I love this class of running backs. It's quite deep at the top. The depth, the atrophied love for backs by fans and GMs alike serve up a nice opportunity for really good value, should the draft flow that way.

The kind of commitment to the run that Seattle has, not just in snaps but really in offensive philosophy, exacerbates the need for depth at the position. We've heard that Seattle would not be averse to taking 2 QBs in the draft, if 2 they liked were available -- prior to the Matt Flynn signing, anyway. Well, not that I'm particularly endorsing it, but it would not be unwise for Seattle to take two backs.

Should the draft flow that way.

There are a couple handfuls of worthy prospects here. There is no realistic 1st round option for Seattle because Trent Richardson will not be available. He truly is set apart from the other runners and it doesn't take much tape to realize this. So I won't take the time to sketch him, per say, but he serves as a good calibration reference. Check him out a bit, if you like, witness why 27 million uttered "fungibles" and 16 million muttered "passing leagues" won't stop him from being draft in the first 8 picks, and you'll have a nice profile of a complete and physical back who will run amongst the best in the league looks like. Then you'll be ready to survey Seattle's options.

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If you saw the game, this GB-DET matchup, saw the highlights, or heard the news that put Flynn's name in the QB prospect discussion for needy teams from, "Don't forget Matt Flynn," to, "If you're picking 3rd or lower, maybe you should first look at Matt Flynn" -- if you know about the game, you know it got markedly better.

By this point, we've pulled some positives out, but acknowledged unimpressive play despite the points & production. The positives seem applicable as factors in a successful career. The unimpressive play doesn't yet hold the same potential for long-term implications, it seems to me. It comes in large part from the obvious strength of all the pieces around him, and no discernible impact above "starting replacement level" (below average but somehow starting) quarterback play.

But on the other hand I think it's more difficult for me to identify harbingers of doom in QB play than it is to find harbingers of CandyMountainness. That holds form with Flynn, largely because we're not seeing him respond, adapt or transcend more formidable circumstances. We can see he's achieving as much production, in this single game here, as you could ever ask for, and we can temper that by pointing out the situation he's in is absolutely optimal, but we don't know how he deals with real, unrelenting pressure, because we didn't get to see it.

We don't know how he's able to balance gunslinging and prudence, whether confidence is a requisite component to his success, which could be completely undermined by some game-deciding mistakes, whether defensive tactical responses to his tendencies will be insurmountable.

That's the Dark Matter of the NFL. We've got a cosmic microwave background that indicates there is Dark Matter, but we don't have the mechanism to find & observe the WIMPs.

It's important for me to call this out, here, or you & I could get carried away in our excitement. The remainder of the game was pretty impressive.

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I skipped New England & preseason; the Patriots are too star-making a pass defense and preseason doesn't face game plans & starters. There are already difficult, inseparable factors in scouting Flynn that can easily mislead, for example the Packers offense, or the situation vs. Detroit, which was meaningful for the Lions but not Green Bay. So I'm glad Thomas put forth such an in depth and diligent study on those games. I'll be interested to see how our notes on the Lions game differ.

What I like about Field Gulls is we prefer to make up our own minds. We want to see the substance, not the interpretation. But this depth of analysis is always interpretation, and play-by-play breakdowns can become too extensive, too burdensome not just to read, but to write. For my own self interests I'm going to mold this into more of a narrative form, substantiating with examples. I'll hang on to the lengthy notes in case they prove useful later.

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Seattle would get the ball back twice more, but the first, at 2:34 remaining, is your last chance drive. That they got another chance shouldn't be recognized in evaluating this drive.

Here's the first play, one second after the snap.

Jackson has already identified his best option. The DE fakes outside and comes inside, the LB stunts around the edge. Jackson shouldn't have let this pressure affect his timing. Indeed, he throws over the two of them. I don't know that the throw should have been hurried to avoid that, but the throw is off.

