The NFL 's top 100 player rankings, an annual vote by players compiled by NFL.com to help fill the off-season tedium, includes six Seahawks. That would be an impressive total, were it not for the facts that one is no longer a Seahawk (CB Richard Sherman), another may not be a Seahawk (FS and holdout Earl Thomas), and a third, SS Kam Chancellor, may never play again (if the list went to 200, DE Cliff Avril would be there, but injury has ended his career).

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One of the bedrock admonitions of coach Bill Belichick's reign with the New England Voldemorts is childishly simple: Do your job. An unsaid but understood part of that principle is being accountable in doing the job. If you mess up, own up. In the popular vernacular: Wear it.

Washington State football coach Mike Leach messed up. This time it has nothing to do with clock management or injury reports or long-winded ambles down the Diagon Alley of his mind.  He jumped into politics for no reason, and so far isn't wearing it.

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One of the less-appreciated virtues of being 20 games over .500 is a greater tolerance for the spit-up. Such as Sunday, when the Red Sox played a game in line with their pre-season expectations, and so did the Mariners.

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Absent blocking and tackling, mini-camp football for the outsider is a little like watching a dance through a keyhole in the ballroom door. Glimpses and flashes of movement lead to no reliable conclusions as to whether things are being done right.

So after the Seahawks' spring dance ended Thursday, insiders were queried as to what's going on. One, C Justin Britt, offered distinctive optimism about the Seahawks' most maligned unit.

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Since we won't know whether Seattle will host matches in the 2026 men's World Cup until probably 2020, it's a tad early to get lathered. What can be said with more certainty is if Seattle is one of the 10 chosen from a field of 17 competing U.S. cities, interested soccer fans should begin driving right away. They likely will make it by the opener.

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Tuesday was the first official day of FS Earl Thomas as the Seahawks' Object Of Controversy. As the only one among 90 players not in his assigned seat, the designation is virtually automatic. The three-day mini-camp, in which attendance is mandatory, took off without him. Pete Carroll stayed dry-eyed.

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The Legion of Boom is over, but some of the malady lingers on.

FS Earl Thomas announced on his Twitter account Sunday morning that he will not attend the mandatory, three-day mini-camp starting Tuesday, resolving the biggest of off-season Seahawks speculations.

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Not to put pressure on him -- hey, he wouldn't care anyway -- but CB Shaquill Griffin is the one guy out of the Seahawks drafts from 2014-17 who has the talent, poise and savvy to be as valuable as the draftees-turned-stars from 2010 to 2013 who carried Seattle to consecutive Super Bowls.

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Much in the manner of his peers among the heels of pro wrestling, Donald Trump finds an injury in an opponent and ruthlessly pounds away at it until the script calls for a weepy submission from the vanquished. And he'll still toss the loser over the turnbuckle and onto the floor.

That's where the NFL owners find themselves these days.

But the cold concrete nap looks like it might be a real coma.

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Many fans and pundits assumed that since the Seahawks' ground game in 2017 worked with all the effectiveness of square bowling balls, the offensive line would be forced into a circular firing squad. But now that the roster/coaching tumult has mostly passed, it returns nearly intact.

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Apparently having clanked a dunk off the back rim trying to help bring NBA back to Seattle, Russell Wilson is stepping up to bat for Portland to help bring Major League Baseball to the Rose City. Yes, he's keeping his day job too.

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The Seahawks know well the dyspeptic NFL saga of WR Brandon Marshall -- a splendidly talented wide receiver for 12 years, 23rd on the all-time list for receiving yards, who has been a frequent pain in the butt to teammates, coaches and cops.

So before the Seahawks became his sixth team, according to Marshall Wednesday after practice at team headquarters, "They did their due diligence, to say the least. They broke down everything since I've been in the league. We had some great, transparent, challenging conversations. I (was given) some tough questions.

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The battery to close out the Mariners' 3-1 rout (box) -- hey, it was more than a one-run win -- consisted of Alex Colome on the mound and Chris Hermann behind the plate. They were not in Peoria for spring training. They did not play here in April. As late as 2 p.m. Friday, they were as much a part of Seattle as a free parking spot downtown.

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In a trade with Tampa Bay Friday, the Mariners turned Robinson Cano's suspension into a  veteran outfielder and a veteran relief pitcher. The most remarkable aspect of the deal is that it cost only two minor leaguers from a farm system believed nearly bereft of trade-worthy major-league prospects.

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If the NFL owners thought they came up with a solution this week that will make disappear the issue of players' game-day protests, the billionaires are dumber than the inventors of the adobe submarine.

In the benign NFL calendar period of organized team activities, when it's all about hope and fluffy spring clouds, the owners' new anthem policy inflamed all sides anew.

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Here's our civics quiz question for the day: Is a protest demonstration a protest demonstration if it takes place behind closed doors?

If you said yes, you're probably an NFL owner or a patron of the status quo.  If you said no, you're probably an African American NFL player who resents the hell out of being told to stifle yourself.

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Former Olympics swimmer Ariana Kukors Smith said many important things Monday in her press conference in downtown Seattle when the Federal Way native and former University of Washington athlete announced she had filed suit against USA Swimming for failing to protect her from the coach who she said preyed upon her sexually for years.

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We interrupt the Seattle hoo-hah around reaching a season-high eight games above .500 (27-19), following a 3-2, walk-off win in 11 innings over Detroit Sunday at Safeco Field, with three words of greater significance for the Mariners season: Wade Bleeping LeBlanc.

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For Russian hackers streaming the Safeco Field game Wednesday on their favorite U.S. propaganda tool, Facebook, the Mariners countered with some clever disinformation. In the ninth inning, trailing 1-0, Seattle gave the Texas Rangers six outs instead of the standard three. As a cyber-strategy, it was brilliant -- the Russians who thought they knew American baseball were totally discombobulated.

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The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has a "wallet card" of substances for athletes who compete in sports that ban performance-enhancers and masking agents. This link shows the PDF of one used by UFC athletes. In the third category of masking agents is furosemide, often commercially known as the diuretic Lasix, the substance Mariners 2B Robinson Cano admits to using.

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