Tuesday, October 25, 2005
bye week ramblings.
i watch the seahawks pretty much every time they are on. i remember watching seahawks games with my dad in alaska before i even moved to seattle. i remember telling my dad during that first game that football was the best game ever because i turned my back and thought they had scored 7 times in a row while i wasn't watching. i couldn't wait for the crazy hilights ;)
it isn't like football takes much of a time investment. what else would i have done early sunday afternoons during the winter? i would be sitting on the couch wrapped up in a blanket anyways.
and now, here we go. the same excitement we all had right after holmgren was hired is back now. it took him long enough, but now we actually have a good team. we've always had talent during holmgren's years, but now we have it at every position and in our backups. i thought this was a great offseason. i was so glad to see whitsitt go. that guy was a joke. he was an idiot with a false sense of superiority he justified using someone else's money. he didn't care about the game, or the team. he cared about being the president, the number one guy.
paul allen is a rich guy i can respect. right now he is redeveloping an entire section of seattle, piece by piece. it started when he bought an entire strip of properties from the city core down to the water, and now the whole area is growing. our football team was in trouble, so he comes in and buys the team and builds a new stadium. from what i gather, he didn't even know anything about football, so he left everything to the people who did, through his intermediary whitsitt. i am guessing he knows more than he lets on, and that he was actually watching the games and talking to his football cronies enough to get a good sense of how things are going. he realized what the problem was, that our football minds were being overruled and dismissed by his representative. so before this season, after being silent about the team for years, he axes whitsitt. not just from the seahawks, from everything. all of his business stuff. i think whitsitt was gm of the trailblazers also, but no more. i think allen did the press release on the phone from his office at vulcan. cracks me up. after that, some of the football minds we let go started wandering back, and we signed a new president. Tim Ruskell made the bold moves Whitsitt wouldn't have made; master strokes like resigning our best player and our starting quarterback.
the way he handled free agency was great. we had all of these players, particularly on defense. 3 of our starting linebackers, 2 of them longtime seahawks veterans are gone. 2 of them were always injured and never played anyways. the other guy was good, but no great shakes. so we are left with the guys who played in their place last year anyways. one of our best cornerbacks signed an insane contract with some other team, and we were smart let him take it. our sacks leader signs a similar contract with less money up front than we offered to play for a division rival. fuck him then. it sounds like our team should be decimated. heh. i thought our biggest problem was losing that cornerback. he was young and talented, and the oldest guy in our super good secondary. i saw Andre Dyson's name on the free agent lists and i started drooling. but when we lost our guy ken lucas for 6 years $36M, i thought we would never be able to afford him. this guy can fly, i wanted him bad. then we signed kelly herndon for a reasonable contract for 3 years. big, physical corner. punishing, but not fast. i thought we were done, but by the end of the offseason, no one had picked up Dyson. eventually he agreed to play for us at the same reasonable contract we gave Herndon. how much did we pay for both of them combined? 6 years total at $34M. less than our guy would have been. and we have two guys, one who i think is a better pure corner in dyson, and another guy with the size lucas had with a safety's physicality. i was stunned when we signed dyson. i was so happy.
at linebacker, we made a move on a guy i thought was one of the top guys in the whole free agent pool, jamie sharper. i think he was a little overlooked since he was playing for such a crappy team last year in houston. another great great signing. i was looking forward to our linebacker situation this season already, because i thought our backups last year were better than our starters. Niko Koutavides was a monster at the end of the season at middle linebacker, especially on 3rd and 4th down in short yardage situations. he would stand people up at the line of scrimmage, and fold them backwards into the ground. it was great to watch. middle linebacker is tough though. he is like the quarterback on defense, and i don't know if koutavides was ready for that. but then we drafted this guy lofa tatupu, who was middle linebacker on that last two USC national championship teams and gave him a chance to win the position in training camp. this guy is small, and doesn't impress anyone with his speed. but he is always right there in the right spot. he sees what is happening before it happens. koutavides is good, but this guy is gifted. he has this defense playing as a unit. and now, who do we have as a backup? the guy i was so excited about in the first place.
