Seahawks needing to shine vs. Vikings: 6 players to watch

Seahawks who I hope have great games against the Vikings on Thursday night, 8/10/2023

There is a Cantonese proverb, “zuk dou luk mh sik tyut gok” which translates to, “Got hold of a deer but can’t remove its antlers”.

You got yourself far enough to have an opportunity, don’t waste it.

(What do people want with the antlers? I’m not sure. But open further research, deer antlers are the fastest growing tissue on earth.)

The players who will get most of the snaps for the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday night against the Minnesota Vikings are such deer holders who lack antler guarantees. Not the case for many of the players who we likely won’t see. Tyler Lockett: Antlers. Charles Cross: Antlers. Dre’Mont Jones: Antlers.

Jordyn “Babbling” Brooks? Antlers.

Devin “Bush” Bush? Probably his own antlers.

But Arquon “Bush” Bush? Thursday night is his opportunity to grab the deer.

Zuk dou luk mh sik tyut gok.

This morning, I will go over what I hope to happen for some of those players in Thursday’s game against the Vikings.

It has been 208 days since the Seahawks last played a football game and if you couldn’t tell in the past seven months we’ve been eagerly awaiting, to quote Dame Kelly Clarkson, a moment like this.

That makes today another 208 days in a row to add to Seaside Joe’s tally of posting a Seahawks article, not including the bonus posts. Our community has grown by another 1,055 Seahawks fans and the Regular Joes club has added another 227 members in the last 208 days alone.

There are NO SPOILERS in post-game headlines/subject headers!

Seaside Joe will be back with another article on Thursday night summarizing what happened and giving Regular Joes an opportunity to talk about the game in the comments section, so be sure you are subscribed so you don’t miss it! I will never post spoilers IN the headlines, only if you open the email and read it! Then it’s on you. Enter your e-mail here if you’ve never subscribed:

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The Seahawks play the Vikings at 7:00 PM PST!

Come back then to participate in the live game thread with other Seaside Joe Seahawks fans.

That means that tonight’s Seaside Joe will be going out around 10-10:30 PM with what has happened and you can expect roughly the same consistency for post-game newsletters throughout the season: An immediate opportunity to summarize what happened, what it means, and what YOU think about it.

Thursday’s: Zuk dou luk mh sik tyut gok

The Seahawks have had 208 days to think about how they wanted to construct this roster and the 90 players on the roster right now represent Pete and John’s execution of that plan. To get down to the absolute best 53, as well as the ones who survive on the practice squad, games like Thursday will have an impact on those decisions in the coming weeks.

Seaside Joe wrote a bit on Tuesday about three of those who need to take the deer by the antlers, but there are plenty of others.

These are the players I’m hoping, and in some cases expecting, to show out during their opportunities on Thursday night.

QB Drew Lock

Back in March, I re-watched the entire first round of the 2019 draft and wrote an article on it because there was a lot of perspective to gain from that night. One name that wasn’t called by Roger Goodell was Drew Lock, but he came up a lot on the broadcast as it was expected he could go as high as #6 to the Giants, which is where Daniel Jones was selected.

We’ll never know if maybe Lock could have survived longer as an NFL starter if he had ended up in New York instead of Denver, as Jones has clearly been given more slack and room for error than the average quarterback; not that touchdowns tell the whole story, but Lock’s 16 touchdown throws in 2020 are still more than ANY season by Daniel Jones in the last three years.

No, for real:

Are you telling me that if Lock had gotten three years of patience, Saquon Barkley, Brian Daboll, and Andrew Thomas that there’s no chance he could have thrown 15 touchdowns and been called half-decent?

Instead in Denver he had a coach who loathed him, didn’t get a 2020 preseason, probably didn’t get a fair shot to beat Teddy Bridgewater in 2021, then couldn’t catch up to all the goodwill that Geno Smith had built with Pete Carroll during last year’s competition. I don’t think it is fair to ignore that Lock has had a bad career, but so did Geno up until a year ago.

With Geno secure ahead of him and no intriguing players behind him (apologies to Holton Antlers), the 2023 preseason is Drew Lock’s chance to prove to teams around the league that the Broncos were wrong about him and that he should have been a first round pick. He’s had some big time plays in training camp, which isn’t surprising, and he’s more than capable of showing out in a preseason contest. I mean, Zach Wilson did it.

But for Lock, he needs to prove that he’s too good to be in a preseason game and I think he may actually benefit from the fact that he’s finally not in a competition to start. The competitions of 2021 and 2022 may have added the weight of comparison on Lock’s shoulders and this time he can just go out there and play without thinking about the immediate ramifications. He just needs to answer the question that has plagued him forever: “Can you consistently move the chains without inevitably playing your way into a turnover?”

Who knows what the Vikings plan to do defensively, but they also have a castoff looking to prove himself worthy of a second chance: Defensive coordinator Brian Flores. In Flores’s second season as head coach in Miami, the Dolphins won nine of 11 games at one point. The only two quarterbacks he lost to in that stretch? Patrick Mahomes and Drew Lock.

I hope Lock looks like a starter on Thursday night because it will be good for him…but it will be GREAT for the Seahawks.

He’s just one of many who will have that opportunity, but what about the supporting cast expected to play against the Vikings? Or the many new faces on defense? Keep reading to find out!