You won’t get beat by the deep ball in all likelihood. The West Coast Offense isn’t a system that has a lot of deep passes, but Matt Hasselbeck is a miserable deep ball thrower. For the most part he is inaccurate and throws it to the other team. Seneca Wallace (backup QB) doesn’t fare much better, and Charlie Frye considers a 10 yard pass to be a Hail Mary. The only way that the cornerbacks will be beaten downfield is a blown coverage play that leads to a pitch and catch.

Another contributing problem to the passing woes has not only been the lack of good QB play but the lack of health at the WR spot. Nate Burleson, Ben Obomanu, Deion Branch, and Bobby Engram have all been injured (the first two are out for the season).

Speaking of Deion Branch, he is an absolute waste. He’s got to be the most breakable thing on the planet. He’s a waste of a first round draft pick for someone who was a Super Bowl MVP. He’s good when he’s healthy…….but he is NEVER HEALTHY!

The current rotation features Branch, Engram, Koren Robinson, and Courtney Taylor. Robinson has been good and bad, but the common theme is that they all drop passes now. Seattle is one of the top 10 teams in dropped passes and it’s been huge. When you combine 3 QBs who can’t make great throws and 4 WRs that aren’t consistently catching passes you get disaster.

However, I would look out for our rookie tight end, John Carlson. I’m almost certain he has more YACs than the actual receivers. He is actually Seattle’s leading receiver and is a major threat in the middle of the field. He’s slow even for a TE, but he can catch and has the potential to be a Pro Bowl caliber player.

Carlson right now is the only constant strength in an otherwise remarkably bad passing game.

Anyhoo…..

Steve Hutchinson left and the world fell apart. I thought when Seattle signed Mike Wahle this offseason the LG position would be secure, and it was for a few weeks….until he became the NFC version of Khalif Barnes and got injured. Tim Ruskell handled the situation so poorly and paid $49,000,000 for Nate Burleson. While I like Nate and he’s missed in this offense, he is not worth that much.

With Hutchinson leaving, Shaun Alexander began to suck. The correlation between him struggling (injuries or not) and Hutchinson leaving is obvious, but I seriously think Hutchinson made him what he is opening up huge holes. Basically the Seahawks waited too long to recognize the problem and it began the doom.

Arizona woke up and got good. Ken Whisenhunt made the coaching move of the season benching Matt Leinart, and now they’ll be in the playoffs.

Somewhere along the way Ray Rhodes left Seattle and John Marshall began his disaster campaign. He is almost completely responsible for this clusterbomb of a defense. His gameplan “adjustments” have failed miserably and thinks 3rd and 6 with 1:44 in the game is the time to actually blitz.

Speaking of the blitz, Seattle’s blitzes in the John Marshall era just about never work.

Injuries…..a lot of them. No explanation needed.

Finally, Mike Holmgren saying to the team he was leaving may have been a factor. I am starting to believe that players have quit on him, and Walrus himself may have quit a long time ago. His playcalling is even worse than before, and he’s a lot more pass-heavy than he has been in previous years.

I’m hesitant to blame Tim Ruskell at this point because this is only the first year he’s been the GM of an awful Seahawks team. That being said he’s handled it poorly and has made many reactionary moves that have contributed to this team’s downfall.

I do not think this team will be good unless there is a major overhaul in the coaching staff and Seattle makes a splash in free agency. You can’t just go 2-10 after dominating a division and say this team will be good again next season, It’s going to take some time and Jim Mora will have a lot of cleaning up to do.

There is a whopping 1 rookie other than Carlson that is making plays, and it’s Justin Forsett on the punt returns.

Lawrence Jackson (DE) is slow off the line and he’s looking like another wasted USC first rounder. Brandon Coutu is the team’s 2nd kicker……I’ll leave it there. Tyler Schmitt is on IR sadly (long snapper), Owen Schmitt the FB hasn’t made many big plays and he’s hardly on the field as long as Leonard Weaver is healthy.