The next Michael Bennett?

That is asking a lot. Then again, few Seattle fans had ever heard of Bennett before the Seahawks signed him as a free agent in 2013, just as few had never heard of Kerry Hyder Jr. when they agreed to sign him March 23.

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First outing of the season? In the second inning? Are you kidding?

The bad-health saga of James Paxton continues.

Returning to the Mariners after a two-year stint with the Yankees shortened by injury, Paxton was forced out of Tuesday night's 10-4 home loss to the Chicago White Sox by a left forearm strain. Manager Scott Servais said after the game that Paxton would have an MRI scan Wednesday morning to determine the severity.

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Those of us who find ourselves on periodic patrols to glean the latest on Russell Wilson's off-season soap opera with Seahawks football came across a sizable bread crumb Tuesday.

In his discussing his own return to Seattle -- “It was the (team) culture, the city . . . the transparency from the organization" -- DE Carlos Dunlap told a Zoom conference of local media that Wilson is coming back.

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If you're a Gonzaga fan, you probably won't agree. But it's better this way.

Best to be blown out and leave no doubt about the worthiness of the NCAA men's tourney national champions. Really, you don't want to lose to the Baylor Bears on a 40-foot buzzer-beater, and fill spring and summer with lamentations and recriminations about glory snatched away at the pinnacle moment.

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All of college basketball wanted to see Gonzaga tested.

UCLA tested the Bulldogs.

Together, they tested the frontier of sports excellence.

We bow in the direction of the Bruins. The late bloomers from the Pac-12 Conference were the acme of underdog resolve, going from First Four to Final Four, from 11th seed nearly to the roof of the hoops world.

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In the hours prior to making his major league debut for the Mariners on opening night in center field, Taylor Trammell, 23, was all twisted up and turned out.

"I woke up a wreck," he said. "Guys are talking to me saying, it's just like any other game. But you know, the first day is what we dreamed about ever since you were a kid."

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The overdone ritual of baseball's Opening Day is often more about the return of decent weather than it is a chance see players cavort, spit and overthrow the cutoff man. This year, however, is different.

The regular-season openers Thursday across the fruited plain, including one at Seattle's T-ball Park (San Francisco, 7:10 p.m., Root), feature the return of fans, who spent all of 2020 hiding from airborne cooties. Tra-la, tra-la.

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After complaining publicly in February about teammates for the first time in his career, Russell Wilson created franchise tumult. The Seahawks bosses were sent fluttering about like Vatican cardinals after the pope complained his soup was cold.

They found some hot soup.

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In terms of near-flawless basketball efficiency, unbeaten Gonzaga looks a lot like a junior varsity version of the five-time NBA champion San Antonio Spurs -- fundamentals that can crack iron.

The star of the rest of the NCAA men's tournament field has been the Pac-12 Conference.  It has three teams in the Elite Eight. A pandemic was more likely.

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The NFL marketplace has worked in the Seahawks' favor to retain DE Carlos Dunlap. But there's always a personnel cost.

Dunlap, 32, confirmed on Twitter Thursday evening that he has been hired back by Seattle, apparently after finding the free agent market was cool to him. But the Seahawks were forced to go cold on five-year vet DT Jarran Reed, an able run-stuffer who also had 6.5 sacks last season.

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Richard Sherman needs the Seahawks more than the Seahawks need him.

Having said that, it would be entertaining to have him return to play here. Although if I were Pete Carroll, I'd first run it past Russell Wilson. Presuming the two are speaking. Also presuming either is speaking to Sherman. Or, if Carroll plans to trade Wilson ahead the April 29 start of the draft, never mind.

Welcome to the sports soap opera, "Days of Our Seattle Football Lives."

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A year into a pandemic, we should be used to up being down and down being up. But no basketball fan was ready for the Pac-12, the Homer Simpson of college hoops conferences, to be astride the NCAA men's tourney.

The "D'oh" boys are 10-1. Four teams made the Sweet Sixteen, two more than any other conference.

Before I go further, let me type Gonzaga right here. Its fans who read this otherwise will take this discussion as a repudiation and commence a piteous whining.

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More help will arrive for the Seahawks offense, this from a familiar source. Somewhat surprisingly, the Seahawks Friday afternoon agreed to terms to bring back four-year vet RB Chris Carson from free agency with a three-year deal for a maximum of $24.6 million, according to the NFL Network.

ESPN reported that the deal voids after two years and $14.6 million, meaning that the third year was added to spread the accounting under the salary cap.

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The return Thursday of C Ethan Pocic suggests that the Seahawks are finished with the chore of fixing the offensive line, the object of controversy in the saga of Russell Wilson's winter of living dangerously. And they may be done with the early phase of free agency that has burned through their $17 million in cash under the salary cap.

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Hard to know where things stand in the clash of the Seahawks titans that has held Seattle sports breathless. But Pete Carroll seems to have sent a couple of peace offerings Wednesday to the opening of Russell Wilson's man-cave, from where nasty snarls have been heard.

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There is a declarative stat emerging from the first two days of NFL free agency.

Russell Wilson is oh-for-four.

The signing Tuesday by Chicago of free agent Andy Dalton, 33, to a one-year, $10 million deal to be the Bears' latest placeholder quarterback, represents the fourth and final team to move on from Wilson's list, to which he would agree to be traded.

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Seems as if everyone these days is looking for a shot in the arm. But if Seahawks fans were looking for anything other than a COVID-19 vaccine Monday, they got nothing.

The two offensive linemen said to be the best available at the start of NFL free agency went elsewhere, leaving unmet Russell Wilson's fervent desire for better bodyguards.

But at least the results maintained a tradition at this time of year as familiar as green beer: Seahawks fans lamenting, "Why can't we have nice things?"

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NFL free agency begins informally Monday, and officially at 1 p.m. Wednesday, when the Seahawks bosses will find the walls closing in, desperate for an artist to draw a cartoon door to facilitate an escape.

So far this off-season, they have just four draft picks, a bit of free cash and the stares of the sports world upon them, seeking to know what they shall do about the demands from Russell Wilson.

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In a major blow to the booming cardboard-cutout, faux-fan industry, but in a major buzz for humanoid fans and the teams they love, people will soon populate stadiums, yards and other gathering spots in the state of Washington.

By March 22, all 39 counties will have some COVID-19 fan attendance restrictions removed for outdoor events such Mariners, Sounders and OL Reign games, as well as high school sports, rodeos, motorsports and other outdoor events.

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If it weren't for Gonzaga, men's college basketball in the state of Washington in 2020-21 would have collapsed on itself like a late-stage star, becoming a black hole from which not even light can escape.

After winning the West Coast Conference tourney championship Tuesday to finish 26-0, the Zags head into the NCAA tournament as the nation's top-ranked team, where they have been all year.

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