What are you strongest disagreements with popular opinions?

[purpleneer]

Mine start with disagreeing about last season. Making the playoffs was absolutely NOT overachieving; I truly felt that the team should have done better. There was reason to expect a slow start with the changes (really Cable was the only one that needed to happen), but slow starts were already the norm for the good Seahawk teams. The roster behind those big names lost was way better than most thought, which brings me to my next big disagreement with the consensus.

We absolutely should NOT be so eager to trade down, as we have a roster without room to benefit from volume and even in the deepest of DL classes, there are never enough top any-down DEs. I'm not a fan of locking into drafting a position, but this Seahawks team has one hole, another guy who plays the edge in any situation and doesn't need to know whether it's run or pass to be effective. People have fallen in love with the outside-in guy, but many of the players doing that aren't good enough to get pressure if the opponent happens to pass on a "run down." People underestimate or forget how effective Michael Bennett was at getting pressure from the edge without sacrificing ability against the run. Same with Brandon Mebane, who (particularly pre-injury) would at least collapse the pocket when teams tried to pass on first down.

This all might seem like I'm in denial about how many losses were the result of unreliable offense, but this is where the improvement can occur with the guys already in. Just increasing the willingness to adapt to opponents and take what's easier/more effective (use the GD intermediate middle!) will help sustain drives. Year 2 of having a QB/OC together should help with processing and decisions, especially audibles, being quicker and finding the easy first downs more. The receivers other than Baldwin and Lockett may appear to have been inconsistent and had gaps in production, but I'd argue that's from both Brown and Moore being undertargetted from RW hesitating and looking too much where he already had chemistry.

All that said, it's really hard to not want more guys coming out and it's insane fun to project potential roster improvement. It's possible to improve the roster in many spots, but unless the league wakes up and fixes the problem of rosters being too small, adding volume of late picks is just going to grow the list of guys you like but have to let go to other teams.

 

[chris98251]

Mine start with disagreeing about last season. Making the playoffs was absolutely NOT overachieving; I truly felt that the team should have done better. There was reason to expect a slow start with the changes (really Cable was the only one that needed to happen), but slow starts were already the norm for the good Seahawk teams. The roster behind those big names lost was way better than most thought, which brings me to my next big disagreement with the consensus.
We absolutely should NOT be so eager to trade down, as we have a roster without room to benefit from volume and even in the deepest of DL classes, there are never enough top any-down DEs. I'm not a fan of locking into drafting a position, but this Seahawks team has one hole, another guy who plays the edge in any situation and doesn't need to know whether it's run or pass to be effective. People have fallen in love with the outside-in guy, but many of the players doing that aren't good enough to get pressure if the opponent happens to pass on a "run down." People underestimate or forget how effective Michael Bennett was at getting pressure from the edge without sacrificing ability against the run. Same with Brandon Mebane, who (particularly pre-injury) would at least collapse the pocket when teams tried to pass on first down.
This all might seem like I'm in denial about how many losses were the result of unreliable offense, but this is where the improvement can occur with the guys already in. Just increasing the willingness to adapt to opponents and take what's easier/more effective (use the GD intermediate middle!) will help sustain drives. Year 2 of having a QB/OC together should help with processing and decisions, especially audibles, being quicker and finding the easy first downs more. The receivers other than Baldwin and Lockett may appear to have been inconsistent and had gaps in production, but I'd argue that's from both Brown and Moore being undertargetted from RW hesitating and looking too much where he already had chemistry.
All that said, it's really hard to not want more guys coming out and it's insane fun to project potential roster improvement. It's possible to improve the roster in many spots, but unless the league wakes up and fixes the problem of rosters being too small, adding volume of late picks is just going to grow the list of guys you like but have to let go to other teams.

More separation of paragraphs to ease eye strain is my first popular opinion.

Hit Enter button in between paragraphs makes it way easier to read and follow.

Like this.

 

[Seahawks Guy]

None. I pretty much always agree with the majority opinion.

 

[A-Dog]

Disagree with the strategy of trading down when there are multiple players you like, hoping the cards fall like you think they will, and picking whoever drops to you.

When there is an opportunity to trade UP for a guy you REALLY LIKE, a guy who fits YOUR TEAM and is your top POSITION OF NEED, you should do it if the opportunity is there.

Trading down makes sense sometimes, but trading up does as well.

 

[ImTheScientist]

I disagree that paragraphs are needed.

 

[TreeRon]

Earth is round.

 

[Tical21]

I apologize, but I basically disagree with all.

I think our record is higher than our talent level. We basically got really good at one thing and made us unique in a way that made us hard to beat. But with our personnel, 10-4 in the last 14 just seems insane to me, especially defensively. We lost soooo many good players, and I'd include Doug and KJ. We have some pretty major holes on the roster, and it is pretty rare to see such good teams with such major holes in key places.

I also strongly disagree about the draft. Because we have so many holes and so many needs, and because our ability to draft at the end of the 1st round has been abysmal, and because we have four picks, we need to trade down this year more than ever. When you don't draft efficiently, you need to get a lot of lines in the water. We need new players badly at LB, Safety, CB, DE, DT, OL and WR. And 4 picks isn't going to go very far to address these things. Because we have so few picks, guys like David Moore, Shaquill, T2, Jefferson, Pocic, Britt, etc, will have less competition than they should, and we will be forced to start some of these guys again and pray that they play better.

There are plenty of places where I don't agree with the popular opinion, but if the above is the popular opinion, I'm in agreement.

 

[A-Dog]

I would trade our entire draft and throw in a player or two for Quinnen Williams.

 

[purpleneer]

I apologize, but I basically disagree with all.

I think our record is higher than our talent level. We basically got really good at one thing and made us unique in a way that made us hard to beat. But with our personnel, 10-4 in the last 14 just seems insane to me, especially defensively. We lost soooo many good players, and I'd include Doug and KJ. We have some pretty major holes on the roster, and it is pretty rare to see such good teams with such major holes in key places.

I also strongly disagree about the draft. Because we have so many holes and so many needs, and because our ability to draft at the end of the 1st round has been abysmal, and because we have four picks, we need to trade down this year more than ever. When you don't draft efficiently, you need to get a lot of lines in the water. We need new players badly at LB, Safety, CB, DE, DT, OL and WR. And 4 picks isn't going to go very far to address these things. Because we have so few picks, guys like David Moore, Shaquill, T2, Jefferson, Pocic, Britt, etc, will have less competition than they should, and we will be forced to start some of these guys again and pray that they play better.

There are plenty of places where I don't agree with the popular opinion, but if the above is the popular opinion, I'm in agreement.

I can't agree with any of that. KC was the only win in the last 2 years that I could consider even close to a result exceeding roster talent, while I can say the reverse about a few losses. You tout the strong defensive performance, but those don't happen consistently with holes at literally every position group, particularly with as little as the Hawks do with customizing strategy based on opponent.

There's a limit to how much volume of competition helps a player get the most out of his talent, and the Hawks have cycled through more late picks and PS level players than any other good team in the league. Recent drafts and UDFA classes have provided volume, much of which is actually developing (with multiple teams); adding volume of late-draft talent at the beginning of their pro development isn't the way to improve for this team right now. Drafting is far from perfectly reliable, but it's not like it's truly roll-of-the-dice random. Besides, a small draft class should make it easier to recruit the top undrafted targets, so one of the arguments has to be looked at as comparing R7 picks to the UDFA pool.