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I know there will be plenty of changes upcoming, but here is the breakdown as of the initial roster cuts yesterday.

https://www.seahawks.com/news/a-position-by-position-look-a-the-seahawks-initial-2020-53-man-roster

Here are the players not currently on the roster but will be at some point where room will have to be made:

Penny (PUP)
Gordon (Reserve/Susp)
Fuller (Reserve/Susp)
Parkinson (NFI)
Taylor (NFI)
Reed (NFI)

Linebacker position looks strong with a good mixture of veterans and rookies/2nd year players. So does WR, which will get even stronger once Gordon joins the group, as does tight end if Dissly makes a strong return from his injury. Offensive line looks a little iffy, with a lot of unfamiliar faces in a position group that requires good communication. Running backs should be serviceable so long as we don't have another season like we had at the end of last year. The secondary looks strong, at least on paper, but as with the OL, those guys haven't worked a lot with each other so it wouldn't be surprising to see some communication break-downs and blown coverages.

Obviously the biggest concern is the DL. Someone needs to step up and have a break out season. With an inexperienced secondary, it's going to be critical that we do a better job of pressuring the QB than we did last season.

The two areas of most concern are along the LoS.
We know this regime has never built a good OL. but it’s disappointing that they
seem to have fumbled the DLine. With what looks like good talent at LB, and an
improved secondary, the DL doesn’t appear to be serviceable at this point. We
weren’t very good last year and have lost more talent than we’ve gained, so it’s
hard to believe they will be more productive than last year. And the lack of depth
at DT is worrying. Perhaps we will be able to pick up some players that were cut
from other rosters, but if they were cut then they probably aren’t stars in the making.

NorthHawk wrote:The two areas of most concern are along the LoS.
We know this regime has never built a good OL. but it’s disappointing that they
seem to have fumbled the DLine. With what looks like good talent at LB, and an
improved secondary, the DL doesn’t appear to be serviceable at this point. We
weren’t very good last year and have lost more talent than we’ve gained, so it’s
hard to believe they will be more productive than last year. And the lack of depth
at DT is worrying. Perhaps we will be able to pick up some players that were cut
from other rosters, but if they were cut then they probably aren’t stars in the making.

Agreed. We should get a good look at Collier and Green this season. If one or both of those guy can step it up, the inside like Reed and Ford could put us in a decent position. On offense, the biggest problem is that we're starting the season with a new center. It reminds me of the first year that Robbie Tobeck retired and left the position for Chris Spencer to fill. We didn't realize how good Tobeck was until he was gone.

It’s a risky proposition hoping that two unproven players can make a big difference, and
who is left behind Ford and Reed to rotate? We need at least better productivity from
whoever fills Al Woods spot.

On Offense, the whole right side of the Offensive line is new, and like you said, they need to
be able to work together more than opposing DLs. Without any preseason games to really develop
it’s going to be hard for them to get their act together early in the year.

There’s a school of thought that says games are won or lost at the LoS. If that’s the case, we
might be looking at a challenging year.

Duane Brown with a shaky knee and a fairly weak D-line might make for some trouble.

This could be a really crazy season. The team that wins might not be the best one on the field or the one that avoids serious injuries, rather the one that does the best job of handling the virus. Perhaps we need to hire Dr. Fauci as our HC.

No kidding. There are so many possibilities of what could happen this year that it will be nearly impossible to
predict winners and losers at this point in the season. Even near the end of the season, if a team gets hit hard
by the virus we could see a major change in a playoff race caused by something that doesn't have anything to do with football.

NorthHawk wrote:No kidding. There are so many possibilities of what could happen this year that it will be nearly impossible to
predict winners and losers at this point in the season. Even near the end of the season, if a team gets hit hard
by the virus we could see a major change in a playoff race caused by something that doesn't have anything to do with football.

Which is one of the reasons why I wasn't too excited about the NFL playing under these conditions. This year's SB champion could end up with a huge asterisk rivaling Roger Maris's 61 home run season. The thrill of winning the Super Bowl during tainted conditions like these could reduce the excitement level that of kissing through a screen door.

