Payton is an absolute a$$hole, and always has been. Arrogant coach that thinks he's smarter than everyone else. I harbored no ill will against NO for all his years there, but rooted against them just because he was their coach. Beating them twice (once in the regular season and once in the playoffs) in 2013 was golden. The beastquake game, brilliant. Maybe he's a good coach to play for, I don't know, but I find the man very difficult to like. All of his remarks about the former coach and the Jets are just a perfect manifestation of his personality. That's what he is. An ass. A successful coach, sure. But still an ass.
I had no plans to harbor any ill thoughts towards Denver this year, now that we have no significant stake in their draft slots. But then they picked him as their next coach. So, sorry Denver, but I'm rooting HARD against you again. Love for the Jets to kick their asses in week 5.
I dislike the man. In a league that pretends to care about player safety, I was somewhat shocked that he and Greg Williams were allowed to coach again at all. I liked the Saints before that came out, too. He certainly gave a lot of bulletin board material to the Jets with those statements.
I often have trouble deciding where I rank teams in my likes and dislikes, and I'll ask myself who I would root for (or against) if they were to play. In this case, I'll pull for Aaron Rodgers' Jets over Sean Peyton's Broncos even though I harbor no (well, almost) ill feelings towards Russ.
This article was outstanding. I think I am going to reread it a couple times before the start of the season.
Calling out Benny B is great to see. He masquerades around as the smartest guy in the room but in actuality has no clue.
For example: him calling Aaron Rodgers career dead, and then having him win MVPs afterward, should’ve have sunk his credibility. But then he went on the Russ tangent.
Now we have the proof and you would think he would learn? Nope ... still making excuses. Hard to believe.
Jul 28, 2023·edited Jul 28, 2023Liked by Seaside Joe
There's a lot to unpack about what happened with the Seahawks between the 2012 draft and the Seahawks trading Russ and I'm not going to even try to get to it all here but I think Pete and Russ (and John!) all deserve equal measures of blame and praise for various highs and lows during that time period. But I'm also getting really fucking tired of revisionist history going on that Pete was propping Russ up all along or Russ was some sort of cancer on the team all along. Things were done right! Things were done wrong! All three of them had their game-winning strengths and all three had their team-wrecking weaknesses.
ANYWAY, the one thing I really wanted to comment on because it quickly got lost in all of this was the transition between owners/GM/HC that happened that led to the Denver Debacle of 2022. That is a fear I have for the Seahawks down the road, because any transition in ownership will inevitably lead to huge changes with the franchise, likely from the top down. God forbid the gross negligence and willful stupidity that happened in Denver is repeated in Seattle when this franchise is sold, something I'm pretty certain will happen sooner than the Seahawks want the public to believe. But that's the future, not the now, so here's to hoping for an incredible season for the Seahawks and a bounce-back year for Russ.
I think they're hoping BBK can contribute on Special Teams like he did before and maybe be a back-up LB in a pinch but I'd be surprised if they're going to try and squeeze anything more out of him. I'm not even sure he'll make the team after that injury.
Bad-mouthing your predecessor is how many politicians lower public expectation for their future performance. It gives them a better chance to look good down the road.
If the Jets blow them out in week 5, he's going to have a lot of egg on his face. It could happen too. I doubt Hackett is the kind of guy to say in the post-game presser that it was the worst coaching he'd ever seen in NFL history if they do, but it would be pretty funny.
I don't think Sean Payton necessarily needs to lower expectations but Denver media and their fans are desperate to understand what happened and see a light at the end of the dark tunnel their 2022 was. Throwing the old regime under the bus is a way of deflecting some of the spotlight off Russ' woes and propping him up, which is definitely something any HC is going to try and do.
If RW is not back to what he was in Seattle, this puts the spotlight more on RW and Payton. Frankly, I think it added more pressure to start out well. Plus, if the Jets start out well and especially if they beat Denver, all eyes are going to be squarely on Payton and RW.
I can't answer for what happened last season, but I have watched hours of video and spent several weeks with Russ. He hasn't lost any of the touch he's always had. It looks to me like he'll read the defense as well as he ever has. We're retooling a bit, and will install a few scheme changes. I expect he'll be competetive with any QB in the league this year.
