Seaside Joe 798: Sunday Seahawks Thoughts
Couldn't another player do better than DK Metcalf?
Speed Thoughts
DK Metcalf proved that the difference between him and an Olympian was both small and big. There’s nothing I can really say by now that you haven’t heard yet today — what else could have made it across your Seahawks desk this Sunday? — but the 10.36 was closer to advancing than most expected. But by also finishing in last in his heat, Metcalf wasn’t actually close to advancing to the next round, let alone automatically qualifying. However, if Metcalf made it seem “close” to the naked eye, then surely there are at least a couple of NFL players who could train their way into actual Olympic contention. Like in football, Metcalf standing near his competitors look like an optical illusion; “Nobody is that big.”
Great start for @Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf. He ended up finishing his 100m heat in 9th with a time of 10.36. @usatf // #JourneyToGoldAlso, Metcalf isn’t even the fastest player in the NFL. Some do have legit track and field experience on top of that. There have been crossover Olympian/NFL athletes before, but there are present day professional superstars who should be able to do better than DK Metcalf in an official race if they put their time into it. Maybe for some of those players, there’s no point to do it. I mean, if Metcalf had brought a medal to U.S.A., what does that say about training for the Olympics? What value would there be in dedicating a life to it if an NFL player can step onto a track and beat you despite not putting any effort into it since early high school? However, Metcalf received attention for competing and then called out his colleagues by saying they were “scared” to give it a shot. Call it the “Why doesn’t LeBron James ever do the dunk contest?” problem.
Because LeBron has nothing to gain and stands a good chance to lose.
I walked up to DK and said, “Ay bro, what you even decide to do this for?” DK Metcalf: “Myself, everybody else is scared to do it.” *mic drop*I wonder though if receiving so much positive attention and then calling others “scared” will prompt others to test themselves in other areas. Kyler Murray wants to play baseball, Aaron Rodgers wants to host Jeopardy!, Tim Tebow wants to play football; everybody is stepping out of their lane!
Nothing wrong with it either. This isn’t a criticism of those who do or those who don’t. Metcalf gave it a shot because he could. Elon Musk hosted Saturday Night Live because he could. But Usain Bolt, he of a probable sub-4.2 40-yard dash, never once took a training session with Jerry Rice or anything.
At least, not as far as I know.
Post-draft NFC West power rankings? I have to say that right now the Seahawks and Rams look very close to me, while the 49ers might have really biffed the draft and taken a step back. Going into the draft, I was very clear that I was high on the 49ers because their roster has players with all-pro potential at a relatively high number of positions: tight end, receiver, left tackle, defensive end, linebacker, defensive tackle, to err on the side of conservative. If they had plugged a great quarterback into that offense, San Francisco could be as good as they were when they had Joe Montana and Steve Young. That’s how special they appear to be at every other position on offense and two years ago they were second in scoring, even with Jimmy Garoppolo as the quarterback. And Garoppolo is a fine quarterback and he’s proven that he can be the right guy to get them there, but he is so fantastically unreliable that I can’t wrap my head around the fact that they traded up for a long-term project.
Absolutely no one knows what Trey Lance could do at the next level and that only multiplies my confusion on giving up two future first round picks for him. Especially since it seems to me that nobody else was going to draft him between three and 10. Okay, maybe the Broncos or Panthers do change their draft plans if Lance is available, but it doesn’t seem like they were clamoring to make a better offer to Miami, another team that passed on Lance. (You and I could have differing opinions on Tua.)
The Rams gave up first round picks in 2022 and 2023 for a quarterback, same as the 49ers, but at least I understand doing that for an established player who can get you “there” immediately. Admittedly, there is a bit of a problem to solve when choosing between a 33-year-old with a recent back injury and a 21-year-old who won’t eat into your salary cap right away, but the 49ers could have traded for Matthew Stafford and sent Garoppolo to the Lions, saving a lot more in the process than what LA had to swallow by moving Jared Goff’s contract.