I'd rather have football to watch even if there aren't any or many fans in the seats.
On another note, if the NFL is setting the decibel level at about 70, what might happen with
stadiums that let a few thousand fans in? I wonder if that rule still applies or if they waive it?

NorthHawk wrote:I'd rather have football to watch even if there aren't any or many fans in the seats.
On another note, if the NFL is setting the decibel level at about 70, what might happen with
stadiums that let a few thousand fans in? I wonder if that rule still applies or if they waive it?

Watching fanless games isn't near of a concern for me as is a tainted championship. I'd rather win a tainted championship than none at all, but it's not going to be near the same experience for me as was winning SB 48.

I can't remember being less enthusiastic about the beginning of football season as I have been this year, especially since the Pac 12 and Big 10 canceled their seasons. It's like I've gone on a 2 week backpacking or river rafting trip with no contact with the outside world.

There's no taint or asterisk to this year SB Champ unless the other team loses a whole position group or something to covid the week of the big game or something. All teams are starting on on the same ground and under the same circumstances. It's no more asterisk worthy than seasons during WW1 or WW2. Much less so I'd say because so many of the potential player pool went to war.

Seahawks re-signed FB Nick Bellore, while they place G Phil Haynes on IR (with the option to return later this season).

They also signed ex Titan D'Andre Walker, listed as a linebacker, but sounds like he was signed to be an edge rusher. He was the guy who got cut to make room for Clowney on the Titans roster.

They also signed Linden Stephens to the Practice Squad, who was cut yesterday to make room for Walker after he initially made the 53 man roster.

Also, the other 14 players signed to the PS are in the 2nd link below. Shaquem Griffin was one of those players.

https://www.seahawks.com/news/seahawks-re-sign-fb-nick-bellore-place-g-phil-haynes-on-injured-reserve

https://www.seahawks.com/news/seahawks-sign-14-players-to-practice-squad-including-lb-shaquem-griffin

c_hawkbob wrote:There's no taint or asterisk to this year SB Champ unless the other team loses a whole position group or something to covid the week of the big game or something. All teams are starting on on the same ground and under the same circumstances. It's no more asterisk worthy than seasons during WW1 or WW2. Much less so I'd say because so many of the potential player pool went to war.

Whenever the subject turned to the greatest baseball players of all time, my dad was always quick to point out that Ted Williams lost nearly 5 years out of the prime of his career to military service during two wars, so there was most definitely an 'asterisk' in his mind. Besides, there is no precedent for the season we're about to go through. We're in uncharted territory.

If the season goes off without a hitch, then my concern would be mostly moot. But with projections of a possible death toll due to the virus reaching 400k by January (and that isn't even worst case), we could be in for a whacky, heavily tainted season. Imagine the asterisks if several teams get eliminated by the virus and clears the way for a Super Bowl featuring the Detroit Lions vs. the Cleveland Browns.

Edit: MLB is going to end up with 16 out of their 30 teams advancing to the playoffs. There will be more playoff games and far fewer regular season games. It's not a season as much as it is a round robin tournament. Their season is so tainted that I've lost complete interest in following them.

I think the Baseball season is too long anyway. I start to lose interest around June/July and pick it
up again in August. For me, 60 games is about right otherwise games don't mean much unlike Football
where teams only have 16 games and each one is important.
I can see the asterisk PoV, but overcoming adversity is a big part of Football and having good depth
is always important for championship teams. What might be a problem would be if coaching staffs
were hit hard by the virus. It's not like there are spare coaches just waiting for their chance to coach
on a team like there are position players.

NorthHawk wrote:I think the Baseball season is too long anyway. I start to lose interest around June/July and pick it
up again in August. For me, 60 games is about right otherwise games don't mean much unlike Football
where teams only have 16 games and each one is important.
I can see the asterisk PoV, but overcoming adversity is a big part of Football and having good depth
is always important for championship teams. What might be a problem would be if coaching staffs
were hit hard by the virus. It's not like there are spare coaches just waiting for their chance to coach
on a team like there are position players.