That might have been a better way to handle it but Payton has never been afraid to say what he thinks, even when it may be to his detriment. But I'd also suggest that blaming the debacle in Denver all on one player and one coach was missing the forest for the trees (also incredibly convenient for a lot of people who deserved blame), so it was actually refreshing to hear someone make that point. There are too many incompetent, shitty owners in the NFL and they don't get to feel the heat often enough.
It's a tough and humbling situation for Wilson. He's getting paid, so priority number one is taken care of, but his championship asperations and personal legacy have taken a solid slap to the face. The Broncos don't have a championship roster or the capitol to quickly build one, and Russ is 34 with a sizable cap hit. He struggled so much last season that any future success will be largely attributed to Sean Payton. If he continues to play poorly, he will be blamed rather than Payton. I think credit for success is something that was/is important to Wilson, and at best he'll be now be playing second fiddle to Payton for the foreseeable future.
After watching Geno's success last season, I commented, some time back, that Maybe Pete had more to do with Russ' successful career in Seattle than anyone was giving him credit for. This article and your research convinces me that may have been even more true than I thought at the time.
The bus stoped at the station after the driver ended his shift early. The hydraulics hissed as the door folded open. “Hey, Sean”, he said to the new driver in his freshly pressed uniform. “Nathaniel”, said the new driver, as the night driver stepped onto the pavement.
The diesel engine still brumbling, Sean depressed the clutch, shifted into gear, and ran over Nathaniel. Alternating between first and reverse gear, the suspension shook in a slow, steady rhythm.
Sean then drove out into the early morning light in search of Nathaniel’s friends
I truley hope and somewhat believe Russell will have a bounce back season. Sean Payton called what he saw from the 2022 Bronco's, total and utter disfunction. If your team leads the league in pre snap penalties on both sides of the ball that is disfunction. It also shows a complete lack of respect for the head coach and his staff.
I wrote Kenneth, our Seaside skipper about 28 months ago. I wanted the Seahawks to draft Dee Eskridge. I actually took quite a bit of time and studying to find out as much as I could about him. The more I found out the more I convinced myself that Dee was the guy. He had no off field problems. He scored some fantastic touchdowns for Central Michigan. When he was 17 he ran a 10.5 second 100 meters which is blazing fast for that age. He ran a 4.36 40 at his pro day. Even more impressive he played runningback in high-school so he was tough. Last but not least he moved to cornerback to help out his team in a time of need. The only excuse I will make for him, is he suffered a very serious concussion in game one of his NFL career. It was so serious that he could not see properly even five weeks after the incident. Mentally that would be tough to comeback from. Then last year came more injuries and a lot of missed games.
When I heard at the end of OTAs that Eskridge had performed really well, I thought they were trying to drum up trade offers, hoping to get a late round pick. Well day 1 of training camp and he was the star player of practice. Pete Carroll was effusive in his praise of Eskridge. It would be super if he could catch 40 passes and score 4 or 5 touchdowns. Those numbers may not be reachable as JSN is likely to get the lions share of inside passes. Let's cross our fingers Dee can carve out a useful role with the 2023 Seahawks. If he stays healthy he has a punchers chance.
I was in near disbelief when Russ was traded. Truly the end of an era. I expected a long and painful rebuild but it turned out to be the best thing the organization could have done. Even if Russ regains his old form, there's almost no way this trade can be viewed as regrettable after the dust settles. Not to mention, it made two year's worth of drafts very fun.
Same here. I didn’t think that they got anywhere near enough for Russell. Although in fairness to me, years of mediocre-to-miserable drafting left me with no confidence that Schneider could convert all the acquired draft capital into much useful. It’s pure speculation on my part, but I believe that when Jody Allen okayed the trade, she also told PCJS to quit dicking around with draft picks. This is not far fetched: JA may not be a huge sports fan, but you can bet that she has independent advisors.
I agree that the drafts from 2015 to 2022 left a lot to be desired. But I don't think that it was Jody that changed things. Instead I think the Seahawks stopped chasing needs through trades and the draft and instead returned to searching for the best players. When a team is chasing players to fill their roster "needs" or put them over the top, it is easy to ignore the negatives and talk yourself into a player or a trade. It happens every year and was the basis for the meaningless draft grades .