(There’s a good chance that Detroit general manager Brad Holmes, a front office person with the Rams since 2003, wasn’t going to do anything to help out the Niners.)
There’s upside to Lance that Stafford can’t provide, but obtaining a veteran of that caliber would have motivated me to rank San Francisco as the most dangerous team in the NFC West. Instead, the decision to deal for a quarterback who has played one organized football game in a year and a half, the player who almost certainly needs to be glued to the bench for at least the next 18 months, compels me to keep the 49ers in a firm third place. I can’t go as far as to rank the Cardinals ahead of them yet, but maybe I’ll eventually decide that I just can’t trust Kyle Shanahan to avoid his fourth losing season out of five tries.
What’s going to make Garoppolo healthy this time? He has only thrown more than 180 passes in a season once and he turns 30 in November. Garoppolo has finished two of the last three years on injured reserve. They’ve also hung onto Dee Ford, who played in only one game last year, 11 games in 2019, and six games in 2017. Other players who made it to IR last season who are still on the roster include Deebo Samuel, Jaquiski Tartt, Raheem Mostert, George Kittle, and Nick Bosa.
Some great players, but how many injuries can Shanahan handle next season? How many will he have to navigate around? And what’s he going to do when Garoppolo gets hurt? These are not questions that can be ignored simply because the roster looks great in May. The Seahawks have posted a winning record in nine of nine tries with Russell Wilson and Pete Carroll. The Patriots withstood injuries for 20 straight injuries to keep themselves in first place. If Shanahan and John Lynch have earned any reputations at this point, it can’t be that they’re “winners.” Not yet.
But yes, I would say that I’ve slightly upgraded my evaluation on the Seahawks after the draft and I believe they could definitely compete for the NFC West division and the NFC’s number one seed with this roster. I think John Schneider and Carroll did a good job with free agency. I admit that I’ve thought this before and been proven completely wrong. I’ve loved some of their drafts and been proven wrong. I think retaining Chris Carson is underrated. Kerry Hyder didn’t get as much money on the market as he deserved. Shaquill Griffin got more money than the Seahawks should have been willing to pay him. I like the idea of Darrell Taylor and Marquise Blair being healthy and preparing for an offseason, but I can’t ignore their histories right after I went through my checklist on what’s uncertain about the 49ers. I thought drafting a receiver as early as possible was the right move. I thought avoiding the draft as a whole was the right move. (Underrated: While Seattle has one more year to pay on the Jamal Adams toll, the 49ers and Rams will be sitting out both the 2022 and 2023 first rounds. There should be at least a little bit of comfort to Seahawks fans that John Schneider will have some ammunition at his disposal earlier than Lynch and Les Snead. The Cardinals have all their future first round picks, but their lack of aggression as compared to their three division rivals could also be the wrong move. Maybe.)
And I still think that trading for Matthew Stafford was the move of the year for any NFL team. Goff is not a good quarterback relative to the ones who rank in the top-15 of salary. He’s overpaid and incapable of leading a team to wins week after week. The Rams have been winning because of defense and coaching and some quality players around the quarterback position. Now they have a quarterback who can elevate all of those elements in Los Angeles and he joins a roster with Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey, Cooper Kupp, Robert Woods, Andrew Whitworth, Cam Akers, Leonard Floyd, Darious Williams, plus a couple of interesting young players on the rise. Same as D’Wayne Eskridge, I think any of the top-rated receivers (in this case, Tutu Atwell) was the right choice for the Rams with their first pick. It’s gonna be a weapons league and the Rams do have a lot of weapons, having also added DeSean Jackson. In the recent NFL.com power rankings, three of the top-nine teams were in the NFC West, and the Cards were 16th. The Rams loaded up, but Seattle didn’t ignore everybody’s request for offensive changes either and Russell Wilson could finally have his MVP season because of it. I can’t decide between the two of them yet. Luckily, I don’t have to.
"Tim Tebow wants to play football" LOL