SEAHAWKS START NEW:

Seahawks Destination: 2012 NFC West Champions

A New Beginning

     The 2012 NFL preseason is over and the Seattle Seahawks go into the regular season with a 4-0 win streak. For the Seahawks, that’s significant, for any team that lost in preseason; Well, they’re just preseason games and have zero meaning. That’s the way most teams look back on the first four scrimmages.

What is meaningful for the Seahawks and their fans should be a new beginning and a bright future. Pete Carroll and John Schneider are quietly putting together a very formidable football team to take into the regular season. The defense is an opportunistic and dominant bunch that have the swag of a Super Bowl team. They simply have a belief and a collective goal of dominating every team they play. Led by veterans Leroy Hill and Chris Clemons and Marcus Trufant, they are a young, fast, athletic and extremely confident. This defense has been chomping at the bit since last year and is looking forward to an even better performance this year. With Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor, Richard Sherman and Brandon Browner, they are physical and they will punish anyone brave enough to enter their territory. The defensive line is equally aggressive and they also bring a lot of confidence to the trenches. Big Red Bryant and Brandon Mebane anchor a large and fast pass rush that features Chris Clemons, Jason Jones, Alan Branch and newcomer, rookie Bruce Irvin. The big boys lead a bull rush up the middle while tandem Leo ends with a lightning get off attack around the edges. Leo ends Clemens and Irvin will be virtually impossible and create mismatches with any offensive tackles you put in front of them. Seattle was already very good versus the rush last year, but adding Jason Jones and Bruce Irvin really gave Seattle the needed speed to put pressure on the quarterback. Playing at CenturyLink  Field will give Seattle’s defensive line and unparalleled advantage as the Seahawks play at home. The crowd noise will cause the offense to go to a silent snap and everyone knows the Seattle crowd creates chaos between the opposing quarterback and offensive line.

The increased pressure on the quarterback will make Seattle’s defensive secondary lethal. Already, this foursome creates havoc that the point of attack and receivers will never be able to get into a rhythm in running pass routes. This is Seattle’s main objective in using their unusual size and physicality that the safety and corner positions pose against the passing game. With the quarterback running for his life, finding open receivers is going to be particularly hard and that puts the Legion of Boom in a prime position to take away the football from the offense. Pete Carroll has stressed to his defensive team this year; He wants to take the football away from the offense at every opportunity. Carroll wasn’t happy with the Seahawks take away ratio last year and made a concerted effort to try to turn that around. Linebacker is also a position that is very much improved this year. David Hawthorne was a good tackler for Seattle last year, but the coaches weren’t happy with his inability to cover on passing downs. The Seahawks now insert rookie Bobby Wagner into the Mike position. He’s a 6’1” 250 pound linebacker with 4.43 speed. He has a solid tackler with the ability to drop into pass coverage and cover running backs and tight ends crossing the field. Seahawk coaches are super pleased with Wagner and his progression through training camp. He is everything advertised and a lot more. Last year’s rookie sensation KJ Wright is back and with one season under his belt and the complement of an entire training camp, he is that much more comfortable and that much more dangerous. He had a magnificent 2011 and actually made all the defense of calls as a rookie and was super aggressive with the radar like instinct for the ball. Last year, all the rookies had a difficult beginning of the season because of the player lockout and abbreviated preseason. Though, it didn’t seem to slow down KJ Wright in the least bit. Normally playing on the outside, he adapted immediately to playing the Mike for Seattle. This year, with the emergence of Wagner, KJ Wright can return to his normal Sam position outside.  He has been a wealth of knowledge and information to help Bobby Wagner mature as quickly as he has. Leroy Hill, the rock-solid veteran linebacker will play the Will and will also provide Seattle a lot of veteran leadership. He is and has always been a sure tackler and can also can get up on the line and push the edge rush. All in all, this Seattle Seahawks defense has become elite and a lot of teams around the NFL are taking notice that Seattle is not a team you want to sleep on.