When searching for the best players character, technique, football IQ along along with measurables count. When searching for the best football players, you don't compromise to fill a need you take the best player. Every position is in play and everybody has to compete to play. That it how it was in the beginning. Back then Pete and John were very good at finding the best football players. Pete because he knows what makes a good football player and John because he knows what it will take get them. I remember when the Seahawks had more good football players then anyone else in the league and I don't think it was accident, and I think it is happening again.
I think it started with magically acquiring a team full of superstars all at once, players so good it was almost impossible to draft talent good enough to compete with them let alone replace them. So they got stuck in this weird mode of filling holes as they began to appear but not giving their rookies the playing time to actually compete while on the offense, they tried to cover their cap needs by downplaying the OL. And then all of a sudden, almost all the great players were gone and they had nothing to fill those holes. And then they were desperately drafting/trading for need and the roster, the cap, their drafts all became mired in quicksand.
Like I said, it’s speculation. They did an about-face, though. Maybe the impetus was an accumulation of bad drafts and fading prospects, but there could just as easily have been a shock to the system. We’ll never know for sure.
Payton reminds me a bit of myself when asked to consult for a new resturant owner awhile back. A lot of SMH and pointing out "who possibly thought THIS was a good idea", then getting a great fee and complete autonomy to fix the mess they inherited. It worked for us. We turned a profit in less than a month, but then it went to sh*t fast after I left because the owner started listening to their absentee drug-addict son.
If it turns out like that for Payton and Broncos ownership, yikes! But, what a great dumpster fire it would be to see! Let's go drama!
Excellent article my fellow Coug. One of the things that has always gotten me is that winning in the NFL is hard, and consistently winning is even harder. Winning a Super Bowl is darn near impossible. Yet, fans and these "experts" are quick to criticize as if winning was as easy as seeing clouds here in Seattle during the winter.
Payton is an absolute a$$hole, and always has been. Arrogant coach that thinks he's smarter than everyone else. I harbored no ill will against NO for all his years there, but rooted against them just because he was their coach. Beating them twice (once in the regular season and once in the playoffs) in 2013 was golden. The beastquake game, brilliant. Maybe he's a good coach to play for, I don't know, but I find the man very difficult to like. All of his remarks about the former coach and the Jets are just a perfect manifestation of his personality. That's what he is. An ass. A successful coach, sure. But still an ass.
I had no plans to harbor any ill thoughts towards Denver this year, now that we have no significant stake in their draft slots. But then they picked him as their next coach. So, sorry Denver, but I'm rooting HARD against you again. Love for the Jets to kick their asses in week 5.
I dislike the man. In a league that pretends to care about player safety, I was somewhat shocked that he and Greg Williams were allowed to coach again at all. I liked the Saints before that came out, too. He certainly gave a lot of bulletin board material to the Jets with those statements.
I often have trouble deciding where I rank teams in my likes and dislikes, and I'll ask myself who I would root for (or against) if they were to play. In this case, I'll pull for Aaron Rodgers' Jets over Sean Peyton's Broncos even though I harbor no (well, almost) ill feelings towards Russ.
This article was outstanding. I think I am going to reread it a couple times before the start of the season.
Calling out Benny B is great to see. He masquerades around as the smartest guy in the room but in actuality has no clue.
For example: him calling Aaron Rodgers career dead, and then having him win MVPs afterward, should’ve have sunk his credibility. But then he went on the Russ tangent.
Now we have the proof and you would think he would learn? Nope ... still making excuses. Hard to believe.
Cheers Joe
There's a lot to unpack about what happened with the Seahawks between the 2012 draft and the Seahawks trading Russ and I'm not going to even try to get to it all here but I think Pete and Russ (and John!) all deserve equal measures of blame and praise for various highs and lows during that time period. But I'm also getting really fucking tired of revisionist history going on that Pete was propping Russ up all along or Russ was some sort of cancer on the team all along. Things were done right! Things were done wrong! All three of them had their game-winning strengths and all three had their team-wrecking weaknesses.
ANYWAY, the one thing I really wanted to comment on because it quickly got lost in all of this was the transition between owners/GM/HC that happened that led to the Denver Debacle of 2022. That is a fear I have for the Seahawks down the road, because any transition in ownership will inevitably lead to huge changes with the franchise, likely from the top down. God forbid the gross negligence and willful stupidity that happened in Denver is repeated in Seattle when this franchise is sold, something I'm pretty certain will happen sooner than the Seahawks want the public to believe. But that's the future, not the now, so here's to hoping for an incredible season for the Seahawks and a bounce-back year for Russ.
