Weirdly I agree with you Keasely.
Sort of.
The LOB and the Lynch were the heart and soul of this team. And we probably could have won with another QB if we bothered to act then.
But when we traded Unger and Tate, it was over. We were then all in on Wilson.
Getting Jimmy Graham, a guy the LOB used to mock for being soft, was a sign it was over.
That said, Wilson made a lot of key 3rd down plays that year and the RPO made it very difficult to defend him.
The right move would have been to have run it back with Lynch & the LOB, then maybe look at whether going all in on Wilson made sense or trading to the Jets for picks was a better call.
But once loaded up on Wilson, we made the mistake because Carroll kept trying to play a type of football that did not fit his roster, especially after the LOB left.
Carroll was an architect, a program builder not really a good gameday coach. And so he was never a good enough coach to go all in with offensive weapons and make it work.
Once you have a basically average roster and all you have is a great QB? Then you find a way to make it work. We didn't.
NOTE:
It should also be noted that Let Russ Cook came after some of the worst first half offenses in Seahawk history. THAT led to the 2020. 2021 offenses.
But that earlier football was so digustingly boring and bad that I (and many other Seahawk fans) didn't even bother to watch the 1st halves. I routinely skipped the 1st halves and I had tickets! Would still show up to games at halftime because why bother?
Russ forced his offense because what Carroll was doing was repulsive bad football. Field position, clock bleeding, and the occasional FG. Remember the Panthers game where Russ at 50 yd passing AT THE HALF? Remember how we would AVERAGE less than a TD in the 1st half for almost over a year?
Please don't pretend Russ didn't force things for no reason. It was awful barely watchable garbage football in the 1st halves for almost 2 years.
You seemed to imply that Russ was unreasonable for demanding control of the offense. The only thing unreasonable is that he didn't do it sooner.
Solid post. I guess the point of divergence is what the cause of the poor offenses was, and what the appropriate solution was / is.
I agree that the early offense was often bland. But the question now in hindsight, given Russ's statistical performance on 3rd down, tendency to go off script for much of the game, and the struggles in getting defenses out of high 2 looks via a more diverse passing game, is whether the close games where we were maybe boring, but possessed the ball (helping the defense) were a correct, if not exciting adjustment, or whether it was just Pete being Pete - no creativity. Just run.
We saw the offense that we were clamoring for in the first halves you mentioned early on in Russ's tenure , in 2020, and 2021. Explosive for a bit, but then a liability when the defenses adjusted and our average drive duration plummeted to the dregs of the league. I think that result is what Pete was trying to avoid early on in his tenure and raging against last year and the year before. But the stubbornness was a bad on Russ
I think the correction was often overly simple, which was bad on Pete. But it was a correction. Our passing game has shown that it had none. Feast or famine. Big play or bust.
Pete, toward the end of last year shifted the offense to a slightly more varied run game that got us great results, and it seems his trust in Waldron amd commitment to creating a more dynamic (still run based) offense might be a sign that he's learned and is good with modernizing the approach.
You can certainly say that on defense.
So looking ahead, you can justifiably be frustrated at the strategy we shifted to to get the offense going, but history now shows it couldn't when Russ couldn't beat defenses from a pure xs and os, schematic perspective. At least now, the coaching staff seems to have adapted, and committed to building on a new approach.
The frustrating thing with Russ is that he drew a line, and even when he was given the reigns and showed the same flaws, doubled down and dug his feet in. His position that thr offense should hsvr been more " exciting' is maybe valid. But that 'excitement' required HIM to shift the passing game to one that coukd exploit defenses and spread the ball around to beat coverages - the one thing he has struggled to do. So he was complaining about not getting something only he could provide. But I honestly don't think he had a choice in playing his hand the way he did because even if he adopted a successful Waldron approach, the simple fact that it would rely on the run to keep it going, rather than that area of the pass game where he struggled, would ding his legacy. Best to pack up house and try to remake yourself elsewhere... different team, different coaches, and most importantly, IF it works, he will be recognized for having qb'd two winning franchises. Common denominator = #3. Free from Pete and the Hawks, Lynch and the LOB, regardless of whether he goes back to his RPO self. He'll secure his legacy.