He always had a way of explaining things so I could understand it easily and I found myself agreeing with what he had to say most of the time. He is also a very good wordsmith, where as like a Danny Kelly comes off better on the radio. It would be interesting to see what he has to say about this season. Let me know what you think. Go Hawks

Are you kidding? NO. Absolutely not.

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"I can "see" the Niners opening up at the Clink and being choked out so bad that the Hawks send the Niners into a downward spiral of futility that will make the 2010 losing streak look like a title run." - LoafOfTatupu

Okay....... I just think fieldgulls isn't the same without him. Also, based solely on your comment, I feel I may have missed out on some kind of Morgan hate fest. Be gentle I'm new here.

You are right, Field Gulls isn't the same without him, now it is written by intelligent, logical, rational people that don't strive for the validation of their readers and then freak out when people disagree with him.

Also, his book sucked. Learn your teams history and respect that history before you write a book about what Seahawks fans should do before they die.

I really couldn't stand that guy.

Not trying to bite your head off, this is my opinion, and it obviously differs with yours, and that's fine.

There are a lot of good wordsmiths here. Some of the people who write here are better than a lot of the people who get paid for it.

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Field Gulls is 1,000 times better since he left. It went from a site I wouldn't mention by name, to one I read regularly.

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Hell, Hop Head IS probably John Morgan.

Just as I thought, I missed the boat on the Morgan hate fest. All I know is this, when he left, I became less interested in fieldgulls. Now does that make me a complete idiot? Maybe I should give them another try.

Yep.

Apparently he's given up on football: http://www.fieldgulls.com/2012/12/2/372 ... fl-players

Morgan was always the year's first "root for us to lose for draft position" proponent and it always made me sick. I hated FG before and now I think it's great.

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We want the ball and we're gonna score.

Great writer, not so great person. If you ever waded into the comments section during his time you'd fully understand the reaction from a lot of people in this thread.

It is true that Morgan's writing was hard to top- when he was on point. Problem was, his brilliance birthed him an enormous ego, which prevented him from ever being wrong on anything, no matter how insignificant. He backed Tim Ruskell to the bitter end and he (and his minions) were extremely bitter and nasty regarding Ruskell's demise and the hiring of Carroll/Schneider. BrianL is 90% as bad as Morgan was, and I remember when John Schneider was hired and he found the dopiest picture of John Schneider he could find and captioned it "what is your job exactly, anyway?" Not exactly a warm welcome for our new GM. That post was eventually taken down. Huge e-fights in the wake of the Tapp and Wilson trades resulted in some very heavy revisionist edits after the fact- to erase from the record some of the horrible things they said to people who merely suggested that the world had not just ended.

Morgan had an essay, and it was if I may say the most narcissistic piece of trash I've ever read, that basically lamented that only incompetent people with connections could be GMs in the NFL- obviously directing it at John Schneider. He had another rant that was way worse along the same lines that he took down 24 hours later when he realized how insane it was (I think Montana still has a .txt copy of that one). In September he did a post ripping the shit out of both Wilson and Flynn. He'd later take it down. You might be noticing a theme here.

Now this week he did an essay talking about how he's quitting the NFL as a fan because it's a violent sport. He will probably take that one down too, because nobody is buying it and it just makes him look disingenuous. Football has always been a violent sport- in fact it's actually safer now than it's ever been. Nobody is stupid enough to believe he just figured this out. It's a paper thin facade for his real reason for quitting: that he just can't stand being wrong about Tim Ruskell and all the bad bets he took to double down on that position. Perhaps he even believes that if Ruskell were vindincated, he (Morgan) would be justified in how he treated others that disagreed with him.

I used to be a huge fan of his. I learned and grew a lot from reading his works. When he is on point there is no better writer anywhere, period. In 2008 I stuck my neck out promoting his work here at .net. A year later, out of the blue, he banned me for no sane reason (I was always civil and rarely confrontational), and I am reasonably sure he banned me because I was winning fans as a draft analyst, and he struggled to hide how much that bothered him that anyone else on his site could be looked up to. After he banned me he made up a rule saying that he could ban civil users if he felt like it.

I later learned that he suffers from some kind of mental illness- but I don't think that excuses much.

I actually don't read FGs anymore, but that's mainly because of the horrid scheme overhaul they had recently. Danny Kelly is a really nice guy whom I exchange emails with all the time. He may not be John Morgan as a writer but the site/community is clearly better with him in charge.

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"I believe there’s merit to the idea that once something in life becomes conventional, it’s no longer the safest path to success." -Matt Waldman
"If everyone's thinking alike, no one's thinking." -Bill Walsh

Anyone remember all his draft writeups during the first draft for Pete and John? It was pure insanity as he tried to make them look terrible, and had a borderline obsession with linking them to Taylor Mays.

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SEAHAWKS.NET. We All We Got, We All We Need

""I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity."

Always thought of this Calvin and Hobbes quote when I read his writing. Its a fun read, until you realize there is nothing behind it but half truths and hyperbole.

That said, John Morgan wasn't the first and certainly isn't the last person to use sports as a vehicle for self vindication. As it seems on this board as well some people are more concerned with being right than anything else. Morgan was a very public(in the Seahawks world) example of this.

I only really started to learn more about the Seahawks and other NFL teams in 2008 when I first started playing Fantasy Football and Madden. Before that I didn't know a tight end from a free safety, so I'm a newby when it comes to football fundamentals. I always found that John Morgan's articles had deep analysis and were extremely well presented so even a newbie like me could learn something from them. I was sad to see him go for this reason even though I was aware he had a lot of detractors. I like Danny Kelly and Field Gulls still pumps out good articles, but it doesn't quite feel the same as the analysis John Morgan provided.

I'm also with Kearly about the new site format. I don't go there nearly as much as I used to because of it.

I like HOW Morgan writes.

The opinion and thought process that makes up WHAT he actually writes, though... yeah, I don't miss that one little bit.

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Okay, so maybe that pass rush is still an issue. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who stopped going to this site as frequently, despite the good work they're doing, because of this. I find it extremely tough to navigate.

Same here, all the sites on that network got revamped and its a bitch to find your way around

Danny Kelly and his colleagues are more straightforward in their writing, but as football analysts they're the best the site has ever had. They can look at a play and go much further into the scheme origins, building blocks, and intentions of a play than anyone I've ever read around here.

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I just found his writing to be one long, thin veil over a planet-sized ego. And it wasn't very good writing at that. I found out recently that he was no longer blessing us mere mortals with his wisdom, but still can't be arsed checking to see if it's true.