on yeah, then our defensive line. we lost our sacks leader too a division rival. so what did we do? we signed ANOTHER division rivals sack leader. not just any division rival, the rams, our biggets rival. the guys who beat us 3 times last year. oh yeah, and this is the second year in a row we've signed their sacks leader. screw you rams! then we signed a midget, in d-line terms. he's 6'0 300, it cracks me up that he is considered small. anyways, he and our stud first round draft pick from last year Marcus Tubbs have been attached at the him ever since our signing. all during training camp, i didn't see a photo without them standing side by side, huge number 90 and shorter but still huge number 91. whenever one of them had a quote, the other had a quote right after. add into the rotation Rocky Bernard, who likes to dance so much that he is turning into a serious sack threat just so he can celebrate. we now have a bunch of crazies on our d-line. our ends are just nuts. winstrom likes to pull the quarterback down by the front of his jersey with one hand as he is getting pushed past him. he was injured last year trying to trip some guy from the bottom of a pile. Bernard's celebrations are worth their own paragraph, they crack me up. the first time (last year, the year before?) it was so spontanious and hilarious, i think it surprised even him. but now they are just as hilarious, and it is always good to see the other guy get sacked.
last year at times we had an awesome defense, and an awesome offense, just never really at the same time. it was all or nothing. this year, we have the depth to have an average offense or defense even after a few injuries or on bad days. both units don't have to play great to get the win. they can both have so so games, and we still have a chance. we are goalpost and a white jersey away from being 7-0, but 5-2 feels just as good because it feels more legitimate this year because the team is actually executing on offense and defense consistently.
in other news, i just don't really care about work anymore. i skipped 3 days last week, and i'm skipping today. it turns out my financial projections were a fluke anyways. in the end, its just another shitty job, nothing that can't be replaced. i'm not even an employee. i know i'm not going to be fired. somehow, there are other drivers that are worse than me, and not one of them ever gets fired. sometimes i wish they would fire me, just because it would set a good precident. maybe they could get their company back on track. maybe, if they knew why they had so many problems, or knew that things weren't going well in the first place. or if the owner wasn't on vacation himself right now. this is a huge portion of why i took this job. not because it is better than delivering pizzas, but because i can be invisible, a free radical. i can just float away. work should be the least of my worries, and it is. if money was a problem, work would be a higher priority. but its not, so its not. i am still coming out ahead every month.
i watch the seahawks pretty much every time they are on. i remember watching seahawks games with my dad in alaska before i even moved to seattle. i remember telling my dad during that first game that football was the best game ever because i turned my back and thought they had scored 7 times in a row while i wasn't watching. i couldn't wait for the crazy hilights ;)
it isn't like football takes much of a time investment. what else would i have done early sunday afternoons during the winter? i would be sitting on the couch wrapped up in a blanket anyways.
and now, here we go. the same excitement we all had right after holmgren was hired is back now. it took him long enough, but now we actually have a good team. we've always had talent during holmgren's years, but now we have it at every position and in our backups. i thought this was a great offseason. i was so glad to see whitsitt go. that guy was a joke. he was an idiot with a false sense of superiority he justified using someone else's money. he didn't care about the game, or the team. he cared about being the president, the number one guy.
paul allen is a rich guy i can respect. right now he is redeveloping an entire section of seattle, piece by piece. it started when he bought an entire strip of properties from the city core down to the water, and now the whole area is growing. our football team was in trouble, so he comes in and buys the team and builds a new stadium. from what i gather, he didn't even know anything about football, so he left everything to the people who did, through his intermediary whitsitt. i am guessing he knows more than he lets on, and that he was actually watching the games and talking to his football cronies enough to get a good sense of how things are going. he realized what the problem was, that our football minds were being overruled and dismissed by his representative. so before this season, after being silent about the team for years, he axes whitsitt. not just from the seahawks, from everything. all of his business stuff. i think whitsitt was gm of the trailblazers also, but no more. i think allen did the press release on the phone from his office at vulcan. cracks me up. after that, some of the football minds we let go started wandering back, and we signed a new president. Tim Ruskell made the bold moves Whitsitt wouldn't have made; master strokes like resigning our best player and our starting quarterback.
