I find myself completely uninterested in the Super Bowl
And Frank Clark's potential record, the death of podcasts, and Mia Goth: Seaside Joe 1438
There was a time when the two weeks between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl were torture. The pain of having football for five months and knowing that there was only one more game until the next hiatus. But this year, something feels different.
It feels to me like we’re already onto the offseason and it seems there’s nothing I can do to muster up care for who wins the Super Bowl. Perhaps it’s because of the teams, I can’t fathom what I’m going to get out of it when either the Chiefs or Eagles win on Sunday. Patrick Mahomes winning his second could signal that the NFL has a young Rafael Nadal or Tiger Woods on its hands.
But I think we should have already accepted that Mahomes is unique; I’m more hopeful that he’ll stop appearing in TV commercials than I am that he’ll stop winning football games.
The Eagles winning again would feel similar to the Raiders winning two Super Bowls in the early ‘80s. It takes quite a lot of whelming to win two titles and to never make the Hall of Fame like quarterback Jim Plunkett, or to wait over 20 years like former Seahawks coach Tom Flores.
That’s all I feel for Philadelphia. Whelmed. When your most interesting player is the center, you’ve really managed to be the Philadelphia Eagles.
But perhaps I’m only onto the offseason because this is shaping up to be one of the most thrilling Seattle drafts in over 10 years. Had we known about the Russell Wilson trade before last year’s Super Bowl, perhaps the awareness of the extra draft picks (including ninth overall) would have sent Seahawks fans into overdrive for the Senior Bowl and combine, like we’re experiencing today.
A year ago we were expecting no first round pick, no major changes, and another attempt to simply get good enough to win 11 games that ended in an early playoff exit. Instead, we got nine wins and an early playoff exit! Which ain’t all that bad considering and Seattle also has all those overwhelming draft picks and cap space sans Wilson.
I just keep forgetting that there’s a football game—the last football game of the season—in three days. I’m positive that I’ll forget about the Super Bowl before it’s even over…with probably my biggest takeaway being, “Damn, those Super Bowl commercials with Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid selling State Farm while playing inside State Farm stadium really sucked.”
Do you feel any extra lack of feelings for this year’s Super Bowl?
Let’s pop through some other quick thoughts.
Prospect analysis will be limited, selective
After 12 years of doing this, I’ve come to the conclusion that team blogs usually tell you too much, about too many draft prospects, who end up doing too little. And over 96% of them will never reach your favorite team. I’ve seen it: a writer can cover over 150 draft prospects only for the team to pick eight guys who were never mentioned once.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that it will always be a waste of time for the reader or the writer, it’s just knowing that what you’re getting is 2023 draft news and not Seahawks news. In many cases, you’re not even getting future NFL player news; getting drafted is only one step of an extraordinarily difficult journey towards becoming a professional football player.
Looking back at a relatively talented draft class like 2020, featuring Joe Burrow, Justin Jefferson, Justin Herbert, Andrew Thomas, CeeDee Lamb, Tristan Wirfs, on day one, even that year seems to be lining up for maybe a 50-percent hit rate in the first round. And the first round accounts for only about 12.5-percent of the an entire draft class, not counting the many undrafted free agent signings.
I do love the NFL Draft and of course Seaside Joe is going to have draft coverage between now and April 27, but I’m going to be careful to not overdo it. To focus on the current Seahawks, to pay more attention to the number five pick where the possibilities are much more clear, and to analyze general draft themes that apply to Seattle rather than obsessing over many dozens of prospects when that ultimately doesn’t lead anywhere.
For draft fans, there are other writers who would do a better job of that than me anyway.
And don’t worry, that won’t lead to a lack of interesting topics; Seaside Joe manages to write more articles about the Seahawks in the doldrums of June and July than most writers put out for an entire year. I don’t know how he does it, but he does it! With free agency and so many interesting possibilities ahead, I see no reason to overanalyze too many future non-Seahawks.
Instead, I’ll selectively look at players who have interesting stories or pre-installed connections to the Seahawks. And quarterbacks. I’ll probably talk some about quarterbacks. Division-II QB Tyson Bagent may be one such case in the future.
Where’s Mia Goth this awards season?
If Hollywood wants to save its ass from destruction, why not highlight your top up and coming stars like the NFL does? The other day I mentioned that I have an affinity for the movie Smile and that if movies like Top Gun 2 can be nominated for best picture, why not a horror film that affected people in ways that few genre pictures ever do and also blew way past box office expectations like so few original modern movies can manage these days?
