Alright, I know this isn't Seahawks news but it is news that indirectly affects the Seahawks:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4718965

ESPN is reporting that the NFL is pulling the plug on the $100 million NFL revenue sharing program.  The NFLPA is challenging it.  This also means the minimum spending requirements for the teams (yes they exist) no longer apply to the teams that can no longer draw from this fund.  We're one step closer to baseball everybody!

Oh and this doesn't affect the $6.5 billion in revenues shared by all clubs.  Which is a far bigger and more important part.  But this is still going to cut around $10 mil from the budget of the lower income teams.

So last night I was going to respond to someone complaining about how Ruskell hasn't done anything to fix our OL and has let it collapse.  I started to write a lengthy reply, then realized there were dozens of comments just like that one and it would be better to just create an in-depth fanpost about it instead.  So, I looked back over Ruskell's tenure at all the draft picks made.

I'm excluding some late round picks because Ruskell has a tendency, especially early in his career, to take fliers on players with a lot of upside but little chance of succeeding.  These kind of players involve a lot of luck.  I simply ignored some of the late picks that didn't matter, and so I'm not taking into account the positions they played.  They were more about potential, rather than positions of need that could play.  This has led me to exclude players like Plackermeier, Forsett, Jordan Kent, and Doug Nienhuis (who?).

EDIT:  It was asked that I put in the relative trade value of these picks, so I did using this chart: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/draft06/news/story?id=2410670

2005:
1st round: Chris Spencer: Center 700 points
2nd round: Lofa Tatupu: Linebacker 450 points
3rd round: David Greene: Quarterback 165 points
3rd round: Leroy Hill: Linebacker 108 points
4th round: Ray Willis: Offensive Linemen 105 points

2006:
1st round: Kelly Jennings: Cornerback 600 points
2nd round: Darryl Tapp: Defense End 276 points
4th round: Rob Sims: Offensive Lineman 128 points

2007:
1st round: Deion Branch (trade): Wide Reciever (740 points)
2nd Round: Josh Wilson: Cornerback 350 points
3rd round: Brandon Mebane: Defensive Tackle 165 points
4th round: Baraka Atkins: Defensive Tackle 54 points
4th round: Mansfield Wrotto: Offensive Lineman 48 points

2008:
1st round: Lawrence Jackson: Defensive End 660 points
2nd round: John Carlson: Tight End 520 points
4th round: Red Bryant: Defensive Tackle 121 points
5th round: Owen Schmitt: Fullback 163 points

2009:
1st round: Aaron Curry: Linebacker 1800 points
2nd round: Max Unger: Offensive Lineman 410 points
3rd round: Deon Butler: Wide Reciever 136 points

These picks tended to be late in the rounds, because the Seahawks kept making the playoffs or barely missing them.  Only 2009 had early round picks.  This leads to 5 Offensive linemen picked in 5 drafts.  At least one every year except in 2008.  In his first year, Ruskell went almost entirely linebackers and offensive linemen.  At the time it was widely believed that our defense needed to catch up to our offense, so we can see why those linebackers were taken.
This list contains: 5 linemen, 3 Linebackers, 2 cornerbacks, 1 defensive end, 2 defensive tackles, 1 fullback, 1 wide receiver, 1 tight end, and 1 quarterback.

Added in: The position break down by points:

• Linebackers: 2358 points
• Offensive Linemen: 1391 points
• Cornerbacks: 950 points
• Defensive Linemen: 835 points

The rest are a single player at a position.  I'm not a big fan of using this method, as it severely undervalues 3-4th round picks.  And overvalues the top 5 picks.  Curry alone is ~60% of that linebacker total.  But there it is for you.  Also interestingly, if you want to look at it by players that can block for Matt Hasselbeck, we can include the fullback (who's blocking is recognized as his primary strength) and the tight end (who was supposed to be a decent blocker and reciever) and that total comes up to 2074 points.  That's a large chunk of change devoted to positions that can protect Hasselbeck.

Out of this, all of them but two are still on the team.  You know who they all are, which says a lot.  None of these guys have flunked out except Atkins and Greene, and Atkins was a high upside high risk player anyways.  Kelly Jennings has turned out to almost certainly not be worth a 1st round pick, so you can call him a bust for his drafted position.  Other then that, no busts.  Several pro bowlers.  But we knew there were pro bowlers in here.  Let's see.  How about how many offensive picks compared to defense?

