EMERALD CITY & the 12TH MAN

 

SEAHAWKS HISTORY:

        The Coffee Capital of the World, Rain City, Transplant City, or as most know it as Emerald City is the home of the NFL’s 28^th franchise.  The “12^th man” refers to the fans of the Seattle Seahawks (used for many football teams) who were established as an NFL team at the start of the 1976 season.  The Seahawks were one of two expansion teams that first appeared in the NFL in 1976, the other team being the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  Upon joining the league, the NFL placed Seattle in the NFC West Division while having placed the Tampa Bay Bucs in the AFC West Division.  The Seahawks are the only NFL team to have ever switched conferences two times as the following season Seattle and Tampa Bay swapped conferences, placing the Hawks in the AFC West and the Bucs in the NFC North.  Seattle had been Division rivals with the Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs, and Denver Broncos from 1977-2002 before their departure, which placed them back into the NFC West.  Seattle is also the only NFL team in the league's history that has played in both an AFC Championship and NFC Championship Game.

        During the Seahawks' inaugural season, they started slow losing their first five games before picking up their first win as a franchise.  Ironically Seattle's first win came against their expansion brothers, Tampa Bay, when they won 13-10.  Their only other win that season came when they played the Atlanta Falcons three weeks later.  In year two they again struggled to open the season, losing four straight games before grabbing their first win, yet again over the Buccaneers 30-23 in what became known as the “Expansion Bowl II”.  These Seahawks undoubtedly had many great players in their team history, though none better than Hall of Famer wideout Steve Largent.  Steve Largent was drafted by the Houston Oilers in the 1976 NFL Draft but was traded to Seattle in the preseason, thus never playing a game for Houston.  This move would become one of the most successful in the Seahawks’ franchise.

 

PETE CARROLL ERA:

        Carroll served as a defensive specialist coach at the collegiate level and in the NFL.  He started his coaching career at Iowa State, where he spent a year (1978) before moving to Ohio State for one season in 1979.  Pete was initially a secondary coordinator for both Ohio & Iowa State until he caught North Carolina State’s eye when they brought him in to be their defensive coordinator from 1980-1982.  His next opportunity was a one-year stay, yet again, this time it was at Pacific in 1983 as their DC.  Then Pete finally got his chance in the NFL as a defensive backs coach with the Buffalo Bills.  After spending a season with Buffalo, some time with Minnesota (1985-1989), and a three-year stint with the New York Jets, long-behold Pete Carroll got a shot as Head Coach for the Jets.  Unfortunately, it was only a one-season gig as their HC, and his next chance didn’t come until three years later when the New England Patriots hired him to fill their HC role where he lasted from (1997-1999).  Two failed attempts as an NFL HC led coach Carroll back to the NCAA to become USC Trojans Head Coach from (2001-2009).

        Pete Carroll spent a total of thirty-six years coaching for eleven different programs.  Along his way to finding long-term success with one organization, coach Carroll had spent many years serving six college teams and five NFL teams before becoming a mainstay with the Seattle Seahawks.  While coaching for Seattle, Pete Carroll enjoyed a successful tenure of fourteen years from (2010-2023).  Carroll was quite triumphant while accomplishing a few huge milestones for this team and organization over his longevity in Seattle.  In his first year as Seattle’s head coach the Seahawks won the NFC West; in doing so, they became the only team in NFL history to win their division with a record of 7-9.  On top of winning their division, they also beat the odds in a major way while upsetting the previous Super Bowl Champs (New Orleans Saints) 41-36 in the wild-card round of the playoffs.  Year three (2012) marked Pete Carroll’s biggest achievement yet as the Seahawks head coach when he led them to an 11-5 record while also going undefeated at home. 

 

SEATTLE’S SUPER BOWLS; LEGION OF BOOM:

The following season the Seahawks tied their franchise's best all-time regular season record 13-3, while making it to the pinnacle of the sport.  Seattle’s dominant defense, Legion of Boom (LOB) brought them to a place that Seattle had never seen before, the Super Bowl.  They met the Peyton Manning-led Denver Broncos, who had the number one offense in the NFL in 2013 and had also broken several records that season: leaguewide and franchise records.  Seattle ended up doing the unthinkable and upset the Denver Broncos and eventual Hall of Famer Peyton Manning in not only beating the NFL’s number one offense but routing them 43-8.