Baseball is more laid back than either football or basketball. The regular season is more of a journey than it is a race, sort of like watching the Majors golf tournament vs. the Kentucky Derby horse race. But advancing over half of the teams to the playoffs even further diminishes the importance of the regular season.

We're just going to have to wait and see how the football season unfolds. It already seems weird having such an abbreviated college football season, not to mention all the other stuff going around like the protests, the election, etc. Everything about this year seems surreal, and I have a feeling that the NFL season will be no exception.

I agree that the baseball season is too long. They start it too early and end it too late. Snow is still flying in some places at the start of the season and there are often some cold, rainy nights during the world series at the end of October. I'd like to see them shave off about 2 weeks on both ends. But that will never happen because it's all about the money. More games, more money.

Look for some major problems on the OL.
Duane Brown is listed as having a knee injury but is expected to start and his backup Ogbuehi (sp) has a pec injury.
This might be a long season...

NorthHawk wrote:Look for some major problems on the OL.
Duane Brown is listed as having a knee injury but is expected to start and his backup Ogbuehi (sp) has a pec injury.
This might be a long season...

Both lines. As usual.

c_hawkbob wrote:Both lines. As usual.

Yeah, I hope I’m wrong but it really looks like PC/JS missed a great opportunity this offseason by not investing at all in the DL and missed badly on the OL. The frustrating part is we had money to spend, nearly 60 mil, and it’s hard to say any move made us better. Obviously Jemal Adams and made us better but we actually saved money by trash for him(although we gave up a lot). I am specifically talking about the 60 mil we spent on FA/retaining guys. You might argue Reed was a necessary resigning, which I somewhat agree with, although he really only has had 1 1/2 season stretch where he was playing at an elite level. I can’t think of any other place where we spent money and are going to see a significant improvement from last year.

mykc14 wrote:Yeah, I hope I’m wrong but it really looks like PC/JS missed a great opportunity this offseason by not investing at all in the DL and missed badly on the OL. The frustrating part is we had money to spend, nearly 60 mil, and it’s hard to say any move made us better. Obviously Jemal Adams and made us better but we actually saved money by trash for him(although we gave up a lot). I am specifically talking about the 60 mil we spent on FA/retaining guys. You might argue Reed was a necessary resigning, which I somewhat agree with, although he really only has had 1 1/2 season stretch where he was playing at an elite level. I can’t think of any other place where we spent money and are going to see a significant improvement from last year.

I'm not going to go so far as to say that we "missed badly" on the OL, but we don't appear to have made any improvements, either, at least not from where we were at the end of last season. Swapping Ifedi for Shell is basically a push and if Brown can stay healthy, we should be OK at the bookends. Although he hasn't played a lot of center, Pocic has been around awhile. Pete's really been talking up OG Damien Lewis. On paper, we seem to have some decent depth. But the DL has some major holes, especially at edge. Someone's going to have to rise to the occasion and have a break-out season if we are to contend.

As is always the case this time of year, we're looking at our problems and worries in a vacuum, forgetting about the fact that there are 31 other teams have their share of issues as well, but we tend not to spend a lot of time dwelling on them as we do our Hawks. The other point is that we haven't had any preseason games to judge our progress by, so more so than ever, we are truly shooting in the dark when discussing our strengths and weaknesses.

Tonight is the kickoff to what is bound to be one of if not the strangest season in NFL history, and here I am camping out in a state park and might not be able to watch it. Fortunately I'll be in my man cave come Sunday.

Most experts say we have one of the worst Offensive and Defensive lines in the NFL.

Our lack of pass rush Is going to be what stops us from winning the SB... so frustrating because we had the opportunity to invest in that position this off-season and we didn’t. Get use to opposing QB’s looking like HOF’ers against our D. If Irvin’s hurt we’re going to have to look at like Clay Matthews. We probably should look at bringing back Michael Bennett too.

Collier did make a big play on that last stop though...

