Will Seahawks win NFC West? Seattle fans split on 2022 second half predictions
Seaside Joe 1338: Seahawks make no trades, but do make a couple moves
The Seahawks are still suffering from trade exhaustion apparently, as Tuesday’s trade deadline passed without any deals made by John Schneider. Seattle did make a move related to their most recent trade, however, releasing J.J. Arcega-Whiteside (acquired for Ugo Amadi on August 30) from the practice squad to make room for Laquon “Don’t Call Me Saquon” Treadwell.
The Seahawks also released Sidney Jones IV after failing to find a team that would pay the rest of his contract.
How wild that we spent most of the offseason picturing a secondary with Jones, Artie Burns, and Justin Coleman as the starters, and Amadi as a key role player. Now Tariq Woolen, Mike Jackson, and Coby Bryant are leading the cornerbacks, and doing fantastically, with Tre Brown’s impending return potentially spelling release for Burns or Coleman.
Woolen has played 97% of the defensive snaps this season, followed by Jackson at 90% and Bryant at 63%. No other cornerback is over 9.5%, with Burns so far only playing in Week 5. To get to this point, the young cornerbacks had to climb over not just Jones, Burns, and Coleman, but also had to wait out John Reid, and had big shoes to fill with the departure of D.J. Reed.
Not a lot of fans were willing to accept that the Seahawks once again went cheap at cornerback, bypassing more expensive free agents, higher draft picks, and letting Reed walk. But this could be Pete Carroll’s masterpiece in cornerback value.
Still, not without its price. As, of course, Jones and Burns didn’t come for free and didn’t live up to those pre-season expectations. Low as they were.
I’m excited to announce that Seaside Joe is now over halfway towards 2,500 subscribers! That will be another huge milestone for us and I’m already humbled to see how much we’ve grown since the start of training camp three months ago, and honored to think that these daily newsletters, as well as the awesome Seaside Joe community in the comments section, have given Seahawks fans a tiny piece of value each day. Thank you!
The NFL is always full of surprises and Tuesday was no exception. The 10 deadline day trades completed were twice the amount of the previous high of five. An increase in trades has been apparent for quite a few years now, but ten was definitely more than I expected and the NFL could kick blockbuster deals into overdrive in 2023.
Even if something is unpredictable, that doesn’t mean there’s no place for predictions.
Last week, I re-visited some of Seaside Joe’s greatest fan surveys from 2022 and we saw how much different the Seahawks season has been from expectations. There was also a new survey linked in that article, to compare some of those old responses with new responses, and to gauge what else you think will happen in Seattle’s future.
Here are your answers!
Please consider subscribing or sharing to support Seaside Joe. Leave a comment on this article and I’ll give you a 30-day subscription to the Regular Joes bonus content for free!
Seahawks fans give Kenneth Walker III draft pick a resounding A+ grade:
Seahawks fans give Russell Wilson trade an A grade:
A couple of people voted F. Joke or serious? I mean, I support everyone’s right to an opinion. Even that one. But 89% of Seahawks fans are giving the trade an A, either with hindsight or because they’ve always felt that way.
Additionally, 76% of fans gave the entire offseason an A, with 20% more giving it a B. I don’t think it was the worst offseason in the NFL, however.
Nobody thinks Pete Carroll is a bad head coach:
Nobody thinks Pete and John are bad execs either:
Almost every fan gave Pete and John a 4/5 or 5/5 for their performances/abilities. I imagine these results would be much different if run in the middle of last season, but Pete Carroll has way more good evidence over the last 13 years than signs of being “bad.”
Almost 90% of Seahawks fans don’t think the team ever wanted to tank:
Only 7% of Seahawks fans still think that Geno Smith will be benched eventually:
Almost all of us were voting that Geno Smith would be benched when the season started. Smith has turned around almost the entire fanbase. And 76% of you admitted that Smith changed your minds about Geno Smith:
Seahawks fans split on end-of-season record:
For the most part, fans think the Seahawks will be above .500. I didn’t want to make it seem like 9-8 is a different record than 8-9. Is it? Yes, technically. It could also be the difference of the playoffs, so yes, it is a much different record. But does it make a team better or worse to go 8-9 or 9-8? Not really.
So about half of you believe that the Seahawks are a .500 team and about half of you believe that the Seahawks could go 10-7 or 11-6. These are small differences too, but an 11-6 team is much different than an 8-9 team.
One-quarter of Seahawks fans think team will miss the playoffs, and one-quarter of Seahawks fans think team will win the division:
(Question posed BEFORE Seahawks beat Giants)
The other 50% think the Seahawks will make the playoffs as a wild card, which is just a CRAZY thing to be allowed to believe in the middle of the season. Two months ago, the Seahawks were not even given 5% odds to make the playoffs. Now 75% of Seattle fans believe that the Seahawks are legitimate contenders and in large thanks to Geno Smith.
Pete was right, people are bad at predicting stuff. That shows in the final question too.
Almost 50% of Seahawks fans admit to being wrong about the Seahawks:
About 70% of Seahawks fans either admit to being wrong about the team or believe they could be wrong about the team. I know that I was wrong about the Seahawks.
Will we be wrong about what comes next too? What does come next? Tell me in the comments. Share us with a Seahawks fan.
Thanks for the reminder of what we thought the cornerback situation would be! I think we were mostly ok with that original idea. It wouldn't be fantastic, but it would be ok. And wow, never would have expected these young guys to step up and take over. Now we have a shut-down corner, a guy who takes souls when he hits, and a slot that flies all over the field. We're blessed.
-The lack of trades tells me that Pete/John believe in the 2023 draft and weren't willing to lose draft capital.
-Laquon Treadwell - From Fox Sports, "Back in September, Zimmer commented that Treadwell wouldn’t play until he started practicing better. All indications were Treadwell needed more work on his route-running, specifically generating better separation. Lack of separation was the big knock on Treadwell coming out of college. We’ve seen a couple plays this year that show there’s still work to be done." This sounds like Eskridge 2.0 so unless the Hawks see something that can be developed, he sounds like another great college player whose skills didn't translate to the NFL.