Dodson expected to be released

[CPHawk]

Signing the guys to replace Brooks and Wagner just to see those two gone mid season. What a failure of LB signing and evaluation.

We basically signed both after the top guys all got signed

 

[Seahawks fan]

I'm fine with the move Dodson wasn't exactly playing great & he might not have been a fit in this scheme at least in Mike's eyes... I'm going to trust the process and let Mike make the moves as he sees fit...

 

[warden]

Dodson was pretty good at missing tackles

 

[jammerhawk]

He wasn’t that great at coverage either.

He played well at Buffalo for a season but they were’nt ready to pay him. Hmmm?

It’s not JS ‘s responsibility that he underplayed his contract and was a focal point of defensive weakness for the team. I Suspect they were ready to take the green dot away from him and he protested that he should keep it over Jones, so he was let go.

 

[strohmin]

Im glad he is willing to try different things during the season instead of wasting the whole season with useless players.

 

[keasley45]

He was probably somebody Mac pushed for as a fit for his defense. I doubt it was all on JS.

Agree.

And i'll say again that its mighty strange that somehow players that come here under these coaches, despite being thought of as good players, all of a sudden are SO bad that they look like they've never played the game (speaking here more about the o line).

The consensus on Dodson before he came to Seattle and forgot how to play:

..."the 6-foot, 237-pounder, “Dodson graded out as one of Pro Football Focus’ three best linebackers in 2023, finishing with an elite 86.8 coverage grade that ranked ahead of Ravens All-Pro defender Roquan Smith.


“Along with a fantastic 10.6 percent run stop rate that ranked in the top 10 for linebackers, he produced 11 pressures and 2.5 sacks on just 41 blitz opportunities as well, posting a gaudy 26.8% pressure rate when sent as an extra rusher by the Bills.”

So he dropped from top 10 against the run to incapable of stopping it at all? And of course... different system, different teammates next to him. But from all arrows pointing way up to outright released? I thought he was also seen as a great lockeroom guy?

According to Mike himself, his 'scheme' isnt anything that re-invents the wheel. Do his disguises shift resposibilities between the LBs and DBs at the snap depending on where he is bringing pressure or weighting rush defense? Sure. But are the presnap alignments v postsnap sets SO complex a thing that a player who by all accounts was a potential 'diamond in the rough' signing is entirely incapable of grasping it? Or, is something getting lost in the message?

I do really hope that Baker and Dodson are as bad as they have been made out to be by these moves. If Ernest Jones all of a sudden starts to crap the bed, I think we will know what the real problem is.

But blaming JS and absolving Mike from having any responsibility in who was brought here is funny.

I think Macdonald came here with a wishlist of players he wanted and JS tried to accomodate him. Looking back, JS NOT making a bigger effort to sign Brooks... that smells more and more like Brooks having been a priority signing for JS but not so much for Mike, hence the, 'we were so distracted with signing Williams that Brooks 'got away' .. beyond lame excuse. I dont think Mac wanted him because he had his heart set on Queen. But Queen wanted no part of Mike or this team.

And THAT point, along with no other Raven's player wanting to follow him to Seattle where you'd think they'd be stars on the team... but none came... still smells a little suspect.

So, Mike and John went shopping and for whatever reason now are 0-2 with the Jury on his 3rd LB selection still out.

Why folks think its all Schneider is beyond me.

But, maybe it is just a case of bad fit. I Pray to God that thats what it is and that everything else I'm seeing is wrong.

 

[knownone]

I don't think Dodson was actually an issue here. He was a solid rotational LB.

What probably happened is that Macdonald watched the tape, realized Dodson wasn't the long-term solution, and wanted to see what he had in the younger guys. Given that Dodson is on a prove-it deal, he likely wasn't thrilled about taking on a reduced role, so Seattle cut him to allow him to find a better situation.

The failure to re-sign Brooks, despite wanting to, is the most interesting element of the LB situation. The messaging is all over the place. Linebacker is somehow the most important position on this defense, but not important enough to prioritize our best LB in a relatively weak market. And it's not like Brooks signed a massive contract. He signed a team-friendly prove-it deal for a little more than Baker.

 

[keasley45]

I don't think Dodson was actually an issue here. He was a solid rotational LB.

What probably happened is that Macdonald watched the tape, realized Dodson wasn't the long-term solution, and wanted to see what he had in the younger guys. Given that Dodson is on a prove-it deal, he likely wasn't thrilled about taking on a reduced role, so Seattle cut him to allow him to find a better situation.

The failure to re-sign Brooks, despite wanting to, is the most interesting element of the LB situation. The messaging is all over the place. Linebacker is somehow the most important position on this defense, but not important enough to prioritize our best LB in a relatively weak market. And it's not like Brooks signed a massive contract. He signed a team-friendly prove-it deal for a little more than Baker.

Good points. And that may in fact be the case - that Dodson REFUSED to give up snaps. It just still feels a bit like scapegoating. If they sat down with him and it was 100% unequivocabaly shown on tape that he was playing so poorly that they needed to sit him some, I'd think a player with any integrity would say - ' i get it, I am f'ing up '... I mean, players get demoted all the time, whether for a half, a game, a handful of games. It would just seem that even in the scenario where he was resistant to whatever degree to sitting, there had to be some significant disagreement as to WHY he wasnt playing up to his abilities for him to flat out say, i refuse to be benched so that a guy with zero experience can start instead...releaese me.

Again, thats just me reading the tea leaves across the board relative to what i feel are disconnects between the staff and players. From Dk's shenenigans calling up to Grubb, to Tyler saying the players arent serious enough about fundamentals, to players who are in Seattle, seemingly falling off a performance cliff and looking like backups when prior to being here and sometimes after, their play is better... to simply ackowledging that we have a coaching staff across the board that has ZERO experience at their current positions prior to this year.