Not sure if even Clowney would of made a difference. We just have no push up the middle right now or off the edges. Looks like Bruce is out for awhile, too. The injury bug hit a lot of teams today. We are just another one.

jshawaii22 wrote:Not sure if even Clowney would of made a difference. We just have no push up the middle right now or off the edges. Looks like Bruce is out for awhile, too. The injury bug hit a lot of teams today. We are just another one.

He definitely would have helped. I don’t know that he would have be the only move we needed to make, but him and Fowler probably would have done it.

Or Fowler and Everson Griffen

Cap space may of prevented the trade of Adams instead of Clowney or Griffin + 1. I think Adams is more valuable on the field for us.

We need a DT and an end (or someone to mix in some pressure). I know, captain obvious here. We had enough $$ to bring in Adams along with a Griffin or Fowler, IMHO. What now? Matthews? Kid from Tennessee steps up? Someone from the PS? We still NEED A DT!

& it looks like Marquis is likely done for the year, maybe Bruce too. It was the worst day of major injuries across the league I can remember. I wonder what role, if any, the lack of a preseason played? And then there’s James White’s unimaginable loss... how horrible.

Hawk Sista wrote:We need a DT and an end (or someone to mix in some pressure). I know, captain obvious here. We had enough $$ to bring in Adams along with a Griffin or Fowler, IMHO. What now? Matthews? Kid from Tennessee steps up? Someone from the PS? We still NEED A DT!

& it looks like Marquis is likely done for the year, maybe Bruce too. It was the worst day of major injuries across the league I can remember. I wonder what role, if any, the lack of a preseason played? And then there’s James White’s unimaginable loss... how horrible.

We should have ponied up the money for Clowney. We simply miscalculated that one. There is not going to be anyone available at this point unless we make a ridiculous trade.

Great Game! Russ is just an assassin this year! Our O-line is better than I feared and our defense isn't as impressive as I'd hoped, but the opponent needs to be accounted for in that evaluation. Cam impressed me, as much with how much better he took the loss as for his play on the field, which was plenty impressive. I really don't like that we threw for 45 when we need one there at the end of the game, but that's the same mindset that got us that 4th down TD we all loved so much last week so ...

Hawk Sista wrote:We need a DT and an end (or someone to mix in some pressure). I know, captain obvious here. We had enough $$ to bring in Adams along with a Griffin or Fowler, IMHO. What now? Matthews? Kid from Tennessee steps up? Someone from the PS? We still NEED A DT!

& it looks like Marquis is likely done for the year, maybe Bruce too. It was the worst day of major injuries across the league I can remember. I wonder what role, if any, the lack of a preseason played? And then there’s James White’s unimaginable loss... how horrible.

Yeah, the lack of a consistent pass rush, like it was last year, is going to be our Achilles heel and will prevent this team from going deep into the playoffs. Hopefully someone on the DL will rise to the occasions.

As far as injuries goes, I'd like to see some statistical comparisons of the injury rate this season vs. an average of previous seasons. The Niners got bit hard yesterday, but so did we last season, and there were some high profile players, like Barkley of the Giants and Bosa of the aforementioned Niners, that will always attract a lot of publicity when they go out.

jshawaii22 wrote:Cap space may of prevented the trade of Adams instead of Clowney or Griffin + 1. I think Adams is more valuable on the field for us.

We saved cap space when we traded for Adams.

We spent about 50 million this off-season and what do we have to show for it? Adams doesn’t count because trading for him actually cleared up cap space.
OL spending (just this years cap hits):
Ogbuehi (inactive last night) 2.2 mil, Shell 3.5, Finney 3.5 mil.

Other O spending:
Olsen 6.9, Hollister 3.2, Hyde 2.8, Dorsett/Moore 1.7

Offense Total: 23.8


Defensive spending:
Irvin 5.9, Reed 9.3, Dunbar 3.4, Mayowa 3
Defense total: 21.9

mykc14 wrote:We spent about 50 million this off-season and what do we have to show for it? Adams doesn’t count because trading for him actually cleared up cap space.
OL spending (just this years cap hits):
Ogbuehi (inactive last night) 2.2 mil, Shell 3.5, Finney 3.5 mil.

