Tag Archives: matt hasselbeck

News, Sports

“Old” Seahawks’ Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

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.

News, Sports

Pete Carroll Completes Demolition of Seahawks

You’re bound to hear the term “rebuilding” if you hang around a sports fan for a few hours–especially a Seattle one. The construction analogy refers to the process of turning a losing team into a winning one. Last week, Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll and GM John Schneider took rebuilding to an extreme, dropping C4 on the edifice that was the Seahawks’ roster.

Starting quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, the face of the franchise: Gone, after being offered substantially more money by another team.

Starting middle linebacker Lofa Tatupu, often referred to as the “quarterback of the defense”: Gone, after refusing a pay cut.

The twin explosions completed Carroll’s disassembly of the franchise he took over in January 2010. Of the 89 players on the Seahawks roster then, only 17 are left. Folks, that’s 80 percent turnover. Makes Amazon.com look like the College of Cardinals.

And it makes Pete Carroll look like a bit of a jerk. Tatupu, who played under Carroll at USC, gave a heroic performance for his old coach in 2010–after playing injured all year, Tatupu needed surgery on both knees in the offseason. Yet the old ties and bravery didn’t mean a thing when Carroll decided Tatupu was making $1 million more than he was worth.

Hasselbeck moves to Tennessee, where he’ll mentor UW legend and NFL neophyte Jake Locker. The Seahawks’ new starting quarterback, free-agent signee Tarvaris Jackson, is a sort-of anti-Hasselbeck, possessing tremendous arm strength and foot speed, Hasselbeck’s biggest weaknesses, but lacking leadership skills and the ability to read defenses, Hasselbeck’s greatest strengths.

Why demolish the Seahawks? Because if an NFL team’s roster is a house, the NFL-mandated salary cap is the lot it sits on. In the perfect world, if you were building a dream home, you’d buy a new lot and live in your old house until construction was finished. Can’t do that in the NFL. The finite salary cap prevents you from buying new expensive players to pretty up the place while your old expensive players rust over. The best solution is to tear everything down and build it back up again.

Carroll’s moves improve the long-term outlook for the Seahawks, giving him the salary cap space to sign players that could be part of a winner two or three years from now. He signed offensive lineman Robert Gallery to a three-year contract; Gallery will lead an offensive line consisting of himself and four young, talented colleagues–all in their first or second seasons as starters, all drafted in the first or second round. Tall, fast, strong wide receiver Sidney Rice, just 24 years old, gets a five-year deal, he’ll be in his prime when the Seahawks (hopefully) reach maximum competitiveness in a couple of years.

And now the bad news. In the short-term, losing Tatupu and Hasselbeck makes the Seahawks worse. Hawks fans don’t need to be saving for playoff tickets–which is good, because with the franchise’s two most popular players gone, most will need $80 to drop on a new replica jersey.

For Seahawks fans, it’s likely to be a miserable year–we’re living in a construction zone. The roof leaks, the floorboards are warped, the damn knob on the bannister comes off every time we round the stairs. But seeing the work progress will give a little bit of satisfaction. And we can always take the weekend off and stay in a hotel (aka watch an Eagles game).

News, Sports

Seahawks’ Hiring Spree Begins Now; Will It Include Matt Hasselbeck?

I don’t care how many meetings, off-sites, or team-building events you’ve got on your Outlook calendar, there’s no way you’re busier than Seahawks GM John Schneider. He’s got nine months’ worth of work to do this week.

If Schneider’s annoyed, I wouldn’t blame him. His bosses (NFL owners) and their employees (NFL players) have been locked in a labor dispute since February–aka Schneider’s usual window to re-sign existing players and draft picks, woo veteran free agents, sign undrafted rookies, and broker trades with other teams. Now, Schneider must do all that in about seven days, and he won’t get a day of rest like that lazy, unionized God did.

This sucks for Schneider, but for football fans it’s thrilling. Instead of the usual slow drip of signings and trades that go on during the long NFL break, we’ll enjoy a monsoon of moves. The clouds burst today.

As of 7 a.m., Schneider (with heavy input from Seahawks head coach and “executive VP of football operations” Pete Carroll) can make trades, sign rookies, and negotiate with free agents. Seahawks training camp begins Wednesday. On Friday at 3 p.m., he may begin signing free agents to contracts.