Ben Obomanu's response makes me wonder whether he & Jackson were on the same page. He's open, he turns in, and turns back to look at Jackson. Jackson is throwing to him, but which way? Hall is coming up to defend, and Obomanu waits rather than cuts infield, to see that Jackson's back-shoulder throw is off and he needs to backpedal toward the sideline to make an attempt. I don't know what went wrong or what Jackson expected Obomanu to do. I am guessing it was not sit there & wait, but this may have been a curl and both knew where the throw would have to be to keep it safe. Either way the throw was bad. If it was affected by the pass rush, it shouldn't have been, though the timing was fine.

2-10-SEA 18 (2:31) (No Huddle, Shotgun) T.Jackson pass short right to B.Obomanu ran ob at SEA 26 for 8 yards.

Next play, back to Obomanu on a come back route. Good execution all around, though nothing praiseworthy. Would be nice to have been able to time & space the throw & route to get the first down, but that involves factors that neither player can control. Nothing to criticize.

3-2-SEA 26 (2:26) (No Huddle, Shotgun) T.Jackson pass incomplete short right to B.Obomanu.
PENALTY on SEA, Ineligible Downfield Pass, 5 yards, enforced at SEA 26 - No Play. No player identified on penalty.

The mysterious, unidentified passer lobbed one behind himself, which was toward and beyond the line of scrimmage. The result of a surprise corner blitz, who took a lot of effort to bring the phantom passer down. Call it a sack.

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Feeling....uhm...ahem...bitter?

OK so if this is the first time the Seahawks led you from affirmed nonbeliever, through the sickly garden of skepticism to wonder, to wanting to believe, worrying you shouldn't but not being able to help it, only to be let down when it really matters, well this might have been a tough game for you. It wasn't the first time for me so I'm more ambivalent. Not building something worthwhile for right now, that's too bad. Not making the gradual loss of draft position worthwhile, well dang. We don't need to talk about the playoffs any more this year.

The fourth quarter of the season has come a bit early, then. 5 games to go but the dynamic has changed now. What we hope to get out of the games has changed. Losses, perhaps. Improvement, development, clarity. Probably a good time to review where the team is at, what the roster looks like, what next year looks like.

Well of course a great deal of that is about the passer, and it looks like we've gotten a bit of a jump on that matter. Tarvaris Jackson has not been a popular guy this week. The fourth quarter against the Redskins was a pivotal quarter for the season. The response has been strong, and reaching. So I wanted to go back and take another look at his performance in the 4th quarter. I've seen in various places some statistical figures that seem rather damning. Was poise or pocket presence a problem?

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Feeling.......conflicted?

Whatever football worldview you hold, about winning, contending, personnel philosophy, statistical epistemology, what constitutes a rebuild and how you ought to go about performing one -- before the season started, this is probably about the worst situation you could ask for. Somewhere in between legitimate contention this year and prime draft positioning for next year.

Well back to back wins can feel like a sea change, when it doubles your win total. Which is why, you may not even know what to think. No one wants to get caught taking Pyrite to the prospecter's bank.

Is this team any good? Brian Burke and Aaron Schatz have used their respective abaci (plural for abacus, yes, but also the surname of the Turkish Bette Midler, whose vocal range is the actual, proprietary algorithm that Football Outsiders won't open source to the public. And now you know) to demonstrate that this team is still underwhelming in all but the least-impactful components of a team, which is run defense. 

OK, so run defense seems to become more important in December and January. Fair enough. We'll have one extra feather in our cap, then, should this season continue to be meaningful.

I think we'd all like to know more than the sabermetric view of how good this team is. Well let's take a bit more of a nuanced look at some stats before moving on, recognizing as always that we'll never be able to hang our hats on these figures alone.

We know the 2011-based strength of schedule was toughest in the league by win percentage, and 5th by 2011 DVOA. Playing the Rams figures to have hurt those figures a bit, but the premise remains the same: Seattle split with two bad squads in the Cardinals and Browns. They got destroyed by Pittsburgh, but hung with 6 good teams to go 2-5 against. They started about as bad as you can get, and have shown marked improvement in several ways. 

