Some people are fans of the Seattle Seahawks. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Seattle Seahawks. This 2020 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: Seattle Seahawks.
Your 2019 record: 12-4. LET’S SEE HOW IT ENDED!
Oh, they were FORCED to punt after that, were they? God came down from the sky holding a Desert Eagle and said to the Seahawks, “My sons, you must sacrifice your only down left, so that whoever believes in me shall not perish but have eternal life.”
So they fucking punted. For a touchback. And never got the ball back.
Now, going for it on 4th-and-11 from your own side of the field is decidedly risky enterprise, but as Nate Scott of USA Today pointed out at the time, when you’re down five with three minutes left and a trip to the NFC title game is on the line, EVERY FUCKING PLAY IS RISKY. You were already down 21-3 in this game, man. You spent the entire second half clawing your way back into the game only to take your foot off the gas right THEN? On the single most important down of the whole night? WHO DID THIS. I DEMAND TO KNOW WHO IS RESPONSIBLE.
Your coach: Him.
That’s Pete Carroll, diligently studying his excuses.
As opposed to forcing Aaron Rodgers into a three-and-out at the end of a game. Why, the odds of that happening are almost as good as the odds of Rodgers reuniting with his family! ALL TOO EASY. When you’re in 4th-and-11 that late in a game, all of your choices are bad. But one of those choices at least leaves open the possibility that you KEEP the ball, as opposed to handing it over to Rodgers and then flying home with a tasteful name placard adorning your headrest.
Your offensive coordinator is still Brian Schottenheimer. Your QB coach is still the guy Seattle signed three years ago to play backup quarterback instead of Colin Kaepernick. This is where promise goes to be squandered.
Your quarterback: You’ve heard of nanobubbles, but have you heard of the nanoMATTRESS?! WHAAA?!
Whoa hey are you telling me that mattress is made of MOLECULES? Fascinating. This new learning intrigues me, Sir Wilson. Explain again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.
That’s Russell Wilson, who loves nothing more than to kick back, relax, and carefully work with his PR team to set up a full-day Instagram shoot of him inside an empty room, playing catch with himself on a bare bed. Wilson, who will only fuck his wife if it makes a baby, is about to enter the stage of his career where the announcers are like, “There’s no doubt this guy is guy is headed to Canton!” while Kyler Murray and Nick Bosa take over the division. Wilson is like Tiger Woods in that I love watching both of those men ply their trade—Wilson has been one of the most reliably entertaining players in football history—and then I steadfastly AVOID them off the field because everything they do makes me hate them. That’s right. I’m a disgusting hypocrite who only sticks to sports when it comes to liking Russell Wilson. But can you blame me? Are you familiar with Russell Wilson’s brand persona? Russell Wilson is a stock photo that can break contain. I’d rather get a drink with Ted Nugent. That would literally be more fun.
What’s new that sucks: Richard Sherman made it back to the Super Bowl before the Seahawks did, so you better believe that Seattle is gonna exhaust every last resource trying to build a new Legion of Boom in Wilson’s famed Molecule Chamber. In fact, they’ve already begun exhausting those resources, and at an alarming rate.
That extra third rounder is the dagger. That’s like when Washington traded Champ Bailey for Clinton Portis and threw a second-rounder into the deal because ??????????????????? Bailey became a Hall of Famer. Portis became Dan Snyder’s preferred Cool Drinking Buddy. Jamal Adams celebrated his liberation from the Jets by nearly slicing his finger off while he was cutting strawberries. Enormous tribute to Russell Wilson for Adams to suffer what is normally a BASEBALL preseason injury. That injury has Jeff Kent written all over it.
The Seahawks are gonna need Adams to be a colossus out there, because their pass defense was absolute SHIT last season. And that was when they had Jadeveon Clowney. But Clowney left, which means that Seattle blew a third-round pick on him for essentially nothing. This is a team has quietly shifted into the kind of careless WIN NOW MODE that is usually reserved for, oh, let’s say the 2011 Knicks. They’re a goodie bag of stars built on a foundation of sand. Russell Wilson doesn't like sand. It's coarse and rough irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like on a Molecule mattress. (Russell takes your hand) On this mattress everything is soft and smooth.