After Pete Carroll brought the Seahawks their very first Lombardi Trophy it was obvious that the whole city of Seattle believed in this team and was completely locked in.  However, it seemed like their success was only getting ready to grow.  Carroll and Seattle’s defensive coordinator Dan Quinn had one of the best defenses of all time with the Legion of Boom (LOB).  This group of monstrous supremacy was led by cornerback, Richard Sherman and safeties Earl Thomas & Cam Chancellor.  The Seahawks' next season was almost as fruitful as their previous one as they wound up finding themselves at the pinnacle of the sport for the second consecutive season.  Though, unfortunately for them, the outcome was much different this time around as they ran into Bill Belichick and Tom Brady’s dynasty, the New England Patriots.  To coach Carroll’s displeasure his former team, the New England Patriots proved that they weren’t yet done with their preeminence and Carroll’s team suffered defeat in Super Bowl XLIX.  Still, to this day, there are whispers both in the NFL and in the streets of football fans everywhere about how that game ended and that maybe if Seattle had only elected to hand the ball off to their running back (Marshawn Lynch) they would have ended up winning their second straight Super Bowl.  Instead, they chose to pass the ball from the one-yard line as we watched Russell Wilson throw it into the hands of the Patriots cornerback, Malcolm Butler.

       

CURRENT SEATTLE SEAHAWKS:

        The 2024 NFL season is now just four weeks away from the regular season-ending.  As for Seattle, they have had some ups and some downs, starting the season 3-0 but then started to unravel through the course of the season.  Seattle has now won four in a row and looks primed for a playoff run with new head coach Mike Macdonald.  Mike is best known for his awesome defensive-minded style and was the Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator last season.  Mike isn’t the only new coach in Seattle as they also replaced their defense and offense coordinators when they hired Ryan Grubb as their OC, who spent the last two seasons as the Washington Commanders' OC and quarterback coach.  On the defensive side, Seattle brought in Aden Durde.  Coach Durde served as the Dallas Cowboys defensive line coach for the past three seasons.  Before their recent win streak started, the upside of this season for Seattle had been within their first three weeks of the season when they beat the Broncos (26-20) in a comeback win at home, followed by a meeting with the New England Patriots when they outlasted the Pats on the road in O.T (23-20).  Week three was a complete routing of a subpar Miami Dolphins team without their star QB Tua Tagovailoa (24-3).  Then things certainly started to take a turn for the Seahawks as the Detroit Lions proved to be a little too much for Seattle in a (42-29) loss on Monday Night football.  Then in weeks five and six Seattle dropped two straight games at home to a bad New York Giants team (29-20) and the Seahawks' NFC West divisional opponents, the San Francisco Forty Niners (36-24).

        Seattle is now up one game in the NFC West over the Los Angeles Rams.  However, they still have some work to do before we can write them into the postseason.  They have one of the most difficult schedules left of any NFL team.  Seahawks will be playing two of the top NFC teams in the next two weeks with back-to-back NFC North opponents.  The only good you can make of this schedule is that they will be playing host to both Green Bay and Minnesota.  After that, they must face a tough defensive team that just terminated their head coach, the Chicago Bears.  When all that is said and done they will take a trip to L.A. in week 18 when they will duke it out with their division rivals, the Rams.  The Rams just came off a win and could stay hot now that they are healthy once again.  I also wouldn't completely count the Cardinals out, but Seattle will have to lose three of their last four games for the Cards to catch them at this point (Seattle swept Arizona).  Mike Macdonald's team is in a good place right now, I didn't see them winning this division coming into the year.  I still have less faith in them than the Rams or Cardinals but they do have the lead as of right now.

        The Seahawks’ offense is currently ranked 13th in the NFL in total yards per game (344.4), they are actually third-best in the NFC West in that statistic.  They are also ranked 15th in points per game (23.2).  Their passing offense is 3rd in the league with 249 yards per game thanks to the NFL’s 2nd best quarterback in total passing yards Geno Smith (3,474 yards).  Second-year wideout Jaxson Smith-Njigba is surely coming along well as he is currently tied for 9th in receptions with 75 and also ranks 6th in receiving yards (911 yards).  Defensively they have dramatically dropped in almost every category since the start of the season, however, they still pose the tenth-best pass defense, allowing 212.5 yards per game.  Just remember that they have a first-year head coach, they’ve been battling injuries to numerous starters on their defense, and they have beaten most of the teams that have looked weaker than them.  The exception comes with the loss to the Giants who've been very bad so far this year.  However, it is not how you start the season, but how you finish that matters most.  One last note is their O-line play, it has been a little better as of recently, though that is one thing to watch for with these next couple of games coming against good defensive units.  Particularly when they host the Minnesota Vikings with Brain Flores dialing up more blitzes than any other DC this season. 