The DVOA opponent adjustments have given about 3% points. Weighting DVOA by more recent play adds another 2% points. So this improvement we've seen against tough opponents is far from earth-shaking. The severity of the suckitude we'd suffered through recently seems to account for about half of the marked difference in perceived performance we've seen. It was just that bad before.

I've kept my eye on a couple good offenses, namely the Patriots and Saints, a couple times each this season just to try and keep my scouting eye calibrated for this very reason, but even I have started thinking that Cubic Zirconia is getting a bit sparkly. It's simply not as good as it appears. 

That's not to say the improvements haven't been equally as encouraging; they have. And no matter how predictable advanced statistics may be as models, they remain reflective of real performance. Because we also know from advanced analysis that stomping bad teams is a better indicator of a good team than close wins against a good team, we know that completing the season against mostly losing teams can easily make a bigger impact on the advanced stats -- not to mention the W-L columns. As much as DVOA adjusts for opponents, more teams in the top half of the league wind up having faced easier schedules than the bottom half, most years. 

But continued improvement is about three ligaments short right now. Performing better than the right side of this offensive line may be one of the easier accomplishments for backups to achieve, but nonetheless the loss of Carpenter and Moffitt have already shown to be detrimental. The Rams may be bad and the secondary the kind of joke you only make about the Seahawks, but their pass rush is still very good. 

Washington's is better. After that comes Philadelphia, another good pass rushing team. Then the Rams again. Chicago. San Francisco. Arizona may be a chance to come up for air, but these injuries will continue to make an impact this year.

It's changed the offense, and it wasn't encouraging yesterday. You can only throw so many TEs at the problem, which makes a marginal impact, but possibly does not make up for the negative impact made upon the passing options. The improvement the team has shown may be non-trivial, but the step backwards this could amount to given the remainder of the season could be greater.

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TB Edit: An excellent discussion of a point Greg Cosell brought up weeks ago on the Seahawks offense. This is something I planned to look at myself, particularly once enough All-22 tape is available from Gamepass, but this is a great read on what is a highly interesting topic.

Pete Carroll's defense of Tarvaris Jackson includes the assertion that Jackson was not averse to taking chances downfield; that he would have taken shots had shots been there, but the receivers just were not getting open.

I tried to go by memory, but had to concede that nothing stood out either way. To the eyes of many, including myself, Jackson appeared tentative -- has always appeared tentative -- and seems to avoid targeting tight windows. Greg Cosell said it was so. The only likely outcomes, then, would seem to be either receivers consistently get open substantially, or pass plays result in check downs or scrambles. 

As we know all too well, that result is not a static thing. Defenses respond to your strengths and weaknesses, even within a game, and an offense incapable of stretching a defense vertically soon finds a much tougher row to hoe underneath and in the run game. If neither of those options are a strength of the offense, it's completely debilitating.

I also recognized how inclined I was to think Carroll's excuse for Jackson was a fabrication. But that's not how we roll, Field Gulls. We withhold judgment until accusations are corroborated, compressing the condemnation so that its vitriol will be that much more potent when we unleash it later.

Or something to that effect. So I took a look at pass plays to see if I can get a sense of how well the receivers served Jackson in Pittsburgh. Fox broadcast film is not coaches' tape. And neither are accurate descriptions of the modern medium in which they're captured. So I watched the digital video broadcast archive. "Video" still feels more like an adjective than a noun, must be the double-vowel ending. Which must contribute in part to the continued usage of "tape" and "film." 

Either way, the deeper routes and secondary play are the least viewed portions of gameplay. But in this game at least, most of the passing snaps told enough of their tale that little was left to ponder about what Fox didn't show us that affected the outcome.