9 offensive players picked, compared to 10 defensive players.  10 offensive players if you count Deion Branch.  So he's pretty much split down the middle amongst picks in the first four rounds.  Most of those offensive picks were offensive linemen who are now either starting for the Seahawks or are primary backups.

So, what have we learned?  Ruskell has not neglected the offensive line.  He just no longer has 2 hall of famers to count on.  One moved on due to a wording loophole that no one noticed before, and the other has a body that's failing him from old age.  The players he has drafted to replace them have not shown themselves to be hall of fame worthy.  They have showed flashes of promise mixed with periods of horrible failure.  For me at least, the jury's still out on them.  I want to see how they wrap up the season as they start getting used to playing with each other.

What Ruskell has neglected to do is provide us with a high quality replacement for Matt Hasselbeck and for Shaun Alexander.  To get a high quality RB or QB, we probably needed to grab one in the first round.  Good QB's are almost always found in the first round, the Bradys and Hasselbecks of the world being the extreme exception.  So, who were we in a position to grab?  Most of our 1st rounders were near the back end of the draft.  We would have had to move up in the draft, forfeiting more players.  The 2006 draft is the one where we could most easily say, "I wouldn't mind going without those players for a good QB" but the last good QB in that draft was taken 11th overall.  And drafting a RB has until recently been prohibitively expensive because of Shaun Alexander's contract.

So, in your position, what would you have done differently?  It's easy to say, "We shoulda had a new QB and RB and new OL by now!!" but where do we grab them?  Who do we give up?  How do we handle the resulting cap hits?  I am in no way trying to say that Ruskell is perfect or great or anything.  Hind sight is 20/20, certain choices were clearly mistakes.  Jennings, Shaun Alexander's contract, the Keary Colbert trade.  But, given the situation, how much would have been done differently?

I think the thing a lot of people really need to remember is that Ruskell is dealing with limited resources just like every other NFL GM.  He has a few picks and a set amount of money that he can spend on the team.  His job is to maximize return for the Seahawks.  The better he does, the harder his job gets (players wanting raises, later draft picks, etc.).  And he has to deal with us fans being obsessed with certain players (Hasselbeck and Jones) and us refusing to see their coming demise.

So I return to my previous question.  What would you do differently?  Choose someone else that was available?  Give up multiple players for higher draft picks?  Free agent pick ups?  Could we have afforded them?  Just remember the situation the person is in before you start calling for their head.  Or before you start praising them unneccessarily (*cough* *cough* Girardi *cough*).

Ideally, this could be expanded to include an side by side comparison between GMs, looking to include information about who was signed, what each team's salary cap was like, who was available for free agency, trades made between teams, needs on the teams when free agents, trades, and draft picks were made, and a host of other secondary concerns that affect the decisions of the GMs.  This would also take a lot more time than I have available.  But it would give a cool comparison between GMs across franchises.  We could see who has done a good job, and who has simply been propped up by a lucky pick up.  Because let's face it, a Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady can easily mask a lot of mistakes made on a team.   And a lack of one can hide a lot of good decisions made on a team.

but Mora in today's press conference said Bruce DeHaven has been retained.  In fact, it looks like there are only going to be a few coaching changes, which have already been announced.  He said he's still looking for a cornerback's coach but other then that, he's basically done.

I'm not sure if this will stick, he might change his mind on someone (like DeHaven) and decide he needs to bring someone else in.  But for now, he's saying he's done with most of the major coaching hires.

Also, Mora said that he wanted both Quinn AND Bradley to be his defensive coordinator.  So Bradley got the job, but Quinn is going to be an assistant head coach/defensive line coach.  I guess he's supposed to help out with the defensive coaching and schemes?  Mora didn't really elaborate on the relationship there and the media didn't really ask a whole lot of questions about it.

Also as a side note, Mora is stressing the 3 hour time difference as something that needs to be addressed.  Namely, he was talking about coaching the players in a way, and setting up situations in such a way that the players will (hopefully) be able to cope with it.  Not sure how he intends to do that (maybe start practices at 10am?), but since that's been an achilles heel for Seattle for years it's at least promising that he intends to look into it.