Cyrus12":9u1z090p said:
Which TBF, is kind of the strategy a little bit.
I know people are angry because the Seahawks lost yesterday (so I want to tread lightly and don't want to overstate things) but as I see it, it's the combination of three things (although I'll preface by saying I think they'll be fine):
1) The Seahawks landed an insane amount of Top 5 talent at the same time, all of whom are now on their second deals. I don't think this was by design, but they took a "superstar approach" and didn't let a single one of these guys walk -- it's the type of thing you see in the NBA (hold onto your superstars and treat everyone else as replaceable) but don't see as much in the NFL. Basically, to employ this strategy you need to "steal" from depth and from your average to above average starters in order to invest in your superstars. So, if the question is where is the Seahawks' depth, the answer is that it's tied up in the contracts of Wilson, Sherman, ET, Graham, Wagner, Bennett, Baldwin (top 5 slot receiver IMO) and so on. This strategy also prevents them from reloading for depth and average talent at the other positions in FA (why Hawks fans were stuck hoping that J'Marcus Webb wouldn't actually be J'Marcus Webb).
2) As a winning team, the Seahawks have for three or four years had to deal with people overpaying for their marginal talent on the FA market. They lost another five starters to FA this year, all of whom (except for Okung, but that's on him) were overpaid. If I were paid to be a football writer I'd go back and look at starters lost to FA over the last five years by team. I suspect the Hawks would be #1 in this measure. You could measure overpayment by FAs who were still starting on their new teams two years after being signed. The Hawks would likely be #1 on this team too (guys poached from them who then get benched or cut because they were decent starters who got paid like very good starters).
3) After going on a historic draft run from 2010-2012, so far from 2013-2016 they've drafted pretty poorly (and yes, it's obviously not that fair to comment on 2016 picks yet, and probably even 2015 picks). Really the only potential difference makers you can point to in four years of drafting are Frank Clark and Tyler Lockett, and they're still both role players. More damaging is the four years of misses on average talent (for the Hawks' "superstar" strategy to work they just need to draft about 2.5 average starters per year -- around top 16 at the position -- and so far they haven't done that over the past four years).
TWO WAYS TO LOOK AT THIS:
1) People give the Seahawks a lot of credit for how many UDFAs they employ, but that has as much to do with 1, 2, and 3 above as it does with them hitting on UDFAs.
2) If you take the top 8 or 9 players on the Seahawks their top 8 is IMO much, much, better than any other team in the NFL, and I really don't think it's that close. For the remaining 44 or 45 players on the active roster though, we're basically talking about the 9ers or the Browns. In that type of situation if you've got two of those top 8 out (Bennett and Kam) and another one majorly hobbled at the QB position (Wilson) you're basically going from a top team in the NFL to merely an above average one.
