ESPN highlights Seahawk weaknesses

[Attyla the Hawk]

Maybe I am terribly wrong and/or disgracefully full of shit. But I don't think it's possible to know until next season is over and we've seen the differences between a Gus Bradley defense and a Dan Quinn one.

I think you might agree, that it's a question we will never get a good answer for. Obviously, you cannot divorce the fact that Seattle doesn't have the personnel to pass rush effectively. And Seattle hasn't exactly invested in that role heavily either.

Despite the #15 pick used on Irvin, I don't find him a big investment in the pass rush. Mostly, because it was presumed that he would be a 3rd down specialist on passing downs -- and that's what he turned into. Even though he was effective, the team would, by design, remain broken in the rush department from it's base personnel. We even passed on such a player in order to get a 3rd down specialist.

We haven't really sought and drafted (or signed) DL players who could be multidimensional and provide both run and pass defense. And I'd offer that we've done that specifically because those prospects are more expensive (cash or draft capital). We have been thus far reluctant to pay market price for the kind of player that could significantly improve our everydown pass rush. It's remained a position of neglect on this team.

As it pertains to the Atlanta game -- Sometimes you have to concede that the other team is good too. They abused our middle pass defense. In that, we are still suspect -- second to our ability to collapse a pocket. How much of that is due to Wagner being a rookie? I can't say. I'm hopeful that gets tightened down from just expected improvement related to experience. Honestly, any time you have a first ballot Hall of famer matched up with a rookie MLB -- the results should be predictable. We got burned in the one matchup we were most at risk.