TwistedHusky":2ldx159a said:
It is pretty much ridiculous to try to rank the Hawks now.
Too many holes, too many question marks.
Will we be competitive? Absolutely. We have a great QB and the NFL is slanted to favor teams that have that.
Can we run the ball? Did Rawls recover 100%? Will our offensive line be able to block effectively with so many losses?
I think if the team were concerned about Rawls injury as much as some fans seem to be, they would have had him get surgery. Further, everyone seems to forget that the run game was still one of the best in the NFL after Rawls went down, or that Seattle is likely to draft a pretty good RB this year.
Regarding the OL, it went from historically bad to basically about league average after the team switched to a spread heavy game plan. I think the line will likely be better after the draft, but even if it is worse, the spread will greatly mitigate the damage.
TwistedHusky":2ldx159a said:
How will the hits to our defense affect our effectiveness? Will our rookie DC get better and learn from his mistakes? Is he a top tier DC that can deal with the talent losses or an average DC that was successful because of the tremendous talent he had available?
I'm concerned about Richard's soft zones. Seattle downgraded from Irvin and Mebane. Those are concerns for me.
On the other hand, no more Kam holdout, no more Cary Williams, Jeremy Lane will show up in week one and not at the end of the season, etc.
The defense actually struggled last year and dropped significantly from its 2013 peak. The reasons for those struggles have already been corrected so I'm not worried much about it.
TwistedHusky":2ldx159a said:
Is our TE going to be able to even play at near the level he did? And will that even be a good thing considering the offense seemed better the moment he left the field?
Seattle's offense looked amazing with very little contributions from Tight Ends over the last several weeks of the season.
TwistedHusky":2ldx159a said:
Can our OL get even worse? And if it does, how does that affect this team? If we get more average OL that are better at pass blocking does our run game suddenly start to struggle? Can the new guys even run block like the guys we lost?
As said before, the spread is going to neutralize a lot of what has plagued our OL in the past. In terms of run blocking, it seems like Cable's scheme magically finds a way to produce good numbers with mostly bad run blocking, and this was more true than ever in 2015. I think Cable has a lot to answer for but the one feather he has in his cap has been consistent rushing production regardless of the quality of the OL.
TwistedHusky":2ldx159a said:
Do we even have an answer for the other side of Sherman?
Jeremy Lane is pretty good. Shead held his own. Tye Smith looked like a baller in college. Tharold Simon is maddening with penalties but good on coverage when playing outside.
I used to think that corner was a huge need for Seattle, but now I'm starting to think that the real problem was really just from early season complications (Cary Williams, Kam's holdout, new DC and new secondary coach).
I think Richard needs to trust his talent more and call for tighter zones, but the talent is decent enough.
TwistedHusky":2ldx159a said:
Given all those ?, "The QB is really good" is not going to be enough to know whether this team is 2, 5, 10 or ? There is literally no way I would rank a team that barely got into the playoffs, only won a single playoff game because of a fluke event and didn't really threaten in the 2nd game (beside threatening to almost tie) = #1. Especially after that team lost a bunch of pieces and then is scrambling to replace them with a bunch of nobodies.
The reason they ended at 10-6 is because they started 2-4. And the reason they started 2-4 had to do with a very unique set of conditions that doomed the team, including a particularly nasty SB hangover. It's not something I would expect to repeat again any time soon.
I don't think we've really lost anything that is going to hurt us much. Irvin will be a challenge to replace but Seattle can adjust around his absence. I'm not as high on Siliga as some people are but I think the dropoff from a 31 year old Mebane to Siliga is pretty modest.
Imagine if Seattle had utilized the spread from day one last season. Or if Kam hadn't held out. Or if a healthy Lane would have started over Cary Williams. Or if Thomas Rawls had been the guy from day one. Last season was very exciting, but left us with a lot of "what if" questions. I see 2016 as a chance to re-do the 2015 season and fix the mistakes, even with the roster as it currently exists it would be a very exciting team.
TwistedHusky":2ldx159a said:
Ultimately we have to hope our defense comes back into form, and some of the guys on the sidelines step up. We have no idea if they will be able to. If they can, sure, we can go right back to the top. If not? No chance. But with all the ? it would be impossible to objectively rank this team.
2015 was the year of the question mark for me. I had no idea if Seattle was going to go 16-0 or 10-6. You had the SB hangover, the Kam holdout, several new coaches, Marshawn could collapse at any time (and he did), our OC was burdened with a superstar TE to force-feed in a power offense that didn't really fit his skills, and then you had that crazy experiment on the OL which was made much worse by the demands of an inline power rushing offense.
By contrast, 2016 feels like everything is pretty much set in place and ready to continue the insane run that the team finished the 2015 season on.
I got a hunch that Seattle could hit 13 or 14 games this year, although I'm a little worried about the postseason since Seattle is built more for regular season dominance than postseason dominance at this point.