What else? Marshawn came back for a gratuitous cameo at the end of last season and then the Seahawks let him walk in favor of signing Carlos Hyde as one of Chris Carson’s backups. Carlos Hyde is one of those backs you THINK is underutilized before you finally accept that he’s not very good. The Seahawks also signed tight end Greg Olsen, because they apparently can’t get enough of players who flake out on retirement. Russell Wilson’s professional farewell 2our is gonna last eight years. I’m already miserable about it.
Quinton Dunbar got accused of armed robbery. Earl Thomas’s wife caught him in an orgy that included his own brother (weird) and then she chased him around with a knife. I know Earl left a year ago but you guys still revere him, so it was worth mentioning.
What has always sucked: Your police department:
Incredible competition for the title of America’s Worst PD this summer, but by God Seattle, did your infants in blue make a run. They’re not gonna pussy out in the clutch like Pete Carroll! No sir. When the pressure is at its highest, they’re gonna take a risk and fill your grandma’s oxygen tank with tear gas concentrate. YOU CANNOT WIN UNLESS YOU MAINTAIN AN ATTACKING MENTALITY.
As with Seattle in general, there is always a string attached with the Seahawks. They notched one of the most shockingly decisive Super Bowl wins of my lifetime, and then needed only one year to erase all of that glory by throwing away the chance to repeat. They have a marvel of a quarterback but are constantly looking for ways to make his job more difficult. They play in what seems like one of the more sophisticated cities in America, but is actually a glorified Amazon fulfillment center secured by Nazi rent-a-cops. They can keep themselves in any game but also keep the opponents in any game, too. Any other sportswriter might consider them an enigma. I prefer to call them deeply fucking annoying.
What might not suck: I picked this team to win the Super Bowl. What an honor. Also, Poona Ford is a delightful name.
Ratto says: “To the team who stole the highlighter/phlegm/tubercular green as a uniform choice from the 1970 Atlanta Hawks. That team’s logo looked like the logo from the old Blackhawk comic book (don't worry, you were still a skeevy look in your dad's eye when that stopped being a thing) and nobody came near it again. Until, that is, the Seahawks did. Be that as it may, this is a team hanging on to its old identity by trotting out Bobby Wagner as the last Legionnaire while trying to start a new one with Jamal Adams, who has already contributed to the delightful sound and vision of Pete Carroll calling Gregg Williams a simpleton. This alone should make you want them to hold off the end times a little while longer. That, and the fact that they make the 49ers sweat out their eye sockets every time the teams meet when the alternative is Kyle Shanahan being named by 'football insiders' as God Of The Ninth Vector or some equally grovelly thing. Nobody needs that.”
HEAR IT FROM SEAHAWKS FANS!
Andrew:
Russell Wilson is the corniest motherfucker alive. He named his child Win. WIN! Fuck outta here.
Allison:
RUSSELL WILSON’S NEW BABY IS NAMED WIN.
Bill:
Pete Carroll talks as rapidly and convincingly as a husband who has been caught by the wife in the sack with the babysitter. He chews gum more furiously than a Pioneer Square tweaker.
Benny:
Russell Wilson is the Tom Cruise of NFL quarterbacks in that nobody will doubt his capabilities but you get the feeling that he's compensating for some kind of weird predilection.
Jeff:
Action Green is the best uniform in the league and I will hear no argument against that fact. We suck because of a high percentage of tacky assholes like me who also have a similar train of thought.
Robert:
I got a puppy last week and the third thing I ever said to her was a complaint about the end of Super Bowl XLIX. This fanbase will be broken forever.
Alix:
Russ sucks because he was holding workouts with his wide recievers all summer. During COVID. WHILE HIS WIFE WAS PREGNANT. With a child they eventually named WIN. Like that fucking dog named after a grocery store. Also, he doesn't want to wear a protective shield during the season and probably doesn't wear a mask around his Southern California town while he's working out with Antonio Brown.
Willis:
I can't wait for Russell to say something stupid about COVID. Ten bucks says he does, Drew. I'll buy something cheap off your Amazon wish list. Hail Bezos.
Andrew:
Everyone here constantly complains that Russell Wilson doesn’t get enough recognition, even though literally everyone agrees he’s a top 3 QB. What more do you people want???
Russell (not Wilson):
The worst people to watch a Seahawks game with are other Seahawks fans.
Josh:
The Seahawks are built to kill its fanbase. Throwing money at a few key pieces while major problem areas (the FUCKING O-LINE) go underaddressed is a recipe for chronic heart failure. Also, Portland has a better beer scene.