NEW YORK, NEW YORK; BIG BLUE EDITION

 

            I will do my best to keep this one short and sweet as there isn’t very much for me to say about a franchise that has been in dismay for the past couple of seasons.  I know that the fans of Big Blue would have my head if I did not mention that the New York Giants did make the Playoffs just two seasons ago, but that is already starting to feel like a lifetime ago.  This past offseason the Giants team was dismantled, well maybe that is going a little too far, but then again, they did lose quite possibly the best offensive player that they’ve had in recent memory and maybe since I’ve been alive.  That’s right, that is just how good the Giants’ now ex-running back Saquon Barkley had been for New York.  Don’t get me wrong here, I know that this is the same team that once had tight end Jeremy Shockey, wideouts Amani Toomer, Victor Cruz, Hakeem Nicks, Plexico Burress, and of course Super Bowl hero David Tyree.  The running backs that these G-men have had over the years were also pretty good like Brandon Jacobs, Ahmad Bradshaw, and eventual Hall of Famer Tikki Barber.  Over the last two seasons, Barkley had accounted for roughly 70-80% of the Giants' offense and is already the first or second option on his new team, the Giants division rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles.

            The G-men have already gotten off to an unfavorable start this season with a 2-4 record and I don’t see them turning it around anytime soon.  They opened the season in the worst possible way, taking an absolute beating at home from the Minnesota Vikings 28-6.  They also lost two divisional games to both the Washington Commanders in a close 21-18 game and of course, losing another closely contested game to the Dallas Cowboys in primetime 20-15.  These Giants did manage to beat a better Seahawks team on the road, one where they were without their superstar rookie receiver, Malik Nabers in a 29-20 upset.  This past Sunday night we all witnessed the Giants drop another primetime matchup when the Cincinnati Bengals and all-star quarterback Joe Burrow came to town.  It was a bittersweet loss because Big Blue’s defense showed up, holding two of the league's top wideouts to under one hundred yards each, but their offense was terrible.  Cincy held the Giants to 190 passing yards and only 4.2 yards per play, they only allowed NY to score seven points total (NYG missed a FG).  Not only that, but the NYG were somehow only able to convert 5/15 third downs and ran over 70 offensive plays (74 total plays).  The Giants need to do something quick to turn their awful play around, I mean they were only penalized just twice in that game for only 9 yards and led the game in time of possession (34:07).  That would normally be a recipe for success but not for this team.  New York also found themselves only punting the ball four times, which would make you think that they led their team to a lot of scoring drives, on the contrary, they just elected to go for it on fourth down five different times in the game and a surprising twist had them converting on three of those attempts.  Three scoreless quarters with seven points in the third quarter is terrible, especially against a defense that ranks 23^rd in yards allowed per game (356) and 26^th in points allowed per game (25.3).

            On the other side of the ball, the Giants have been decent thus far.  Through the first six weeks of the season, New York’s defense is holding opponents to 314 yards per contest, which ranks tenth in the league.  They rank fifteenth in rush defense allowing 116.3 yards a game, twelfth in pass defense, giving up 197.7 yards through the air, and are only letting teams score 20.2 points per game, ranking ninth in that category.  It’s largely noticeable that their offense is holding them back from any success as of right now.  You need to score points in the NFL to have a chance to win games and right now they are only putting up 16 points per game (29th).  The Giants are 20^th in the league in total offense with 319.3 yards per game, their passing attack is 18^th with 213.5 yards per game, and the run game is pushing them to just over 100 yards per game on the ground (105.8) which ranks 24^th in that statistic.

            On the bright side, the Giants could be getting their number one draft pick back in their lineup for their week seven inter-divisional game against the Philadelphia Eagles.  The G-men have been without their rookie wideout Malik Nabers for the past two weeks now, due to a concussion he sustained in the Thursday night matchup against the Cowboys in week four.  The Giants are a bit banged up right now and have hopes that they will be able to get their starting running Devin Singletary back from a groin injury soon that he also sustained in week four.  New York is anticipating that their kicker Graham Gano will be back sooner rather than later from his hamstring injury.  Though for their O-line it seems like they may have lost their starting left tackle, Andrew Thomas.  It was reported earlier today that Andrew Thomas is exploring season-ending surgery for a foot injury he experienced this past week against the Bengals.  I like the Giants coach Brian Daboll and think that Big Blue’s head coach is doing everything he can to right the ship, but I also feel that it is ultimately too much for him and this team to overcome this season.  This NFC East is one of the toughest divisions in all of football, with everything that has been happening In East Rutherford, New Jersey I don’t expect Daboll to go anywhere anytime soon.  With the emergence of Washington’s rookie quarterback, this is starting to seem more and more like a three-team division in the short term, though these G-men do have some interesting pieces that could put them right back into the mix next season.