Well of course the outcome wasn't affected, but you know. Affected the severity to which the Seahawk offense was going to suck.

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Did you know Google offers search tools, including an aggregation of your search results' reading level?

Reading level

Results by reading level for field gulls:

Search Results

1. Results by reading level for bleacher report:

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      But let's not get too proud of ourselves.
      Reading level

      Results by reading level for gravitational singularity:

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      Ah, SBNation's schema can't render intermediate HTML, eh? No visual bar graph satisfaction for you, then, unless you take the time to perform these searches on Google yourself.

Editors Note: I just re-read this and realized how remiss I've been in not posting it to the front page. Here's my attempt at recompense. 

Field Gulls, I feel your pain. You'd snort fine-granulated saltpeter or inject color-safe bleach into your brachial artery with a dirty syringe you lifted from a biohazard waste vehicle collision on the 5 if you thought it would give you a 5-minute meaningful football debate fix at this point, wouldn't you?

Yes, you would. Fess up. It's June and there's no football here to speak of, junkie! What are you doing on Field Gulls, anyway? The 2012 presidential election debates just too rich with substance for you?  Whatever the reason, you can't stay away.

OK, neither can I. But hey I did some genealogy research in the mean-time and learned I'm a 12-generation American whose forebear crossed the pond in 1638, part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony expansion from the Puritan migration.  Even found a ship's roll that had him & his family's name listed, so that was kind of cool.

But that kind of crap will never suffice, and I know it, too.  

Peter King knows it, too. He went to Where the Stadium is In Between Names to see U2, with John Schneider.  He's tweeting with confidence that Hasselbeck won't be coming back to Seattle, despite the reasonable thought that the longer the lockout drags one the more valuable Hasselbeck would seem to be to us.

PK then asked, who's gonna throw to your wide receivers.  Schneider said he has a boy with a babyface, he can throw a brick through a window. But then he admitted he still hasn't found what he's looking for, and that they're still in the process of getting rid of all that they can't leave behind.  Right now they're just stuck in a moment they can't get out of.

Which makes me think there's still a plan to get someone once roster movement is unfrozen. We've been down that path and I have no idea who is more likely than the others, but we all know the usual suspects.

PK then said, sometimes you can't make it on your own. There's no line on the horizon. But Schneider said, if Tom will coach his linemen, they'll be ready for war and come October there will be no Sunday Bloody Sunday. But if not, if it only rattles and hums, that won't be all bad. He said Paul Allen will pay for that crashed car, and after New Year's Day they might be lucky enough to get a guy who can bullet the blue sky.  

PK responded, you guys build rosters in mysterious ways.

So Achtung, Baby! Let's tear open the Hasselbeck debate, the magical leopluradon debate, the Carson Kolb Young Leinart debate, mix them all up into a big giant martini with a 50-foot olive and a lemon-shaped disco-ball and see how it tastes. 

I'll throw down this gauntlet: I hope we don't sign Hasselbeck.  I hope we trade for no one.  I want Charlie to start. Until he shows he's hopeless. We need to fill out the rest of the QB bench, so we need to get guys.  If Young costs a late round draft pick, I kinda just would rather not. But it wouldn't be bad. But I'm more thinking free agent guys.

First read Danny's piece, and then if you are a glutton for verbose punishment, come back for this one.  It's long and takes too long to get to the point.  And I don't have time to edit it, or even really publish it, but I'm motivated to get it out there.

------

Pete Carroll fired arm strength out of the playbook.  That's how it felt, right?  Familiarity bred contempt in our case, with the WCO.  Modern football and Jeremy Bates were fired, moving pockets were fired.  A baseline minimum number of vertical passing attempts per game were fired.

Stubborn, steadfast commitment to an ineffective run game must have been hired.  If lack of that is why Bates was fired, and Minnesota's offense was good, when it was good, because of the ability of their run game, then that must have been hired.  High percentage was hired.  Short yardage was hired.