Hamilton:
The Seahawks are somehow convinced that the one missing piece to winning a Super Bowl this year is swapping a slightly-above-average safety who can also play corner for a well-above-average safety who cannot play corner.
Andrew:
Just imagine for a minute, if you will, Russ with Andy Reid as his head coach instead.
Brian:
They took the worst defensive line in football, removed Jadeveon Clowney from it, and replaced him with something called "Bryan Mone."
Kacie:
Our team spirit is hanging on to the tiniest of threads - cheesy hype videos created by a Gen Zer with a Twitter handle referencing the multiple Josh Brolin characters in Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Grayson:
The Seahawks have been blessed with one of the greatest quarterbacks of our generation, only to waste his talents by handing the ball off to the likes of CJ Prosise and a Marshawn Lynch that they drug out of the nearest Raiders parking lot. I can’t wait to watch them lose 19-13 to the dolphins because we still haven’t learned how to pass block.
Robert:
Located directly outside pikes place market.
Phil:
While people in the PNW like to think we are Canada-Light and super nice, our region is filled with some of the worst people on Earth. There are literal Neo-Nazi training camps in Eastern Washington (supported by the walking pile of shit, Matt Shea), Idaho is full of numb nuts Trump supporters that won't wear masks, Oregon was founded as a white supremacist utopia, the police in Portland are friends with the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer fucksticks, Seattle is full of "liberals" who don't actually care if you are poor, or starving, or can't get your meds as long as you don't interfere with their walk to PCC, and our fucking coach is a 9/11 truther.
The Seattle fanbase is no different than the rest of the PNW. We like to pretend we are so nice and welcoming, but during a game at Century Link, you get the absolute dregs of society coming from Seattle and the surrounding areas. Take for example the man who threatened a couple with a knife for leaving a Seahawks game early (cool guy!), or my own personal experience of having multiple white trash ladies yell at my wife (8mo pregnant at the time) for leaving early.
Our QB is overpaid, our O-line will never be good with Russ's contract, our coach is older than dirt, and no matter what any Seahawks fan will tell you, we will never win another Super Bowl... At least we have the Kraken to look forward to.
Joe:
This is our schedule for the next 8 years, and it’s been this way since 2015 already:
Thanksgiving: Seahawks in the running for home field advantage. You’ve been saying since Memorial Day that this team was a Super Bowl contender, and they’re about to come through!
December: Seahawks deeply shit the bed against several non-playoff teams; ruin chances of division title
Wildcard Round: Hawks smash a weak, deeply flawed team in a wildcard game, all of Seattle gets Super Bowl fever.
Divisional Round: Seahawks get their doors blown off in the first three quarters before finally giving up on shit-tastic offensive strategy that even Chuck Knox’s corpse would think is a little bland, predictable, and behind the times. Russell Wilson, pretending that the earpiece in his helmet doesn’t work in the fourth quarter, calls his own plays, then gets the game to within one score with five minutes left. Someone (a ref? an offensive player? A defensive player? A coach? Who will it be this time?) makes a bone-headed error and hands the game to the home team. Seahawks season over.
March: Say that the Mariners are just “a guy or two” away from contending.
Memorial Day: Mariners are already 20 games back. Start talking yourself into the Seahawks being a Super Bowl contender.
Jay Willis:
Here is a secret: As much as Seahawks fans love to grumble about the coaches' refusal to #LetRussCook or whatever, it’s absolutely better for our hilariously brittle collective psyche that they don't, because the banal frustration of winning 10 games and losing in the divisional round is nothing compared to what would happen if the coaches really did take off the training wheels, forcing a horrified Seahawks Twitter to come to grips with the fact that Unleashed Russell Wilson isn’t on the Mahomes/Lamar level like everyone here fervently imagines him to be.
Hypothetical Russell Wilson, on the other hand, is still free to be greatest athlete of all time in any sport at any position, and as long as Carroll and company keep trying to make Chris Carson happen, we can all keep consoling ourselves with the same comforting lie every January before asking Alexa what year the Kraken are supposed to start playing.
Evan:
Our GM looks like the kind of guy who listens to Limp Bizkit in the clubhouse of his Atlantic City boardwalk mini golf business.
Our head coach looks like Owen Wilson if Owen Wilson had taken a peek inside the Ark of the Covenant.
Our quarterback, while supremely talented, checks more than enough boxes to make me genuinely believe that he has murdered at least a few drifters in his day. It’s like the cars you see doing EXACTLY 60mph at 2:00am on the freeway. You know they’re either on ‘ludes, or are wearing a necklace made of nipples.
