In our last Dark Year

sutz":29j0k6th said:

kearly":29j0k6th said:

Funny thing about the Curry pick, as awful as it was, it helped get Tim Ruskell fired. Maybe if he takes Sanchez, maybe Ruskell gets a 2 year extension on account of a new QB. I don't know what the alternate timelines look like, but I have to believe it at least played a factor. If it did, you could argue that it was the best 1st round pick in the history of the franchise.

Also, we have a 5th rounder coming in this draft for Curry, in a year where a 5th feels an awful lot like a 3rd. We got a 7th last year- a pick that turned into JR Sweezy, who is already a more promising pro than Curry ever was.

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Except, Tim wasn't fired, he quit before the end of the season, which left Mora twisting in the wind and the players all wondering why they should care when the front office was so screwed up. If Timmay hadn't hit the door early, Mora might have gotten another season, which would have delayed Pete's arrival, maybe permanently.

IAE, I consider draft busts somewhat understandable in the shit happens category,and FAs disappoint all the time, especially in Seattle, so I had to go with the 2 kickers fiasco. At the time I remember somewhat understanding the idea behind the 2 kicker reasoning, but losing Bennett sucked big time. Was there no one else they could have cut?

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Except Bennett wasn't cut to keep an extra kicker. He was cut to sign a LT from the PS because our OL was hit wi injuries.

McGruff":2e4jnzis said:

Except Bennett wasn't cut to keep an extra kicker. He was cut to sign a LT from the PS because our OL was hit wi injuries.

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Yeah, I kind of thought that was a pretty simplistic way to look at it. Although one could make the case that the extra kicker could have been cut instead, too.

sutz":2rnyhvo0 said:

Although one could make the case that the extra kicker could have been cut instead, too.

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It's kind of ironic that we needed an extra kicker in the playoffs this past season.

The Curry pick was probably the most significant in getting Ruskell out of here. It's hard to dislike that.

Shadowhawk":2kgznnjl said:

I find it amusing that Ruskell's worst and best moves came in the same draft: taking Curry and trading for an extra first rounder in 2010.

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Not sure I would call the trade a good move, was more serendipity than anything else. Is there anyone who doesn't make that trade? It was mcdaniels being as dumb as we were.

Hard to vote just one, Curry I will allow since almost every scout and GM would have made that pick.

Losing Bennett, swapping Weaver for Griffith are pretty terrible in hindsight. I can forgive the other ones.

One of the biggest mistakes was initially giving nearly 30 year old Alexander a huge contract then when that didn't work out bringing in Jones and Ducket on big FA contracts. We probably should of let Alexander walk, started Morris and drafted a young RB.

I don't look at a couple of bad seasons as being "dark". That stretch between 89 and 02? That's what I'd call dark (even that 99 playoff appearance was horrible in its own right). This is completely age dependent, I'm sure.

Curry, easily. I remember I had class that Saturday and I had a friend next to me keep the NFL's draft page open so I could keep and eye on it. When our pick came up I was thinking, "Don't take Curry don't take Curry don't take Curry." When the pick updated, I told my friend to go ahead and close the window.

Man, imagine how Ruskell must feel. That pick pretty much ended his career.

Though I thought we wildly overpaid, I admit I was excited about the Houshmendzadeh pickup. I really thought he was going to come here and catch for a thousand yards a year. He caught for about 900, which is fine I guess, but it really soured me toward WRs in free agency. I was vehemently against the Brandon Marshall rumors after that. Even now I have a hesitant "show me" attitude toward the Percy Harvin deal.

sutz":1xivevy0 said:

kearly":1xivevy0 said:

Funny thing about the Curry pick, as awful as it was, it helped get Tim Ruskell fired. Maybe if he takes Sanchez, maybe Ruskell gets a 2 year extension on account of a new QB. I don't know what the alternate timelines look like, but I have to believe it at least played a factor. If it did, you could argue that it was the best 1st round pick in the history of the franchise.

