Lockout Hangover: Cornerback, Part 1

The secondary seems to be bearing out the same theme that defensive end did last year: Pete Carroll going all batty nutso with competition. The 90-man roster is glutted with defensive back prospects, and this time, there's actual intrigue as to how the roster will shake out. Thanks to Walter Thurmond's injury, the secondary may be wide open.


Starters

Marcus Trufant

The veteran starting corner will enjoy a ninth season in Seattle without becoming trade bait or asked to take a pay cut. It's a relief to see Seattle stop short in its shedding of veterans and keep some experience for stability, instead of sticking to the "youth movement" as dogma.

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.

Decoding John Schneider: Beating the Late-Round Odds

Everybody wants something for nothing. Coupon shoppers clip, Internet ads beckon with "$5,000 a month from home", and every NFL general manager would love to find quality starters with cheap picks from the fourth to seventh rounds of the draft.

The common misconception is that there's always a huge reserve of hidden talent just sitting untouched in the late rounds, missed by dimwitted general managers or stubborn coaches clinging tightly to a different scheme. Every once in a while, a Tom Brady or T.J. Houshmandzadeh emerges and gets fixated upon, seeming to prove that theory but really just distracting from the 50 players drafted before and after him who neither see nor deserve an NFL start. Exceptions always get more attention than the rule.

Is it really sensible to look at a player who drops into the fifth round, and assume that the combined research and intelligence of thirty-one other NFL teams' scouting departments all got it wrong? Much less four times over? Teams don't struggle to find late talent because they're blind, mis-prioritizing, or risk-averse; they struggle to find late talent because it usually isn't there. The real talent gets snatched up in the first hundred picks, and the pool is left mostly dry. Even the Patriots' late-round performance has been controlled by this dynamic; it's kinda out of their hands. There just aren't a lot of diamonds to be found in the rough of the draft's third day, because everyone else is also looking for them. Any true diamonds often find themselves permanently benched behind incumbents by their teams. Traffic shortcuts and fishing spots are only lucrative as long as nobody else knows about them, right?

But I know this general manager who is trying very hard to beat these very odds. He comes from an NFL management lineage that's proven this draft prowess, and he might even be close to actually pulling it off in his new job. His name is John Schneider.

Looking Back on 2010, Part 2: Daft Drafting

Continuing a series of posts re-capturing the moods, debates, and plot twists of Pete Carroll's first year in Seattle. You can find Part 1 here.


On draft day of 2010, Seattle fans turned on their televisions without any real idea of what to expect.

New head coach Pete Carroll had dashed onto the scene and made it clear at once that Seattle was moving into a new mentality, and that nobody's job was safe. He had followed his words with action by mowing a blazing personnel path through the tall dead grass that made up the Seattle Seahawks. Nate Burleson, Seneca Wallace, Darryl Tapp, Deon Grant, and Rob Sims were all gone. None of these were significantly responsible for Seattle's decline, but neither had they done much to stem that decline. Fans saw the radical changes in different ways - some called it moving forward and being willing to take risks, others saw a confidence in Carroll's plan, others called it "change for the sake of change" and observed that Seattle had obtained only mediocre free agents in return.