I guess there's my LB I said we needed. They signed BBK. Known commodity > one in the bush?
I'll be very worried if BBK is playing snaps on defense. Surely that's a special teams signing.
I think they're hoping BBK can contribute on Special Teams like he did before and maybe be a back-up LB in a pinch but I'd be surprised if they're going to try and squeeze anything more out of him. I'm not even sure he'll make the team after that injury.
Bring on the season! Let’s see what Pete can get out of this offence now.
I think Hackett know how to draw up plays. I think Pete knows how to win football games.
Bad-mouthing your predecessor is how many politicians lower public expectation for their future performance. It gives them a better chance to look good down the road.
Turns out not all politicians work in politics.
If the Jets blow them out in week 5, he's going to have a lot of egg on his face. It could happen too. I doubt Hackett is the kind of guy to say in the post-game presser that it was the worst coaching he'd ever seen in NFL history if they do, but it would be pretty funny.
I don't think Sean Payton necessarily needs to lower expectations but Denver media and their fans are desperate to understand what happened and see a light at the end of the dark tunnel their 2022 was. Throwing the old regime under the bus is a way of deflecting some of the spotlight off Russ' woes and propping him up, which is definitely something any HC is going to try and do.
If RW is not back to what he was in Seattle, this puts the spotlight more on RW and Payton. Frankly, I think it added more pressure to start out well. Plus, if the Jets start out well and especially if they beat Denver, all eyes are going to be squarely on Payton and RW.
Which could have gone a lot like this:
I can't answer for what happened last season, but I have watched hours of video and spent several weeks with Russ. He hasn't lost any of the touch he's always had. It looks to me like he'll read the defense as well as he ever has. We're retooling a bit, and will install a few scheme changes. I expect he'll be competetive with any QB in the league this year.
That might have been a better way to handle it but Payton has never been afraid to say what he thinks, even when it may be to his detriment. But I'd also suggest that blaming the debacle in Denver all on one player and one coach was missing the forest for the trees (also incredibly convenient for a lot of people who deserved blame), so it was actually refreshing to hear someone make that point. There are too many incompetent, shitty owners in the NFL and they don't get to feel the heat often enough.
Well, I think you are completely right: Payton's approach was not at all unexpected. Also, Wilson certainly had a lot of help being unhelpful.
It's a tough and humbling situation for Wilson. He's getting paid, so priority number one is taken care of, but his championship asperations and personal legacy have taken a solid slap to the face. The Broncos don't have a championship roster or the capitol to quickly build one, and Russ is 34 with a sizable cap hit. He struggled so much last season that any future success will be largely attributed to Sean Payton. If he continues to play poorly, he will be blamed rather than Payton. I think credit for success is something that was/is important to Wilson, and at best he'll be now be playing second fiddle to Payton for the foreseeable future.
After watching Geno's success last season, I commented, some time back, that Maybe Pete had more to do with Russ' successful career in Seattle than anyone was giving him credit for. This article and your research convinces me that may have been even more true than I thought at the time.
The bus stoped at the station after the driver ended his shift early. The hydraulics hissed as the door folded open. “Hey, Sean”, he said to the new driver in his freshly pressed uniform. “Nathaniel”, said the new driver, as the night driver stepped onto the pavement.
The diesel engine still brumbling, Sean depressed the clutch, shifted into gear, and ran over Nathaniel. Alternating between first and reverse gear, the suspension shook in a slow, steady rhythm.
Sean then drove out into the early morning light in search of Nathaniel’s friends
I truley hope and somewhat believe Russell will have a bounce back season. Sean Payton called what he saw from the 2022 Bronco's, total and utter disfunction. If your team leads the league in pre snap penalties on both sides of the ball that is disfunction. It also shows a complete lack of respect for the head coach and his staff.
I wrote Kenneth, our Seaside skipper about 28 months ago. I wanted the Seahawks to draft Dee Eskridge. I actually took quite a bit of time and studying to find out as much as I could about him. The more I found out the more I convinced myself that Dee was the guy. He had no off field problems. He scored some fantastic touchdowns for Central Michigan. When he was 17 he ran a 10.5 second 100 meters which is blazing fast for that age. He ran a 4.36 40 at his pro day. Even more impressive he played runningback in high-school so he was tough. Last but not least he moved to cornerback to help out his team in a time of need. The only excuse I will make for him, is he suffered a very serious concussion in game one of his NFL career. It was so serious that he could not see properly even five weeks after the incident. Mentally that would be tough to comeback from. Then last year came more injuries and a lot of missed games.