Perhaps the most compelling part of this entire preseason has been Russell Wilson. Wilson is the kind of quarterback that gives you goosebumps as he leads the offense. He is wise beyond his 23 years and he is a player with intangibles off the charts. He is athletic; he is mobile and has a cannon for throwing arm. Wilson can easily make all the NFL throws necessary to be successful in this league, and he has a confidence and sense of calm that is contagious among all the offensive players around him. Being the rookie has its challenges, but as you watch this kid run the offense, he does it with quickness but he doesn’t hurry, and he does it with energy but he’s not overly excited. This kid is simply unlike any other quarterback I’ve ever seen. In college, he was as proficient as you could ever ask a college quarterback to be. After achieving his degree at North Carolina State, Wilson transferred to the University of Wisconsin, where the players are bigger, faster and stronger. Wilson has such an infectious sense of confidence and leadership; his teammates voted him their team captain two weeks after arriving on campus. Then, he just managed to leave the country in completion percentage at 72.3%, and quarterback rating of 195.3. He threw 33 touchdown passes with only four interceptions and two tipped passes. At 5’10” and some change, Wilson proved that height isn’t what makes an effective quarterback. At Wisconsin, he played behind the tallest offensive line in the nation. He had an average of 6’6” tall and 333 pounds per lineman standing in front of them as he managed to rewrite the Wisconsin passing records and was one of the players considered for the Heisman trophy in his senior year. But, that’s all college and it’s in the past. What’s exciting is Russell Wilson’s future and he is embracing the opportunity with open arms and high expectations. He wants to be great and so does his entire offensive squad. Russell Wilson has a blank slate right now and it’s now up to him what is going to be engraved on it. His odometer is at zero and his record is the same. I’m excited to see what he does and if the preseason is any indication of what kind of leader he will be, I can’t wait to see him perform. He’s short, but he doesn’t care… He doesn’t measure his chances for success with the ruler. He was a third round selection in the draft… He doesn’t count the players chosen before him, he just plans to outperform them and he doesn’t care that he was chosen by probably the most obscure team in the National Football League, but he’s happy to be part of something created without a trail of successful Super Bowl teams preceding him. I think Wilson relishes challenges and I don’t think he’s the type that desires a head start. He just marches up to the line of scrimmage like all the other 31 starting quarterbacks in the NFL. Then, he takes everything he has learned from his Pop Warner football coach, his collegiate preparatory school coach in Richmond Virginia, his college coaches at North Carolina State and Wisconsin and the coaching staff with his current team is the Seattle Seahawks, and tries to play the game of football to the best of his ability and lead his team.

Russell Wilson has an open road in front of him as to the Seattle Seahawks as a team. Their record is 0-0 and the rest is up to their coaches and their players. There’s a lot of excitement in Seattle right now, with the players as well as the fans. Analysts all over the country are beginning to feel the momentum building at the Virginia Mason athletic Center by a very young team with a common goal, a sense of confidence like I’ve never seen a Seahawk team and a swagger, or “Swag” that feels like a wave building. I watched a lot of preseason football this summer, practically every single game. I’ve never seen a stadium full of fans so excited for a preseason football game. At first, I thought it was a bit ridiculous for people to go crazy, screaming and cheering for a game that had very little if any meaning. Then, you watch the team respond and it’s clear to see. Seattle Seahawks fans don’t need a closed stadium to create the kind of noise that confuses and confounds and opposing offense. In fact, they don’t even need a stadium at all, if you heard the cheering and noise created at the Seahawks practice facility on Lake Washington. Kansas City has great fans also, and if I’m not mistaken, they have the most consecutive sellouts at arrowhead Stadium than any other stadium in the league, but when Seattle visited their stadium about three weeks ago, it was dead quiet. Half the seats in the stadium were empty…either that or fans came to the game disguised as empty chairs. CenturyLink field is just a special place and the Seahawks are very fortunate to have fans as wild and crazy as the people who fill that stadium. Kansas City may have a longer sellout streak for their stadium, but during the Ken Bering years the fans had to make a statement to run him out of town. That’s the only reason Seahawk fans stopped going to home games. The team deserved better and so did the city. What’s great is that Paul Allen stepped up and lifted that franchise from the ashes and breathed life back into it to become the great Seattle Seahawks team that it is today and hopefully will be forever.

New, Neo, Nuevo, Novi, Nový, Nieuw, Nova, Bago, Nouveau, Hовое, Mpya, Yeni:

These are all the ways of saying the word “New” and that’s what the Seattle Seahawks represent for me:

It’s a new season. The Seahawks are sporting new uniforms and Russell Wilson is starting a new era that will hopefully create a very special experience for all the players, coaches and the Seahawk fans. Seattle has gone long enough without a Lombardi trophy. I’m not calling Super Bowl or anything like that, I’m more superstitious than that and I also believe it’s the kiss of death. However, it’s not crazy to say that this team seems primed for a great run this year. Now, it’s just time to execute and achieve what that team is ready for… A return to the playoffs and a return to: NFC West Division Champions. Then, we’ll see…Right now… They start New at zero!

- written by Brad Hobbs