That might be an unfair characterization, but I'm not so sure it's that far from the truth.  It wouldn't be right to pin "stubborn, steadfast running" on Bevell, but Carroll undoubtedly wants to run more, wants to run more effectively.  It's a core part of his design and philosophy.  We know it's key to why Carroll didn't keep Bates moving forward.  And we know Minnesota ran.

Minnesota and the 5 years Bevell was OC there is the most significant piece of evidence we have in trying to figure out what our offense is going to be like.  A good starting point.  But first here are two clips I found of Bevell that shed small amounts of light on how he sees things and what it might mean for our offense as long as he's here.

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That's the question I'll really be asking if Seattle trades for him.  For now, I'm just taking a quick look, noting that not only are most Seahawk fans less than ambivalent about the premise, but most fans of teams needing a QB are struck with the same lack of appeal.

Yet I don't think it's warranted.  I don't think my own lack of interest is warranted.  Or at least based on real tangible data.  How seriously have I considered the thought that Kolb could be ours, and good?

Before taking a look at Kolb, let's look at what a trade might look like for the Seahawks.  Considering a cost similar to Schaub and Hasselbeck, a very high 2nd round pick, 550-600 points on the ol' value chart, and looking at the similar positioning Seattle (25) and Philadelphia (23) have in the draft, here's the best scenario I could come up with:

Seattle: 1st rd, 1.25 (720 points) + 6th rd from Detroit, 6.13, 173rd overall (23.2 points)

Philadelphia: Kolb + 3rd rd, 3.23, 87th overall (155 points)

Kolb would cost 588.2 points, worth about the 32nd overall pick or the 1st pick in the 2nd round.  Seattle would get a capable QB with less risk than probably any prospect in the draft, with no physical limitations.  They would retain their 2nd round pick, gain a 3rd round and retain their early 4th round.  With 2 needs on the offensive line, they'd have reasonable possibility to come home with 4 potential starters, one of them a QB.

Now then.  Quick trips in the wayback machine indicate Kolb's somewhat prototypical as a passer in physical talent.  Heightened production in Houston's offense would explain a lower draft grade.  How well prolific small school offense prospects fare in the NFL is an often intriguing question, but it often is not answered encouragingly.  

Positive cerebral attributes like vision and defense reading in the scouting reports would figure to make Kolb stand out from that crew, though.  There are requisite athletic attributes to a QB, and he can excel at the position with higher marks in arm strength and accuracy.  But the mental aspect is what sets QBs apart, and from the sounds of it, Kolb has a good enough head to become a franchise QB.

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Danny O'Neil gave us some good partial transcript of a session John Schneider did with the media at the combine.  Sure makes it seem like they won't be making an offer to Chris Spencer, and Unger will be at Center.  Now, that's Carroll's call, of course, and they have a new line coach, and they may make an acquistion in free agency or the draft.  Could be Mike Pouncey, for instance.  But it's either Spencer or someone else.  I am aware and probably more concerned with Spencer's drawbacks than most; I see his talent but it only partially makes up for what he lacks.  When he makes a flawless and beautiful block on an LB after peeling off a double-team, that's awesome, but all I need is the effectiveness of getting in a guy's way for a moment.  I don't want an inability to push forward up the gut to be a ball and chain for the offense forever.  I know things are rarely static, but he contributed to the problem.

But I have to say the thought of going with Unger makes me re-consider my ambivalence to retaining Spencer.  I just can't imagine it would be an overall net upgrade in performance.  Far removed from equalling Spencer.  That's not how personnel moves ought to be made; Spencer oughtn't be re-signed due to the relative issues with at-hand replacements short-term.  But just a thought.  It concerns me for the 2011 season.

But then Doug Farrar posted the video of Schneider's chat, and it was enjoyable.  The gyst is that he agrees with the notion that he's in the middle ground, philosophically, between Ted Thompson's steadfast organic talent farming and Ron Wolf's comfort in spending capital for Brett Favre and Reggie White.

