An underappreciated feat of the Seahawks' 2018 season was twice putting up 31 points on a heralded Los Angeles Rams defense that subsequently held New England to 13 points in the Super Bowl. While Seattle lost both games -- 33-31 at the Clink and 36-31 at the Coliseum -- it wasn't the fault of a made-over offense that produced a combined 787 yards.

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Compared to Hurricane Maria that slammed his native Puerto Rico in 2017, any metaphorical whirlwind caused by Alex Cora's decision to shun the celebratory trip to White House Thursday for his defending World Series champion Red Sox is a trifle.

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In terms of substantive football developments, a three-day NFL rookie camp in May is a Hostess Twinkie. Fluff, empty calories, probably slightly toxic. Then you look over both shoulders to make sure no one is there, and wolf it down.

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One of the more callous aspects of college football is playing out at Washington, where two highly regarded quarterbacks, redshirt freshmen Jacob Sirmon and Colson Yankoff, plan to leave the Huskies program to seek more playing time at other schools.

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Ending the mystery of what Ichiro would do without baseball, the Mariners announced Tuesday that he won't be without baseball.

He's returning to the club as an instructor for the MLB and AAA Tacoma teams, focusing on what he did best in a likely Hall of Fame career -- fielding, baserunning and, in conjunction with the hitting coaches, batting.

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The Seahawks weren't the only local football team that was made better over the weekend. The NFL draft also helped the Washington Huskies. Their loss of eight players to the pros -- only Alabama (10) and Ohio State (nine) contributed more -- was a net gain for the program. There's nothing more impressive to top-tier recruits than for a school to be known as a pipeline to Pete Carroll, Bill Belichick,  and . . . well, the Arizona Cardinals.

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From a standpoint of player profile and psychology, if ever there was a sublime collegiate fit for a specific pro football team, Ben Burr-Kirven and the Seattle Seahawks would seal like the back door of a Brinks armored truck.

Burr-Kirven was part-way inside the team already, before he was called in the fifth round of the NFL draft Saturday.

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Improving from four draft picks Monday, fewest in the NFL, to 11 Saturday, second-most, was a monumental lift for the Seahawks. It even blew away Pete Carroll.

"I was hoping we'd get to six or seven, but we leap-frogged it," he said Saturday afternoon after the third and final day of the NFL draft. "It really surpassed expectations I had for the week, to be like we are.

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D.K. Metcalf recalled meeting Pete Carroll at the NFL combine in Indianapolis.

"He was surprised at how big I was," he told a reporter. Indeed, Carroll was startled by the shirtless incredible hulk before him.

"Kinda pissed me off," Carroll said, smiling. "So I took my shirt off. Not for long, though."

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Not long after the Seahawks drafted big receiver D.K. Metcalf Friday night, bad news emerged about their smallest receiver. After multiple injuries and surgeries, Doug Baldwin's eight-year career may be over at 30.

ESPN.com's Adam Schefter reported, citing anonymous sources, that Baldwin, one of the best receivers in club history and a stalwart in the locker room and the community, is facing a decision about ending his career.

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One after another, the big-deal pass rushers the Seahawks sought to replace the traded Frank Clark fell off the draft board. As the first round Thursday night moved toward the their turn at No. 21, tension grew at team headquarters in Renton.

"Body blows," said general manger John Schneider.

"It went the way it was supposed to go, and we didn't like that," said coach Pete Carroll.

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From the standpoint of grabbing the NFL's attention, the Seahawks have been on a roll lately.

First there was the drama attendant to making Russell Wilson the highest paid player in NFL history. Then there was his tweeted announcement of the deal's success from the pillow on his bed, wife all snuggly next to him, and three gold chains around his neck.

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Much remains to be played out, but Tuesday may be the day the Seahawks began proving wrong the skeptics who believed that Russell Wilson's mammoth contract extension wrote them off the list of serious Super Bowl contenders.

If the club's plan works, and you're a 12, don't forget to tip your bird helmet to Andy Reid.

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The first round is hardly everything. But it is the single biggest thing in the NFL draft. And it's one thing the Seahawks haven't done very well during the otherwise highly successful tenures of coach Pete Carroll and GM John Schneider.

The Seahawks are scheduled to pick 21st in the first round Thursday. Even the shyest snow leopard at the Woodland Park Zoo is aware that Seattle wants to trade down to acquire more picks, because at the moment they have four, fewest in the NFL and in club history. It's a result of borrowing against the future, a draft principle Schneider was loathe to violate, but did so anyway.

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Amid the welter of metrics, backhoes and rubble that were part of a media tour of the rapidly shrinking KeyArena Thursday, one factoid stood out -- 44 million pounds.

That's the weight of KeyArena arena's roof. Preserved as a historic civic landmark, it must remain while the new home of Seattle's 2021 NHL expansion franchise is installed underneath.

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John Schneider was on the phone with owner Paul Allen in April 2012, just after the Seahawks in the third round of the NFL draft selected Russell Wilson, a highly successful but vertically challenged college quarterback.

"So you took the little guy, huh?" Schneider recalled Allen saying.

"‘Yeah, I did. I did, Paul. We did. We did. Uh, yeah."

Allen hung up. Schneider handed the phone to coach Pete Carroll.

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From the perspective of successful football business, here's the best thing about the Russell Wilson contract extension:  He's the main reason the Seahawks have a +269 point differential in the fourth quarter since 2012, best in the NFL.

Best thing about the deal from fans' perspective: They are spared from the specter of Wilson playing on what amounts to a series of three consecutive one-year contracts (this season plus two via franchise tags) that would have kept 12s in tinfoil hats, speculating conspiratorially whether Wilson's play choices or decisions to avoid contact were "business decisions" to save himself or to improve his personal stats at the expense of the team's best interests.

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Among the high highs and low lows in the life and career of Tiger Woods, the lowest may have come four years ago at Tacoma's Chambers Bay. Not the lowest psychologically, emotionally, physiologically or professionally. The lowest below the surface of the earth.

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Sweep your eyes across the Seattle spring sports landscape, and prepare to have them spinning spirals. Not long after the Washington Huskies won a game in the NCAA men's basketball tourney for the first time since the Great Permian Die-Off, the Mariners and Sounders started seasons nearly spotlessly, while the Seahawks in their off-season are running scared.

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What we know with high confidence regarding the 10-2 start to the 2019 Mariners season, best in club history and tops in MLB:

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