the way he handled free agency was great. we had all of these players, particularly on defense. 3 of our starting linebackers, 2 of them longtime seahawks veterans are gone. 2 of them were always injured and never played anyways. the other guy was good, but no great shakes. so we are left with the guys who played in their place last year anyways. one of our best cornerbacks signed an insane contract with some other team, and we were smart let him take it. our sacks leader signs a similar contract with less money up front than we offered to play for a division rival. fuck him then. it sounds like our team should be decimated. heh. i thought our biggest problem was losing that cornerback. he was young and talented, and the oldest guy in our super good secondary. i saw Andre Dyson's name on the free agent lists and i started drooling. but when we lost our guy ken lucas for 6 years $36M, i thought we would never be able to afford him. this guy can fly, i wanted him bad. then we signed kelly herndon for a reasonable contract for 3 years. big, physical corner. punishing, but not fast. i thought we were done, but by the end of the offseason, no one had picked up Dyson. eventually he agreed to play for us at the same reasonable contract we gave Herndon. how much did we pay for both of them combined? 6 years total at $34M. less than our guy would have been. and we have two guys, one who i think is a better pure corner in dyson, and another guy with the size lucas had with a safety's physicality. i was stunned when we signed dyson. i was so happy.
at linebacker, we made a move on a guy i thought was one of the top guys in the whole free agent pool, jamie sharper. i think he was a little overlooked since he was playing for such a crappy team last year in houston. another great great signing. i was looking forward to our linebacker situation this season already, because i thought our backups last year were better than our starters. Niko Koutavides was a monster at the end of the season at middle linebacker, especially on 3rd and 4th down in short yardage situations. he would stand people up at the line of scrimmage, and fold them backwards into the ground. it was great to watch. middle linebacker is tough though. he is like the quarterback on defense, and i don't know if koutavides was ready for that. but then we drafted this guy lofa tatupu, who was middle linebacker on that last two USC national championship teams and gave him a chance to win the position in training camp. this guy is small, and doesn't impress anyone with his speed. but he is always right there in the right spot. he sees what is happening before it happens. koutavides is good, but this guy is gifted. he has this defense playing as a unit. and now, who do we have as a backup? the guy i was so excited about in the first place.
on yeah, then our defensive line. we lost our sacks leader too a division rival. so what did we do? we signed ANOTHER division rivals sack leader. not just any division rival, the rams, our biggets rival. the guys who beat us 3 times last year. oh yeah, and this is the second year in a row we've signed their sacks leader. screw you rams! then we signed a midget, in d-line terms. he's 6'0 300, it cracks me up that he is considered small. anyways, he and our stud first round draft pick from last year Marcus Tubbs have been attached at the him ever since our signing. all during training camp, i didn't see a photo without them standing side by side, huge number 90 and shorter but still huge number 91. whenever one of them had a quote, the other had a quote right after. add into the rotation Rocky Bernard, who likes to dance so much that he is turning into a serious sack threat just so he can celebrate. we now have a bunch of crazies on our d-line. our ends are just nuts. winstrom likes to pull the quarterback down by the front of his jersey with one hand as he is getting pushed past him. he was injured last year trying to trip some guy from the bottom of a pile. Bernard's celebrations are worth their own paragraph, they crack me up. the first time (last year, the year before?) it was so spontanious and hilarious, i think it surprised even him. but now they are just as hilarious, and it is always good to see the other guy get sacked.
last year at times we had an awesome defense, and an awesome offense, just never really at the same time. it was all or nothing. this year, we have the depth to have an average offense or defense even after a few injuries or on bad days. both units don't have to play great to get the win. they can both have so so games, and we still have a chance. we are goalpost and a white jersey away from being 7-0, but 5-2 feels just as good because it feels more legitimate this year because the team is actually executing on offense and defense consistently.
in other news, i just don't really care about work anymore. i skipped 3 days last week, and i'm skipping today. it turns out my financial projections were a fluke anyways. in the end, its just another shitty job, nothing that can't be replaced. i'm not even an employee. i know i'm not going to be fired. somehow, there are other drivers that are worse than me, and not one of them ever gets fired. sometimes i wish they would fire me, just because it would set a good precident. maybe they could get their company back on track. maybe, if they knew why they had so many problems, or knew that things weren't going well in the first place. or if the owner wasn't on vacation himself right now. this is a huge portion of why i took this job. not because it is better than delivering pizzas, but because i can be invisible, a free radical. i can just float away. work should be the least of my worries, and it is. if money was a problem, work would be a higher priority. but its not, so its not. i am still coming out ahead every month.
