Three Seahawks Vulnerable to Trade

I wrote "vulnerable" because a) it's a unique word that oughta grab attention from the Google bots, and b) because it hopefully makes clear that this piece is laid-back speculation, not whisper-driven rumor. Nobody, including myself, has any inkling of these trades actually being imminent.

Anyway...when Pete Carroll and John Schneider burst onto the scene last year, they wasted no time in getting their program going. Leftovers from the previous regime were suddenly prime trade bait. QB Seneca Wallace, DE Darryl Tapp, and G Rob Sims were traded away before the draft; DE Lawrence Jackson and CB Josh Wilson during preseason; WR Deion Branch in October. Each fetched Seattle relatively paltry draft picks.

Not all these moves were popular, but there was a clear connecting link. The Seahawks were now guided by Carroll's philosophies at every position, and anyone belonging to the previous regime was subject to close scrutiny. Having modest value to the team didn't keep you safe; it just made you prone to being traded.

This was especially true for guys coming up on the end of their contracts. Wallace, Sims, and Wilson were all traded with a year left to play for Seattle; Jackson and Branch, two years. They signed Tapp to an RFA tender the day before trading him. Schneider was scrounging for any value he could get out of misfit players rather than letting them walk for nothing as free agents. Even if that meant jettisoning players who could still help the team for the present - and being forced to keep other misfit players in their stead because they had no trade value.

I bring up this phenomenon because we may yet see more of it. The pattern behind Seattle's recent trades inspired me to comb the current roster for guys who a) will soon hit free agency, b) are redundant and/or a scheme misfit, and c) could command any kind of value on the trade market.

Why Training Camp is a Bad Time to Get Gimpy

A quick update on Seattle's training camp injuries - and more importantly, the ripple effects each might have, based on the excellent coverage from independent Seattle bloggers like Fieldgulls, Hawk Blogger, and Davis Hsu.

Remember, players on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list do not count against the final 53-man roster, but are out for the first six weeks of the regular season.



CB Walter Thurmond

A non-high ankle sprain has kept the Seahawks' 4th-round pick (and heir apparent to Josh Wilson) sidelined since the start of camp. He's supposed to be back in a couple days. This is bad for the former Duck and his long recovery from the severe injury that knocked him out of the 2nd round, but good for...

Beneficiaries:

...Carroll's CB competition. 5th-rounder Richard Sherman, CFL pickup Brandon Browner, and stubborn cling-on Kelly Jennings have all been getting looks on the first team. Browner and Sherman have impressed, but Carroll loves a deep, versatile backfield, so this may or may not threaten Thurmond's roster spot.

More Than Just a QB Away: Offense

I don't blame national football pundits for not knowing much about the Seahawks. It's not as if they don't have time for anything but studying Seattle's roster. They've got 32 teams to cover, and believe me, researching and writing articles on pro football is a time-consuming job.

So when NFL.com's Steve Wyche slapped a pic of Matt Hasselbeck onto an article entitled "QB all that's missing from these teams", I didn't immediately spit out my Mountain Dew. Despite the fact that the Seahawks are hurting immoderately at almost every position and that a quarterback will not solve everything, I just decided to give the guy a break. I'm not insecure about my team; I don't need sportswriters to give the Seahawks their deserved diligence in order to feel good about them. Their defeat of New Orleans gave me two years' worth of punk-headed confidence to coast on. And besides, it's just too easy to mock sportswriters. Picking on easy targets makes you look the worse.

Nevertheless, I knew Wyche was wrong without even reading the article. For all my rants about the QB position and how its importance justifies no other draft pick at #25 if a top-four QB remains, the Seahawks have dire needs all over the roster.

So here's my shot at a position-by position assessment of Seattle's roster. Just to be different, I'll assess each position on a scale of one to ten - ten indicating a well-filled position, one meaning a bleeding hole.

Hawks and Hasselbeck: Half Seconds

It's believed that Matt Hasselbeck reinvented himself in 2010 as a vertical quarterback. He certainly looked more successful at the deep bomb from my armchair. It was no small task for him to accomplish this transformation, set at his feet by 2010 offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates. But Bates is now gone, leaving us to wonder what value that transformation will have going forward, and how complete it was.

Despite what some say about Darrell Bevell's predilection for the West Coast offense, Seattle's new OC comes from the Reid-Childress branch of the WCO that employs Desean Jackson and Sidney Rice. There's no reason to limit our expectations to a mostly short passing game of the kind Holmgren ran. There will be deep passes in Seattle in 2011, and Hasselbeck will indeed have value to the Seahawks if it can be proven that Bates' West Coast Recovery program has turned him into a deep-ball maestro.

Problem is, no successful quarterback in this league actually has the deep pass for his bread and butter. It is the velocity of the football on all manner of throws - short, intermediate, and long - that keeps the chains moving and the ball slicing past defenders. The Packers' game in particular is based on intermediate zip. Arm strength is not shown by distance; it's shown by velocity.

And by that definition, I'm not sure Hasselbeck has ever thrown a deep pass in his life.