 

[hawks85]

Well. I’ll say this. Every time Mike has made a adjustment or release to that Defense, it’s been a step in the right direction

 

[getnasty]

Something tells me he did something he shouldn't have during the bye week or he's a problem in the locker room.

Why cut the guy after you just had your best defensive game against the run all year and he's only playing his second game and a new postion.

If we want to call it an evaluation or 17 week preseason then hopefully we see Sam Howell fairly soon. Even if Geno give us a better chance today he's not the future.

I would say MM has as much input on Baker and Dodson being signed here as JS does. Obviously JS has final say so he'll take the blame but it's not solely a JS problem.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Or he just doesn't take as much crap as it seems. When he came here, that was one of the things I was most excited out. Pete was a hell of a coach, but his lack of accountability for many players hurt the team, imo. And loyal to a fault, often. I just want the team to win, and if it takes a couple years, so be it.
It's extremely frustrating watching this team play though. Damn

 

[hawkfan68]

Didn't Baker and Dodson miss most of TC and preseason because of injury? I think maybe they still have lingering effects of their respective injuries. Not playing in TC and preseason didn't give the coaches time to evaluate them.

 

[uncle fester]

I’m all for fixing - or attempting to fix - problems earlier, rather than waiting and hoping

It could just be that no FA LBs on the market earlier this year were going to be up to the task of whatever the new scheme requires, hence the one-year deals

 

[LeveeBreak]

Didn't Baker and Dodson miss most of TC and preseason because of injury? I think maybe they still have lingering effects of their respective injuries. Not playing in TC and preseason didn't give the coaches time to evaluate them.

Baker missed almost all of it. I think Dodson was held for a bit, but he played a ton of snaps in preseason where he stood out in a positive way, albeit in vanilla schemes.

 

[LeveeBreak]

I read an MM quote from yesterday that said Dodson & Baker decisions were for different reasons. Would like to know what those were.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

I think he has a little Bill B. in him. He's not gonna' divulge much, imo.

 

[bileever]

I hope that Macdonald's right in his assessment that Dodson was the problem. He seems confident that we'll be better off with Tyrice Knight, who has seemed pretty good when he's played.

By all accounts, Dodson is a hard-working guy who said all the right things about willing to play whatever role was asked of him when Ernest Jones came on the scene. He filled in as the WIL at Buffalo last year due to injuries and played very well, grading in the top 5 among LBs. So it's a little hard to believe there isn't a role for him here. Not to mention the possibility of injuries depleting an already thin linebacking corps.

I just hope that Macdonald isn't using Roquan Smith as the standard for linebackers because there aren't too many of those around, and the rest of the NFL has to make it work with mid-level LBs. Macdonald's defense last year had two Pro Bowl LBs with Smith and Patrick Queen. Most defenses don't have that luxury.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

I might be in the small minority, and that's fine, but I trust the many people around the NFL that talk about how very good MM is. He knows what he's doing, imo. Just needs time. Pete was afforded time to flip the roster how he wanted. Coach Mike should get the same benefit. It just feels like he's getting a different standard and expected to do more, a lot faster than he should. It's easy to be very impatient as a sports fan, and I'm guilty of it myself. Until I step back and realize that we are seeing what we thought we would see. A first-year rollercoaster.

 

[Appyhawk]

Dodson was our defensive green dot guy.
SURPRISE!
I expect despite short tenure Jones inherits the leadership role. No surprise there. He seems like the real deal. Putting together an entire team of "real deals" might take awhile.

 

[AgentDib]

Please name one off season acquisition this year that JS made that has worked out well for us. Scouting is everything!

Completely fair point and thus far this last offseason has very few successes. It is worth bearing in mind that if you end up hitting eventually then how many previous misses you had isn't that important. You just have to take more swings to make up for the lower accuracy rate.

We started out with some re-signings that have looked like overpays. 21.5m APY for Leonard Williams and 10.5m APY for Noah Fant. Artie Burns was inexpensive for 1m but barely played and then landed on IR.

Next were a bunch of RFA/ERFA misses. Darrell Taylor, Michael Jackson, Myles Adams, Jon Rhattigan, McClendon Curtis, Raiqwon O'Neal, Josh Onujiogu, Brady Russell. The decisions here weren't necessarily bad since they are relatively cheap but none of them worked out.

Our UFA hasn't worked out thus far. Rayshawn Jenkins 6m (injury), Pharoah Brown 3.2m, George Fant 4.5m (injury), Nick Harris 2.4m, Jerome Baker 7m, Tyrel Dodson 4.2m, Tremayne Anchrum 1.2m. Laken Tomlinson 1m and Jonathan Hankins 2m were inexpensive and have both played a lot, but neither has looked very good. Laviska Shenault is probably our best acqusition at 1.3m.

The draft has been disappointing initially but it is too soon to reach a conclusion. Murphy has been OK and the injury probably set him back a bit. We're getting contributions from the others but thus far they've generally looked like relatively weak links while on the field. If we do drop a couple of these key upcoming games then I'd like to see a heavy focus on playing and developing our youth to see at least see what we have in them.
16 - DT Byron Murphy
81 - OG Christian Haynes
118 - LB Tyrice Knight
121 - TE AJ Barner
136 - CB Nehemiah Pritchett
179 - OT Sataoa Laumea
192 - CB DJ James
207 - OT Michael Jerrell

UDFA also doesn't look great. Dee Williams made the team, but he's had some rough games and right now I'm expecting us to upgrade next offseason.