Job one for Schneider and Carroll: Figure out who’ll play quarterback.

Quarterback is a position unlike any other in professional sports. Besides his responsibility for pre-snap adjustments, and the fact that he handles the ball on every play, the quarterback is seen as the de facto team leader–whether you’re playing on an NFL field or two-hand touch in the park.

Matt Hasselbeck, the Seahawks’ starting quarterback for the past ten seasons, is a free agent. Though aging and prone to injury, Hasselbeck provides stability, which could be appealing in this bizarre year. The man is a leader–Hasselbeck organized and led team workouts during the training-camp-less offseason, despite having no contractual obligation to the team. Yet Hasselbeck’s incumbency is not as critical as it might normally be. The Seahawks hired a new offensive coordinator in the offseason. Under former Minnesota Vikings OC Darrell Bevell, who prefers a run-heavy version of the West Coast offense, Hasselbeck must learn a new, if not entirely unfamiliar, playbook.

Given the compressed training camp schedule, a quarterback who already knows Bevell’s system may be a better fit. So you might be hearing the name “Tarvaris Jackson.” It’s a name you may have heard before–as the punchline to a joke.

Once a promising quarterback prospect for the Vikings, Jackson has never recovered from a comically inept performance in the 2008 playoffs, which compelled the Vikings to replace him with 97-year-old Brett Favre. Still, Jackson’s five seasons in Minnesota coincided with Bevell’s tenure there. If there’s one quarterback who could step in right now and run that offense, it’s Jackson. Well, Jackson and Favre, but let’s not go there.

The Seahawks have one quarterback under contract: Charlie Whitehurst, acquired last year as the presumed successor to Hasselbeck. Whitehurst did not impress coaches, to the point that the Seahawks had to develop a special “training-wheels” game plan for his emergency start in the pivotal Week 17 game against the Rams.

Hasselbeck, who made $5.75M last season, may well get offers approaching that from other teams–money that in the rebuilding Seahawks’ case would be better invested in younger players. Then again, Hass did throw 4 TDs in a playoff game last January. Jackson hasn’t thrown 4 TDs in a game since 2008. Whitehurst hasn’t thrown 4 TDs in his entire NFL career.

Other possibilities:
—Kevin Kolb, who was Wally Pipped by Michael Vick, and now wants a trade. The Seahawks will surely be in on the bidding for Kolb, but may not be able to match desperate Arizona, still shell-shocked from Year One of the post-Kurt-Warner era.
—Matt Leinart, who won the Heisman Trophy under Carroll at USC but flopped in Arizona.
—Carson Palmer, another former USC Heisman winner who’s had more NFL success (though not as much since his 2008 elbow injury). Palmer has demanded a trade from Cincinnati.
–-Vince Young, who won 30 of 47 starts as the Tennessee Titans QB but will be released due to his emotional instability.
—Donovan McNabb, if the Redskins release him from his massive contract (he’s actually younger than Hasselbeck).
—Kyle Orton, a solid starter for Denver the last two seasons, now on the trading block with Tim Tebow ready to take over.
—Rex Grossman, who has, at times, been a competent NFL quarterback.

Complicating things even more, any free agent QB the Seahawks sign–even Hasselbeck–couldn’t practice with the team until August 4.

Besides finding the person who’ll be the most important player on the team, Schneider must also decide whether to resign several Seahawks who started last year but are now free agents. These include defensive line star Brandon Mebane, starting safety Lawyer Milloy, starting offensive linemen Chris Spencer and Sean Locklear, and kicker Olindo Mare.

The action will come in Twitter-time. Follow ESPN’s Mike Sando (@espn_nfcwest), or the Seattle Times’ Danny O’Neil (@dannyoneil) for breaking news. For in-depth, Seahawks-centric analysis, check out Field Gulls or the inadequately-named Seahawks Draft Blog. And once the downpour’s over, I’ll be back to try to make sense of it all. Unless the Seahawks sign Brett Favre, in which case I’ll have drowned myself in an Occidental Ave. puddle.

You can buy that pin (illustrated by Mad Magazine’s Jack Davis) for $15 at Seattle’s Gasoline Alley Antiques. Here’s all their Seahawks memorabilia.