Other O spending:
Olsen 6.9, Hollister 3.2, Hyde 2.8, Dorsett/Moore 1.7

Offense Total: 23.8


Defensive spending:
Irvin 5.9, Reed 9.3, Dunbar 3.4, Mayowa 3
Defense total: 21.9

At this point, the problem isn't cap space as much as it's that there's no DL's out there that aren't under contract, and without the draft capital, ie the two #1's we spent on Adams, if one for some reason one becomes available via trade, we don't have a lot to offer another team. We're going to have to play the hand we were dealt.

RiverDog wrote:
At this point, the problem isn't cap space as much as it's that there's no DL's out there that aren't under contract, and without the draft capital, ie the two #1's we spent on Adams, if one for some reason one becomes available via trade, we don't have a lot to offer another team. We're going to have to play the hand we were dealt.

No doubt at this point we don’t have a lot of options, but we certainly could have afforded anybody we wanted. I wouldn’t say we have to play the hand we were dealt, I would say we have to play the hand we dealt ourselves. This one is going to be hard to get past. We had an OBVIOUS need, there were plenty of options out there, and we had more than enough money and that money was spent on replacement level (or worse) talent.

mykc14 wrote:No doubt at this point we don’t have a lot of options, but we certainly could have afforded anybody we wanted. I wouldn’t say we have to play the hand we were dealt, I would say we have to play the hand we dealt ourselves. This one is going to be hard to get past. We had an OBVIOUS need, there were plenty of options out there, and we had more than enough money and that money was spent on replacement level (or worse) talent.

True, and I thought of adding in that qualifier of "playing the hand we dealt ourselves" but I wanted to go with the traditional expression.

Some of the moves we made in the offseason were very debatable, like loading up on tight ends rather than addressing our pass rush.

I can see TE as Dissly has been injured his first two years so getting Olsen who can just by his professionalism
can mentor the younger TEs who we will need going forward, but all of the change on the OL is a mystery other
than adding Lewis via the draft which seems so far to be a decent pick. Cliff Avril said around March that he
didn't think the Seahawks would re-sign Clowney or any big name because he thinks they believe in pass rush
by committee. That sounds good, but if none of the members of that committee are elites then the
pass rush has to become diminished.

As far as our draft picks this year, I heard an interview with a former GM who said that teams don't draft for
the immediate year (excepting maybe those in the top ten or so), but draft for years 2 and on. That seems
to be what we have been doing. If Taylor gets some game time this year along with Robinson, maybe that
sets us up for a much better showing next year. It's too bad for this year, but I suppose that's the hand we
have been dealt (or maybe dealt ourselves) at this point.

just my opinion, but Clowney, so far in Tennessee has 5 tackles, 2 tackles for loss, but no sacks and 2 QB hits in his first 2 games. I did watch their first game and don't remember hearing his name much. Small sample, but here's my point.

The Clowney vs SFO, he's worth 15 million. The Clowney the bulk of the rest of the games, not so much. I haven't looked at the other "option" players we could a, should a, but didn't sign, but I doubt any of them are tearing up the league.

jshawaii22 wrote:just my opinion, but Clowney, so far in Tennessee has 5 tackles, 2 tackles for loss, but no sacks and 2 QB hits in his first 2 games. I did watch their first game and don't remember hearing his name much. Small sample, but here's my point.

The Clowney vs SFO, he's worth 15 million. The Clowney the bulk of the rest of the games, not so much. I haven't looked at the other "option" players we could a, should a, but didn't sign, but I doubt any of them are tearing up the league.

Everson Griffen was out there. He picked up his first sack yesterday in the 4th quarter in the Cowboys big come from behind win. They signed him to a one year, $6m deal. We re-signed Jarran Reed to a 2 year, $23M deal.

And now we've lost Irvin for the season. I don't care what anybody says, we should just got the Clowney deal done. We're not good on our defensive front, but we're not deep either.