When I heard at the end of OTAs that Eskridge had performed really well, I thought they were trying to drum up trade offers, hoping to get a late round pick. Well day 1 of training camp and he was the star player of practice. Pete Carroll was effusive in his praise of Eskridge. It would be super if he could catch 40 passes and score 4 or 5 touchdowns. Those numbers may not be reachable as JSN is likely to get the lions share of inside passes. Let's cross our fingers Dee can carve out a useful role with the 2023 Seahawks. If he stays healthy he has a punchers chance.
Thanks for this, Chris. Go Dee Eskridge !
What I think about BB:
"You might be a statistician, use AI to call the plays
and burn all of the running backs from rosters of your favs
You might be a GM, or you might be a knave,
the MVP of Twitter or the ghost who once was brave,
but you've gotta serve somebody."
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MzyBv4yOPU
Maybe an extra pre-season album as well. 😁
I have started the Spotify playlist lol.
I am hoping to end the season with a particular track by Queen….
💪
I was in near disbelief when Russ was traded. Truly the end of an era. I expected a long and painful rebuild but it turned out to be the best thing the organization could have done. Even if Russ regains his old form, there's almost no way this trade can be viewed as regrettable after the dust settles. Not to mention, it made two year's worth of drafts very fun.
Same here. I didn’t think that they got anywhere near enough for Russell. Although in fairness to me, years of mediocre-to-miserable drafting left me with no confidence that Schneider could convert all the acquired draft capital into much useful. It’s pure speculation on my part, but I believe that when Jody Allen okayed the trade, she also told PCJS to quit dicking around with draft picks. This is not far fetched: JA may not be a huge sports fan, but you can bet that she has independent advisors.
I agree that the drafts from 2015 to 2022 left a lot to be desired. But I don't think that it was Jody that changed things. Instead I think the Seahawks stopped chasing needs through trades and the draft and instead returned to searching for the best players. When a team is chasing players to fill their roster "needs" or put them over the top, it is easy to ignore the negatives and talk yourself into a player or a trade. It happens every year and was the basis for the meaningless draft grades .
When searching for the best players character, technique, football IQ along along with measurables count. When searching for the best football players, you don't compromise to fill a need you take the best player. Every position is in play and everybody has to compete to play. That it how it was in the beginning. Back then Pete and John were very good at finding the best football players. Pete because he knows what makes a good football player and John because he knows what it will take get them. I remember when the Seahawks had more good football players then anyone else in the league and I don't think it was accident, and I think it is happening again.
I think it started with magically acquiring a team full of superstars all at once, players so good it was almost impossible to draft talent good enough to compete with them let alone replace them. So they got stuck in this weird mode of filling holes as they began to appear but not giving their rookies the playing time to actually compete while on the offense, they tried to cover their cap needs by downplaying the OL. And then all of a sudden, almost all the great players were gone and they had nothing to fill those holes. And then they were desperately drafting/trading for need and the roster, the cap, their drafts all became mired in quicksand.
Like I said, it’s speculation. They did an about-face, though. Maybe the impetus was an accumulation of bad drafts and fading prospects, but there could just as easily have been a shock to the system. We’ll never know for sure.
Payton reminds me a bit of myself when asked to consult for a new resturant owner awhile back. A lot of SMH and pointing out "who possibly thought THIS was a good idea", then getting a great fee and complete autonomy to fix the mess they inherited. It worked for us. We turned a profit in less than a month, but then it went to sh*t fast after I left because the owner started listening to their absentee drug-addict son.
If it turns out like that for Payton and Broncos ownership, yikes! But, what a great dumpster fire it would be to see! Let's go drama!
That’s a lot of butthurt you describe there, SJ! Including the sideswiping from Sean “Deliver The Pain” Payton.
Excellent article my fellow Coug. One of the things that has always gotten me is that winning in the NFL is hard, and consistently winning is even harder. Winning a Super Bowl is darn near impossible. Yet, fans and these "experts" are quick to criticize as if winning was as easy as seeing clouds here in Seattle during the winter.