Well, I’ve got another one: Mia Goth’s performance in Pearl was the best performance I saw in 2022.
Here’s someone really pushing into weird territory with acting over the last year (X, Pearl, Infinity Pool) and she’s definitely one of the only actors I can think of from the last five years who has made it into “see everything she’s in” territory.
I know that the Oscars already have a unique controversy in the Best Actress category this year, but the only thing I can’t wrap my head around is how Goth didn’t even make it onto any “snubs” lists when you’ve got some pretty uninspired nominations in that category.
Frank Clark: Postseason legend?
Postseason records are heavily tied to opportunity and Frank Clark could not have asked for a better opportunity than getting drafted by the Seahawks in 2015 and then traded to the Chiefs in 2019. However, it’s still very surprising that Clark could soon be the playoff’s all-time leader in sacks (more likely next year than this year) and impressive. Clark has 13.5 sacks in 16 career playoff games—more sacks than he’s ever had in a single regular season—and 2.5 of those have come this year.
The 29-year-old is not a Hall of Famer but you never know what could happen if he plays another six years. The biggest question I’m left with: Why have the Seahawks been so bad at finding any other edge rusher in the draft?
Podcasts feel finished
I started a Seahawks podcast over 10 years ago with Danny Kelly, then started a second podcast about the draft with Rob Staton, and in my life I’ve probably done at least 500 episodes of something. But last year it dawned on me that too many people in my position just started copying everybody else and are under the impression that in order to be a content creator that means you need to have: a blog, a podcast, a Twitter account, a TikTok account, a video component, a network of other people to put you on their podcasts, and so on and so on.
For me, I’m a writer. I’ve always loved writing. I don’t really think you should have a podcast unless you’ve always loved radio. I don’t think you should be on camera unless you have an actual desire to create a quality video program. Not a desire to make money by having a podcast or a YouTube show, but an actual burning need to make the best show about the thing that you talk about.
Ultimately, podcasting always felt forced for me. “Well, I hope this gets people to check out my writing.” Twitter only ever scratched an itch to be accepted by others. And TikTok is for kids; don’t make a TikTok to expand your brand unless you want to have a wider audience…of kids.
So the decision to stop podcasting and tweeting was as simple as any explanation could be: It freed up my time to do a better job of writing about the Seahawks and to solely focus on Seaside Joe. Best decision I’ve ever made in this industry.
It’s fine for other people to make podcasts, a few of them are good at it. Most of what I see today is essentially people who found an easy road between doing some form of coverage of a team and an audience. A podcast requires no equipment beyond what most people already own, no research, no preparation, no post-production, and no fees; this feels relevant to the Seahawks podcasts I’m aware of. For most, they’ve fallen straight into hitting “Start Live Stream”, rambling for an hour, and going back to their lives right after.
A free YouTube or Streamyard account will do the rest of the work—and there ain’t much work. In my opinion, the secret to building a following at this point is…to have been in the right place at the right time. To have been an early adopter. Most people are tuning in, but then kind of tuning out. “You’re talking about the Seahawks? Good enough for me.”
And that’s why I think podcasts are finally fading out. I know that you probably have your favorite shows and couldn’t imagine them going away, I’m sure many are here to stay, but the industry seems too wide and too oversaturated with creators who didn’t actually want the job to continue being a viable format for reaching an audience and selling ads.
Newsletters seem better to me!
I saw the headline and I was ready to COME FOR YOU. Then you went and made me remember why I come here; because I respect you're writing and the work you put it into it.
Anyway, this year's Super Bowl is the most interesting in YEARS. Can you win with an absolute worldy QB who costs you 17% of your cap space? Have Philly nailed the elite roster-cheap QB combo and made themselves a championship factory? Alongside the McCaffrey trade, this SB is one of the most interesting data points in the last few seasons.
I see this SB as validation or repudiation of the "the QB isn't everything--it's the only thing" POV. If Mahomes pulls it off, then hats off to him, and "finding the next Mahomes" continues the NFL-wide quest. But an Eagles win will Hurts that narrative.
Frank Clark? Meh. It helps that he makes a difference in big games. But the 'hit rate' in the first round (and draft generally) is the answer to "why haven't the Seahawks..."
Podcasts are for lazy writers. There, I said it.