Seahawks Re-Sign CB Kennard Cox

The Seahawks have re-signed special teams ace CB Kennard Cox, report multiple sources.

You might remember Cox as That Guy with the Long Hair on Special Teams. He totaled ten tackles and two passes defensed in the 11 games he played, but also blocked a punt against Kansas City and recovered a muffed punt against Arizona.

Cox was originally drafted in the seventh round by Buffalo. He isn't too valuable as a starting cornerback - many will remember Cox primarily as the guy whom Atlanta WR Michael Jenkins beat for a long touchdown, for which he may or may not have been 100% culpable. But Cox is mostly a ST gunner, not a starting CB, and this relatively minor signing could actually say quite a bit about the vision of Seattle's front office.

A Crystal Ball for Defensive Ends?

Football Outsiders has developed a tool that they think can help predict the success or failure of college defensive ends declaring for the NFL. They call it SackSEER, and they built it by measuring the qualities that seem to correlate most with highest sack numbers over the first seven years of professional play.

You can read their own explanation here.

Basically, FO found that there are four factors in a DE prospect that seem closely connected with pro success:

* Vertical leap;

* Short shuttle time;

* Sack Rate as Modified;

* Missed games of NCAA eligibility (for suspension, injury, or any other reason);

UPDATED: Thoughts on the Combine's QB Interviews

I wrote a while back on my annoyance with idle, unconfirmable rumors against college football prospects, so it should mean something that I'm a little let down by Arkansas QB Ryan Mallett's interview at the Combine on Saturday.

To summarize, he just doesn't appear to have helped himself much with the interview. Naturally, he immediately got peppered with questions about his off-the-field issues (which seem to be zeroing in on drug abuse), and his first response was to laugh it off. Once the questions continued, he began flatly insisting that "NFL teams know what they need to" and, in response to another round of those questions, ended his interview without preamble.

That's going to make Mallett look like he has something to hide. Admittedly, the only way to avoid that look was to come out and talk about the allegations, and there could have been valid reasons not to do so right now. But he and everyone else knew that the focus of this interview would be those off-the-field flags, and the abrupt ending to the interview didn't depict a guy who felt comfortable with himself. He came across to me as simply having lost his cool. (Watch for yourself here and here.)

Decoding John Schneider

Seahawks GM John Schneider graciously dropped us a few small bones today as he spoke to reporters at the Combine. In these days of CBA limbo, we're desperate for any scraps that fall from the table, are we not?

I wanted to take what we heard and turn it over a little bit in my mind. Not that I have any idea what Schneider is really thinking, but hey, we're all doing this, right?


On Matt Hasselbeck:

Top Ten Great Mistakes of Tim Ruskell, Part 2

5. The Hiring of Jim Mora

Jim L. Mora, Seattle's head coach for one brief year that wasn't brief enough, was a loose-lipped PR embarrassment before his Seattle tenure, a vacant, reactionary excuse-maker during his tenure, and a facepalm-inducing fop after he's left. He had never created anything but a mediocre defense before Ruskell tapped him to succeed Mike Holmgren as Seahawks head coach. You could rank his hiring anywhere on this list of Ruskell's greatest failures.

I don't know which is worse - that the players quit on Mora before the season was half over, or that he was trying to make grandiose, larger-than-life big-shot gestures before the season even began. T.J. Houshmandzadeh and the watch, really? Did you think we'd completely forgotten about the Huskies comments? Before he'd had any chance to (re)build credibility and trust with the Seahawks or their fans, he was already flexing for the Super Bowl pregame shows. Ugh.

From his thousand-yard-stare to his reflex of publicly hanging struggling players out to dry, Mora did one thing right: he taught us how much of the dignified, responsible, patient Mike Holmgren we'd taken for granted all those years. He also gave us a frame for new coach Pete Carroll, who defends his players as a coach should. It's pretty bad when your biggest accomplishment as an NFL head coach is to make both your predecessor and your successor look better than you.


4. The Left Tackle Situation

Roundtable: Six Seattle Prospects to Watch

As the country turns its attention to the NFL Scouting Combine today, 17 Power has grouped together the six first-round draft candidates that are most commonly being mocked to the Seattle Seahawks at #25 in the upcoming draft. These are the guys that seem to make the most sense for the Seahawks on the basis of Best Player Available - the intersection between the most talent available at that spot, and the greatest need for the Seahawks, with neither taking undue precedence over the other.

So we've individually rated all six prospects and come out with an interesting consensus. The players are listed in the order we would draft them if all six were still on the board at #25. Contributing to this nonsense are 17 Power writers Brandon Adams, Scott Williams, and John Campbell, with a guest appearance from Kyle Rota of NFL Draft Reports!

Enjoy - and remember to keep an eye on these guys at the Combine.

Seahawks Re-Sign CB Roy Lewis, WR Isaiah Stanback

Curtis Crabtree and Danny O'Neill are reporting via Twitter that the Seahawks have re-signed CB Roy Lewis and WR Isaiah Stanback.

Both players are coming off injured reserve.

Roy Lewis was the Seahawks' special-teams captain and a decent replacement for Josh Wilson at the nickelback corner role, with a knack for knocking down some crucial third- and fourth-down pass attempts over the season. He combined for 26 tackles and a sack in the 14 games he played. He was also named the team's Walter/Payton NFL Man of the Year for his off-the-field contributions to the Seattle community. The University of Washington product and former UDFA for the Steelers(!) is 25 and should have plenty left in the tank. Productive signing.

Isaiah Stanback, another former Husky, never got a chance to strut his stuff for Seattle before being IR'd in the preseason. He was drafted in the fourth round in 2007 by the Cowboys and was toyed with by them and the New England Patriots as a backup wide receiver and kick returner. He also played a little QB with the Huskies. Carroll's retainment of this jack-of-all-trades could be significant. Intriguing.

YAY! Seahawks news!!