Anyone who uses the term “Beastquake” should only be trusted to butter people’s corn at the fair. Our offensive line is filled with every 6’7” kid out of Hofstra’s dental program, our quarterback is running for his life literally every time he doesn’t hand it off, our best receiver is already going bald, and our first, second, and third string running backs suffered broken arms, broken hips, and blown out knees all in the last few weeks of 2019. I haven’t heard God speak that loud in a while. PASS THE DAMN BALL.
Jeff:
When the Sonics were still in town, Howard Schultz traded Gary Payton because he wanted more players like Desmond Mason (apparently Mason called him "Sir.") And that's this fanbase to a tee: a bunch of cryptoracist liberal concern trolls who somehow found a way to foist the same Scrappy White Guy tropes they'd once ascribed to Steve Largent onto Russell Wilson, started a petition to ban Cam Newton from the city, amd found ways to insert Richard Sherman being a Stanford grad into every conversation like they were his mother.
So fuck this team for creating a world where I have to live with this Karen of a fanbase. Fuck the Seahawks. Fuck Seattle. Fuck the Space Needle. Fuck Frasier Crane (RIP Marty Crane). Fuck the Pike Place fishmongers b-roll. Fuck the Kraken. Fuck Bill Gates. Fuck Howard Schultz times infinity. (Fuck Jeff Bezos × infinty) + 1. Fuck every local musician not named Sir Mix A Lot or Ann Wilson. Fuck em all. I hope Kyler Murray throws 50 TDs against us.
Gavin:
I can't decide if I should love Pete Carroll for winning a Super Bowl or hate Pete Carroll for wasting so many years of Russell Wilson behind a crappy offense line while telling us not to worry, because he has Tom Cable. Pete Carroll could watch the Hindenburg crash, hold a press conference, and then say, "Hindenburg is healing up real well. We trust it will be ready to fly the team across the country in a couple weeks."
Rob:
Honest to God, it seems like they keep signing high priced defensive talent & trading away draft picks all so they can protect Russell Wilson with whatever 300-pound kid gets kicked off the Huskies lacrosse team. Reminder: 2013 is gone, and you can't unthrow the Malcolm Butler interception, but the least Pete Carroll could do is keep Ciara's husband alive by not making him run the Tough Mudder two seconds after snapping the ball on every down.
Scott:
Before being hired as Seattle's offensive coordinator, Brian Schottenheimer's teams ranked 12th, 22nd, 18th, 22nd, 16th, 21st, 21st, 22nd, and 22nd in DVOA (although admittedly they would surely rank much higher in any ranking of "pointlessly complex webs of 3-yard passing routes.") Hiring him to coach and call plays for Russell Wilson is like hiring William Shatner to give singing lessons to Beyoncé.
Josh:
We don’t deserve Russell Wilson. The burden heaped onto his shoulders is excessive, and the only reason Pete Carroll and John Schneider aren’t pariahs is because he’s risen to the task for almost a decade now. Even now, when the Seahawks strategy has formally been “Russell Wilson runs for his life every single play” for four years, every penny and PR effort is pointed at the defense that hasn’t been the team’s best aspect for five years. Wilson’s adamantium skeleton alone is the difference between 11-5 or 7-9.
But Wilson will die someday, probably on the field from a blindside spear tackle because the left tackle just graduated from junior college.
Aaron:
YAY ANOTHER SAFETY!!!! HE WAS ON THE JETS SO YOU KNOW HE'S GOOD!!! Draft picks? Whatever, two first rounders don't matter, we got our QB in round 3 so you know how we do!
How in the actual FUCK do these schmucks continue to disregard the basics of the offensive line, and not notice that their approach to team building is problematic? Almost a shame that Russell can scramble and avoid contact so effectively that he saves them from the consequences of Pete's proclivities. Maybe try an O-line that isn't the consistency of mortadella and can actually pull - and then block. Or imagine having more than 2.7 seconds to pass to Lockett or Metcalf! And btw, we have NINE fucking CBs on the roster right now!
Also, not certain that Marshawn would've scored that TD anyways but FML at this point.
Matt:
Back in 2012, when Russell Wilson was a rookie, Marshawn Lynch was on the team, and the team was lovable, the Seahawks blew the doors off everyone for almost a month: 58-0 over the Cardinals, 50-17 over the Bills, 42-13 over the Niners. A year later, they stomped the Broncos 43-8 in the Super Bowl. I will not lie to you: I enjoyed that very much.
