buddy, we are just getting started. When the cameras were off and it was just the guys in the locker room, Coach Bill Walsh was a terror. He invoked his boxing experience to get them to understand how important it was to hit hard and hit early. "Put them on their heels, then knock them on their ass". And the Niners responded. The 12's volume will tell them all they need to know.
No I don’t see them as bullies and with Grubb in I don’t expect either and that is a bummer. As I tried to imply on your daily post, I want a bully in there. I don’t need 5 top OLine ranked players I want an OLine that dominates. Grubbs though had “lighter” guys at UW.
I’d like to think punching the other guy in the mouth isn’t the only way to be effective.
I’m not perturbed at the ranking of our OL. They didn’t play well as a unit last season. Injuries killed any shot at continuity. And injuries will likely define the Seahawk OL this season.
If Lucas can’t come back fully, if another starter or three is out for substantial periods, there likely won’t be much improvement. Then the prognosticators are right.
if Lucas is fine for the regular season, and the injury bug in general stays away, I think this line could well be at least middle of the pack.
I love me what I’ve seen here with the dives into the Grubb offense and how the line schemes work. I think the roster moves (both draft and FA) look good and make the unit appear to better deal with injuries.
I haven't watched any videos yet except for the McAfee one, and I usually try to wait to post until I've at least gotten the gist of each, but you put SIX, Joe! So pardon me if I say something that is repeated by people way smarter than me (who have a really sweet gig reporting on football) in one of the other five.. But I found myself chomping at the bit to interrupt Pat and Mike Lombardi. Good grief, Mike just wanted to talk about the defense when asked about the offense and certainly never addressed our O line; which was the question. And considering his job- dammit he should know. AND he managed to not remotely answer anything Pat asked.
But the O line will affect K9 and Geno and all of the people we cheer for. And I don't see how we can think that it looks any better than last year's squad. One good rookie showing out, our tackles talking a leap and staying healthy, even our UFDAs turning into starters has been mentioned as reasons we could have a great OL. But not every player reaches their potential at the highest level. And injuries and chronic knee conditions derail promising careers all the time. I hope Grubb and company can make the best of our talent and lead the league in scoring, like we all do. I'm just way lower on this unit than most and my hopes aren't high for them to be even league average.
No. Actually, I think most players do reach their potential. Mostly, we're wrong about what we think their potential is. Injuries are a big thing, Steve Emtman comes to mind, but mostly players really do reach their potential.
Man I don’t know how smashmouth the 2013 line was. Okung was worthy of a 1st round pick but wouldn’t say he was mean or intimidating like a Trent Williams for example. Carpenter either — good guard but not a Conrad Dobler or a Steve Hutchison. Unger was a fantastic center but I’d have him more as heady rather than smashmouth. Sweezy I think was smashmouth, he prob is the one guy I might agree with. And Giacomini was so bad I don’t think any categorization is relevant.
But Marshawn was so smashmouth he spilled over onto the entire offense. He’s the guy, period, if Seattle’s offense was smashmouth.
And then there’s the defense which without question was smashmouth in your face smashmouth. OMG. When Kam and Sherm and Earl and Bobby and KJ and Browner and Big Red and Bennett etc were on the field, that was OMG violence esp Kam. Holy crap did that guy lay wood. No offense to Devin cuz he’s the second coming but man oh man did Kam set the tone. That first hit on Demarious Thomas literally set the tone for the entire Super Bowl. And he essentially ended Vernon Davis’s career, was never the same player again after that (completely legal!) hit.
Which whipped our fans into a frenzy, rabid dogs, made Seattle a feared place to enter.
That was it, Marshawn and the defense, not that OL
McQuistan started ten games at LT/LG. I don’t recall him as especially physical.
And that's why #24 is on my Mt. Rushmore.
I wonder...we want to blame, or at least talk about, JS as a cheap guy who doesn't value or wish to pay for the OL. But he's drafted two tackles, an Outland award-winning center, and a pretty well-received guard this year. Maybe one of our tackles had an injury history that he missed, but, still. Sometimes players don't prove out. Injuries happen, and some seasons are defined by those injuries. Now...does he spend free agent money on OL? Not so much. Is he not drafting players who make sense together on the line together? Maybe, but that's beyond my competence.
Because of the salary cap, a GM will wind up economizing somewhere. Schneider isn’t alone in thinking that he can build a good-enough interior OL with second- and third-day draft picks and value FA signings.
Expecting the Seahawks offensive line to be good is the classic optimism over experience conundrum. The reason for optimism this year in my opinion is not the players. My reason for optimism is the offensive of coaches. Most offensive staffs build their game plan around their skill players and getting them the matchups that they want. The great offensive coaches, however, Andy Reid, Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, etc., build their game plan around the offensive line and the blocking plan they believe gets them the best matchups. That’s the same philosophy that I think Grubb and the o-line coach had at the University of Washington and the philosophy that they are putting in with the Seahawks.