The interesting part here was alluded to in O'Neil's transcript, Schneider saying Ron Wolf wasn't afraid to make mistakes.  His anecdotes suggest when he talked to Wolf about the Whitehurst trade, Wolf didn't like the player (from limited knowledge), and didn't think Schneider ought to have made the trade...BUT didn't necessarily think Schneid gave up too much to get him.  

Anyway, interesting perspective, and it makes me both like and respect Schneider more.

Watching every snap for LSU-Alabama and LSU-Auburn gave some very good perspective on not just those schools' three DT prospects but also the talent gap between the prospects headed for the top 5 and the one bound for the 2nd round.

I won't say much about Nick Fairley and Marcell Dareus because they're out of range for us.  But I will use them for perspective on Nevis.  Skillset and game context, from teammates to opponent strength, was very similar for Fairley and Nevis.  

Alabama and LSU's offensive lines were mediocre; Auburn's was good and fronted a formidable offense.

Facing lesser lines, Fairley should have stood out more in comparison but didn't.  Facing disparate lines, Dareus should have shown more against LSU but didn't.  

Nevis should not have disappeared against the better Auburn line but did.

Nevis is an undersized tackle.  Feel free to read up on "pro amateur" scouting reports online because I won't be spending time duplicating that freely accessible effort.  Most of them are not far off for any prospect.  The key is the accuracy of the extent to which a prospect's skills, talent or red flags are quantified, and how the disparity between prospects and their attributes is quantified.

A dominant college player, Nevis has size limitations that could make him erasable in the pros.  That concern was corroborated in the Auburn game.  

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This is an overview of the nature and idiosyncrasies of the the top of the DL draft class, and a reflection on the state and needs of Seattle's defensive line.  Tried to paint a greater picture in an individual scouting report but it ran long.  I'll use this as an introduction to some amateur scouting reports.

The DE class is very rich as you know.  It also shapes up like some kind of 6-part contiguous venn diagram: from 3-4 rush OLB, 3-point 4-3 Leo, "traditional" 4-3 rush DE, "traditional" strong-side DE, 3-4 end to Seattle's strong-side end.  Many of the prospects are paradoxically versatile enough to fit 2 or 3 different DE types yet the fit is vague enough that many are not great fits anywhere.  

There are pure rushers, but they're a little light for even 3-4 OLB or Leo. There are guys with the 3-4 end skillsets but lack the size.  There are bigger ends; they have lucrative pass rush skills for their size, yet they may not have the strength to be a 2-gap 3-4 end.  There are guys with the skillset that may be better off at tackle, where as 3-techs or under tackles they could have fantastic pass rush and good run defense, slightly undersized but not problematically so, but with DE height that may work against them inside (like it did with Red Bryant).

Where do you put a guy like Sam Acho?  A high quality player missing the pass rush talent for a 4-3 end.  He doesn't have the size or strength to be a 3-4 end or a tackle.  He doesn't fit at strong-side or Leo for Seattle.  A very good football player that the NFL perhaps cannot find a place for.

Will premier talent Cam Jordan be wasted at 3-4 end?  No scheme/position fits him better.  But it might make his lesser capabilities his primary responsibilities, holding ground and opening lanes for guys with lesser talent to get stats.  Christian Ballard is similar; a 3-4 size fit that lacks a 2-gap skillset.  He needs a 1-gap penetration role to succeed.

Tackle is similar to a lesser degree.  There are some tall tackles in this class.  The curious case of Red Bryant may be skewing my view too much, but it automatically leads me to investigate whether the taller DT prospects are vulnerable to leverage issues with higher points of center gravity.  The beat press told of Chuck Darby's advantage from his disadvantage: his shortness gave him the, err, upper hand, in getting under his blocker and winning the leverage battle.  

But height certainly didn't work against John Henderson.  Scouts don't seem concerned for Muhammad Wilkerson.  

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