Ever since then, the halftime score of every Seahawks game is Jets 10 - Seahawks 6, and Pete Carroll pulls this "We just want to have a chance at the end of the game" bullshit, as if kicking ass the whole game was never on the table. Every memorable 4th quarter of a Seattle game that a neutral fan enjoys comes after three quarters of idiotic, stroke-inducing tedium. The Seahawks have been the same stupid team for like five years. I HATE watching this team, which is insane because Russell Wilson is incredible to watch... when he's not handing off on 2nd-and-9.
You know how we're all astonished that the Packers only won one Super Bowl despite Aaron Rodgers being the best quarterback in the league for like a decade? And how we all agree it's because Mike McCarthy was a conservative doofus? Hi, that's the Seahawks in the five years. Fuck me.
Wesley:
Seattlites are not gracious. The fans are insane and steal their name from a shitty school in Texas, their coach is like a billion years old and definitely knew Epstein, their quarterback has the gall to steal Future's girlfriend and then literally wallow in efficient mediocrity for the rest of his existence, they broke two of the greatest defensive backs to ever lace up and then abandoned them, THEN got pissed they made their money elsewhere. This whole goddamn team is like Amazon: awful and with a disproportionately large fan base. I hope every drive ends at the one yard line so I can watch these people blame it on their receivers.
Fuck Russell Wilson and his dumbass goddamn Alaska Airlines commercials.
Timothy:
Where the fuck do I begin with the Seahawks? Maybe with how they're bound and determined to follow the Green Bay Packers' "completely waste the prime of the best QB alive" plan. Maybe with the way they treat the defensive line as "optional." Maybe with how they routinely galaxy-brain their way into using their earliest draft picks on players which would have been there two rounds later. Or maybe with how they try and protect Russell Wilson with a bunch of converted DLs and college basketball players on the OL. Or maybe it's the fact that they'll ineffectually run the ball for three quarters, falling behind by double digits before finally letting Wilson throw the fucking ball.
They traded away all their first rounders forever for Jamal Adams, which is fine because they'd just waste them on running backs or outside linebackers from Kansas State or something. Their second biggest offseason acquisition was arrested for armed robbery and his lawyer was implicated in a scheme to pay off the witnesses. The defensive line hasn't recorded a sack in four seasons.
Andy:
Our team is intentionally trying to kill me through stress. No matter how good or bad a team they play at the start of the fourth quarter, there is always a chance they can win so I can't stop watching and live my life. My favorite game time snack is beta blockers sprinkled over queso.
Paul Allen, who owned the team and the part of the city where your neighbor that just moved here from Austin works, died. While I am not one to eulogize billionaires, as an owner he did not mind spending money, seldom got in the way of people he hired, and never did anything to embarrass himself. Instead of having deeply troubling political views, he created a museum that basically lets you wander around in a rich nerd's weird collection barn and he investigated shipwrecks with a submarine. All other billionaires take note. We will probably sell the team to some third-tier tech billionaire who will sell the naming rights to a vague environmental vanity project.
Please make sure in your article to remind everyone that as progressive this team likes to think it is, they did not sign Kaepernick when he was available and was better than any quarterback other than Wilson in its history. Fuck trading all of our first round picks for disappointing players who never live up to their cap hit. Fuck the 12s, I was going to take pictures of all the custom wrapped, 12th fan pickup trucks I see in the exurbs of seattle but they've become so ubiquitous they now blend into the background. FUCK RUNNING THE BALL ON SECOND AND LONG.
Adam:
Fuck Darrell Bevell for that play call, fuck the front office for picking Harvin over Golden Tate in the 2014 offseason, fuck Dan Snyder’s shitty turf for tearing Chris Clemons’s ACL, fuck Pete’s empty support of BLM and dishonesty about why he didn’t sign Kap, fuck the Cowboys, fuck Robert Kraft for drafting a white supremacist kicker, fuck the “12s” for railroading Earl Thomas/Richard Sherman/Michael Bennett after they left the team, and fuck me for continuing to invest time and energy to a sport that leaves so many players injured and cognitively disabled. Someone should hit me over the head with a shovel for believing, despite all the evidence listed above, that Pete Carroll can win another Super Bowl.
Submissions for the NFL previews are closed. Next up: Baltimore Ravens.