Also, we have a 5th rounder coming in this draft for Curry, in a year where a 5th feels an awful lot like a 3rd. We got a 7th last year- a pick that turned into JR Sweezy, who is already a more promising pro than Curry ever was.

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Except, Tim wasn't fired, he quit before the end of the season, which left Mora twisting in the wind and the players all wondering why they should care when the front office was so screwed up. If Timmay hadn't hit the door early, Mora might have gotten another season, which would have delayed Pete's arrival, maybe permanently.

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I actually had an opportunity to talk to Todd Leiwicke at a company function (he was on the board of trustees) and as he related it (this was after Carroll had been hired but before Schneider was brought on), that decision to completely clean house was made early in the season. There was festering discontent going back to the Ruskell v. Holmgren days. The way it was worded to me left me with the impression that the decision to gut the front office was a corporate decision, not a football one.

It wasn't mentioned whether Mora had to be part of that. But I suspect that, not unlike how we aggressively attack unique opportunities to add players, Carroll may have been seen in the same way. Certainly, Seattle wanted to avoid similar mistakes it had made with Holmgren as uberlord and then trying to get him to coexist with other GMs. The dysfunction from the leadership perspective had preceded Mora.

I'm a firm believer in the negatives that happen in life have to happen for the great things to seem so amazing. As well as if those things never happened who is to say we would be where we are now. So I vote none of the above. They happened cause they needed to.

Yeah the Steelers suffered about 40 years of losing seasons, having said that is the Karma of losing for a while now becasue Dallas was so good so fast and had the moniker Americas Team.

Not sure how you can pick these 4 as issues, they all made sense at the time. Most fans were happy to get Housh and pretty much everyone in the world was on board with the Curry pick; the other two are about kickers and fullbacks..so....

If there is one thing I would critique the previous regime for it would be the terrible use of first round picks from about 2005 on -

2005 - chris spencer
2006 - Kelly Jennings
2007 - traded to the patriots for Branch (did anyone like that trade?)
2008 - lawrence jackson
2009 - Aaron Curry (can't blame them but add it to the list)

When that's how you spend five consecutive first-round picks, there's an issue.

Voted for the 2 kicker stupidity but as soon as we drafted curry i called it the worst pick in franchise history....

tooshort":1de91f6v said:

kearly":1de91f6v said:

Uh, transition tag anyone?

Branch trade, Babin release, and ditching Arian Foster at the 7th round altar deserve mention as well.

Edit: Oh, you just mean in 2009? Curry by a landslide.

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so you don't like us? Ruskell slams down phone VS Harvin,Avril,Bennett all lovin where they're going...It's a new day!

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To be fair I think most GMs would react like that. Absolutely guarantee that if PC/JS phoned up a guy in the 7th round and said "do you want to play for us" and the player said "ummm no not really" they would do the exact same thing.


I say Leonard Weaver over Curry, sometimes players just don't work it out at NFL level. Yes, taking him at number 4 was "reaching for him", but that guy would have been a bust no matter what round he was picked in, and every team that took an OLB after us would probably have taken Curry over Orakpo/Cushings etc too. I'd suggest that a few GMs would have reckoned he wouldn't be worth the 4th overall pick, but few would have seen him completely bombing out the way he did.

Saying a GM fails for not taking the best player in the draft is unfair, as not every GM is JS either - if that's the case you need to say that every single GM that took a cornerback before Richard Sherman or a QB before Russell Wilson should be fired.

Letting Weaver go was criminal. Though so was keeping 2 kickers. And trading Julian Peterson (although arguably he was traded away at just the right time, and if Curry had worked out it would have been a great move).

My stomach churns when I think of Ruskell, but what really makes my blood boil is to think about Wally Walker, who almost single-handedly destroyed the Sonics. Remember Jim McIlvane?

On the other hand, when I think of JS, I can't help but smile. Loving it.