Watching the Seattle Seahawks yesterday, I had a wicked flashback to Butch and Sundance frantically trying to evade a mysterious posse.
“Who are those guys?”
In their first two years in Seattle, Coach Pete Carroll and GM John Schneider haven’t just remade the roster, they’ve blown it to pieces. The change has been so drastic that even longtime fans don’t know who is on the field.
It’s a risky move because the team is flirting with the loss of its connection to the fan base and, frankly, the community at large. When you move out the few players that even casual fans know, like Lofa Tatupu and Matt Hasselback, and replace them with journeymen and scrubs, it’s hard to care about what’s happening on the field.
Carroll and Schneider have countered such criticism by saying that “Every move has been made with an eye to making the team better.” Okay. But it’s sort of hard to take that seriously when you are watching brand new cornerback Brandon Browner get burned more badly than Starbucks coffee.
The roster churn has really hurt the pocketbook of the jersey-wearing fan. If you decided to buy a jersey with a favored player’s number a few years ago, your $100 investment is toast, unless you got a Marcus Trufant jersey five years ago like my wife did. She was sweating out this year’s final roster announcement after she saw her investment in a Lofa jersey go down the drain in July. Thank God, Marcus made the team.
The NFL has long been a sport where, more than any other, you root for the color of the jersey instead of superstar players. Unless your team has a Manning or Brady, your fans are in trouble. NFL careers don’t last as long as polyester: about five to seven years vs., like, forever. Player careers with the same team are shorter.
When you go to the Clink to watch the Hawks play this week, be sure to check out the jerseys. This year, you’ll see dozens of 8s for Matt, 51s for Lofa and none for anyone else on the team. There won’t, for example, be many Brandon Browner jerseys out there. And I wouldn’t advise a Charlie Whitehurst or Tarvaris Jackson purchase at this time. Not sure they will be having lengthy stays here.
Some fans are trying to finesse this dilemma by wearing the number 12, or playing it safe with a throwback Jim Zorn or Jacob Green jersey. But that reeks of pragmatism.
The Seahawks know there’s pain out there for the face-painting, jersey-wearing crowd. Just last week they sent out an email to all season-ticket holders urging us to
“Bring in your old non-rostered player jersey and receive 25% off any regularly priced jersey in the store.”
But don’t worry. The old jerseys, we are told, will be donated to charity.
Now, if I could just find out what to do with my old Gary Payton jersey. That team so lost its connection to this town that it isn’t even here anymore. Let’s hope some of these new Seahawks players start playing well enough to warrant a jersey purchase, and stay long enough to at least let the polyester fade a bit.
