What the Raiders Fans are Saying About Aaron Curry

The following isn't an essay on Aaron Curry or the Oakland Raiders' fan base so much as it is on desperate rationalization - the need to believe that mountains of unpleasant news or unfavorable evidence can somehow be turned in your favor by a single unsupported, unsupportable, unfalsifiable hypothesis.

Those big words give way too much credit to the hilarious crap that some Raiders fans are pulling right now. They want to make their new LB acquisition, Aaron Curry, look like a good move and are pulling out all the stops to do it. Most of it involves taking Curry's elite skillz for granted and brandishing all kinds of unrelated criticisms on Seattle's front office, hoping to make them look like just the pack of stooges that would release a burgeoning Hall-of-Famer.

In fairness to Oakland, this phenomenon is not unique to the Bay Area. I remember Seahawks fans rationalizing about Greg Knapp when he came to Seattle for the 2009 season as offensive coordinator. Nobody wanted to believe the simplest implication of his body of work - that Seattle was in for a year of unimaginative, ineffective, laughably bad play-calling - so they set about searching for a reason to believe. Untenable speculation, excuses, dismissals, contradictions of fact, all in an attempt to shed better light on Knapp.

So, before we start making fun of Raiders fans over their Curry-squirming, let's remember that we're not immune to that tendency. We're all sports fans. We all want reason to hope. Some stoic churls like myself excluded, every one of us is looking for the silver lining that might, just might, flash into a glorious clear sky.

Now then, to the good part. Some examples (courtesy of Sadhappy at Seahawks.net) and my rebuttals in Seahawks blue:

"your coaching staff is overvaluing K.J. Wright"
You would need to prove that Curry has outplayed Wright in order to have any kind of respectability behind that.

"Curry is simply not one of 'Carrolls boys'."
Neither was Lofa Tatupu, Lendale White, or Lawrence Jackson, I guess.
"the way he was handled in Seattle by the coaching staff that Curry was thinking too much on the field instead of just playing"
I've seen that excuse floated in Seattle, too. But how hard does a #4 LB have to think to make a basic open-field tackle?

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 the Carson Palmer Trade Isn't Dead Yet

The long-percolating rumors of Carson Palmer's impending trade to Seattle seem to be growing fainter with each passing day of this (very young) offseason. Bengals owner Mike Brown recently went on record saying that they had no intention of "rewarding", with a trade, Palmer's decision to walk away from the team.

Makes sense. As much as the dots connect, I've found it hard to stay optimistic about the likelihood of this trade based on our knowledge of the notoriously stubborn Brown. It's not really even that pigheaded for Brown to reject Seattle's offer of a conditional third-round pick, which, in draft terms, isn't that big a haul for a franchise QB.

But based on a couple of cryptic tweets from Pete Carroll (here and here), the optimistic fan could conclude that the QB hunt isn't over yet.

I certainly hope not. Tarvaris Jackson makes for quite the anticlimax.

To be technical, the Palmer trade saga doesn't end until he files retirement papers with Cincinnati. That hasn't happened. So where do we stand? Was Brown's presser a call of Palmer's bluff? And is Palmer bluffing?

Until the Bengals QB officially retires, he and the Seahawks still have bullets in their gun. Palmer can show up to compete at a training camp that will now also feature former Raider Bruce Gradkowski. That'd be an expensive and distracting logjam for Brown to contend with. Could force a trade. Brown is truly a blockhead, but he's never had to deal with a player with Palmer's amount of leverage before.

Seattle, for their part, could up their offer; a conditional second-round draft pick and an extra fifth-rounder (or a player in trade, which is a rumor I've seen) in 2012 would be a pill I'm willing to swallow. It wouldn't be surprising if Brown had decided at the 11th hour to demand something along those lines.

The media silence on this issue isn't necessarily an indication of its unlikelihood. It could be that the Seahawks are waiting to finalize another offer until they give Palmer a physical, which can't happen until Friday. If that were true, both teams would naturally be staying quiet in their attempt to stare the other down.

Or it might all be a load of bunk and Mike Brown really is that arrogant. I don't know. But why, then, hasn't Palmer officially filed his walking papers? With Vince Young far more likely to end up in Philadelphia and Kyle Orton in Miami, the only real remaining QB option out there that Carroll could be hinting seems to be Palmer. The theory still fits the facts. And I don't quite believe that a potentially top-flight receiver like Sidney Rice was signed to catch passes from Tarvaris Jackson.

So I'm not going back to the drawing board just yet. But although the rumor isn't quite dead, I think we can consider it on life support.

RUMOR: Carson Palmer to Seattle for Mid-Round Picks

Don't panic if Seattle doesn't draft a quarterback on Thursday - it might just mean that they already have one coming.

Rumors are heating up that Cincinnati QB Carson Palmer has a trade deal in the works with the Seattle Seahawks, and that the asking price is incredibly generous: a 5th-round draft pick and a 3rd-round (at the highest) pick in 2012, and a contract significantly less than either his current contract in Cincinnati or the contract that Matt Hasselbeck asked the Seahawks for.

Your immediate reaction is one of mocking incredulity. Those fanboys again. No way that would ever happen.

Well, there is a specific set of circumstances that could give sensible framework to the trade. Those circumstances have been authenticated separately by Rob Staton at Seahawks Draft Blog, working from a well-connected source he trusts, and a Seahawks.net forum member who also claims a contact within the Bengals organization. Adam Wright of Seahawks_Talk tweeted back in March that Palmer was being targeted by Seattle, and Sam Farmer of the LA Times has theorized the move as well, though the latter's comments could just be speculation.

There's also this Deep Throat with some intimate info that contradicts nothing we know about the situation. (Text, but NSFW).

Validating this rumor feels a little like validating the moon landing. There's a ton of quick, convenient contradictions that look good on the surface, but explore each of them with the facts and each sticking point goes away. The challenge is to overcome the "Oh, come on" reflex - the feeling that if you have to spend more than 5 minutes justifying something, you're just on the wrong path.

Here's the obvious counter-arguments: