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Thiel: A Monday in December. They have a knack

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Doug Farrar
A Seattle resident since 1985, Doug Farrar has written about football since 2001. In 2006, he became Football Outsiders’ first West Coast draft pick, which allowed him to help spread the word about sabermetrics in football, write a weekly X-and-O column called “Cover-3“, cover the last four scouting combines, contribute to the last five editions of the Pro Football Prospectus/Football Outsiders Almanac series, and write several pieces for ESPN.com and ESPN the magazine.

Doug moved from Coke to Pepsi in September 2009 when Yahoo! Sports invited him to add content to the “Shutdown Corner” blog, which covers all things NFL. Doug has also written several articles for Yahoo’s main NFL site, including a summer 2010 series called “Under Surveillance“, which examined the playbooks and play calls of every NFL team.

Football is Doug’s first, but not only, sports passion. He’s also written about baseball since that long-lost era when the Mariners were a playoff contender. In the summer of 2010, he covered the U.S. Senior Open at Sahalee for Yahoo. When he’s not watching ridiculous amounts of game tape and consulting stat spreadsheets, you might find Doug indulging his inner Carl Spackler at one of the Eastside’s finer municipal golf courses.
BY Doug Farrar 07:00AM 06/07/2011
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While counsel for the NFL and NFLPA were wrapping up arguments about the future of professional football in a St. Louis courtroom last Friday morning, a group of more than football players — most of them Seattle Seahawks — gathered in the University of Washington weight room to participate in structured workouts put together by UW strength and conditioning coach Ivan Lewis, and coordinated by longtime Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck.

Though he's currently a free agent and has been tied to a number of other teams in various rumor mills, Hasselbeck ran Friday's workout with a sense of order and command that exhibited his value beyond stats and plays to his team.READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 12:30PM 05/04/2011
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The NFL draft is a crapshoot at the best of times. even when ranking and evaluating the "easiest" of positions (whatever they may be). More than any other position, quarterback is the most difficult to assess.

About once every five years, you get a scheme-transcendent quarterback, who could drop into any of 32 teams and succeed. Oklahoma's Sam Bradford is probably the last one to project that way, and it's safe to say that there is no quarterback in the 2011 draft class who will give what Bradford will give the Rams from a pure skill set perspective.

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BY Doug Farrar 09:30PM 04/30/2011
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RENTON -- Rarely is a dedicated right tackle taken with the 25th overall pick in the first round – that position is usually reserved for later rounds -- the earlier selections for the more glamorous position of left tackle, i.e., the quarterback’s blindside protector.

It’s also unusual for a tackle to immediately graduate from two seasons at Coffeyeville (Kan.) Community College to a starting role on the offensive line of a national championship team, replacing a player who went sixth overall in the draft. It’s also a bit weird for a NFL team to draft said right tackle (a college left tackle that projects to the NFL right side) with first-round prospects still on the board.READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 10:03AM 04/30/2011
Round 4, pick 2 (99th pick overall) – K.J. Wright, OLB, Mississippi State. 6-foot-3, 246 pounds.

A hybrid defender who can play outside linebacker in a 4-3 defense and rush the passer in certain 3-4 looks, Wright passed up Auburn, Arkansas, Ole Miss and South Carolina to stay in-state. Excelling as a pure tackler, Wright finished his collegiate career with 259 tackles (131 solo), 23.5 tackles for loss, nine sacks, 14 passes defensed, three forced fumbles, and 11 quarterback hurries. Ran a 4.75 40-yard dash at the scouting combine, which may have dropped his stock a bit. But he is a versatile player who switched between strong-side and weak-side linebacker positions. Think of him as a Dexter Davis-style depth pick with rotation potential. Played in each of the possible 47 games in which he could have participated and started 35.

Round 4, pick 10 (107th pick overall) – Kris Durham, WR, Georgia. 6-foot-5, 216 pounds.READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 07:08PM 04/29/2011
With the 75th overall pick, traded from the Detroit Lions, the Seahawks selected Wisconsin guard John Moffitt. Playing on the right side of first-round tackle Gabe Carimi, Moffitt switched between guard and center throughout his career with the Badgers, proving his worth in one of the better-coached lines in the NCAA. He started 42 games for Wisconsin, including six games lining up as a freshman.READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 05:21PM 04/29/2011
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The Seattle Seahawks traded their second-round draft pick -- the 57th pick overall -- to the Detroit Lions, as well as two other selections for four Detroit picks.

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BY Doug Farrar 09:52PM 04/26/2011
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RENTON – With the sixth pick in the 2010 draft, Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider said that his kids could have made the right selection; the obvious inference being that it’s a lot easier to get that future franchise left tackle – as the Seahawks did with Russell Okung – than it is to find the proverbial needle in a haystack later in the process.

Of course, if getting the early picks right was so easy, we wouldn’t still be laughing about Ryan Leaf and JaMarcus Russell.

The key to the process is to have a front office working in concert, and that’s something that Schneider and head coach Pete Carroll – also in his second year with the team – seem to have developed.READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 04:08PM 04/26/2011

Farrar and Rang discuss the Lockers, Malletts and Kaepernicks

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BY Doug Farrar 11:09AM 04/25/2011

The 'Middle Trufant' talks about his long ride to the NFL

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BY Doug Farrar 11:14AM 04/21/2011

Last Saturday, Sportspress Northwest NFL Writer Doug Farrar and NFLDraftScout.com Senior Analyst Rob Rang took over the studios of KJR 950 just after the debut of the SPNW “Water Cooler Cool” show to bat the following idea back and forth: When it comes to need positions like right tackle, is it better to draft players who may have less athletic potential but are more ready to perform at the NFL level, or should the Seahawks look at the long-term and take guys with higher upsides who may be projects?READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 05:07PM 04/19/2011
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If the 2011 NFL schedule goes off as expected (and that, of course, depends on what happens with the ongoing labor situation), the Seattle Seahawks will be on the road for the first two weeks of the regular season – first, with a trip to San Francisco, and then a journey to Pittsburgh for the second Seahawks-Steelers game since Super Bowl XL. The last one ended in a 21-0 score for Pittsburgh in Oct. 2007. Seattle then welcomes the Arizona Cardinals and Atlanta Falcons to WhateverIt'sCalled Field, followed by another long plane ride to take on the New York Giants.READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 05:45PM 04/18/2011
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Last year, in his first NFL draft as a general manager, Seattle’s John Schneider said that he was “the man sitting next to the man,” an obvious nod to the pull new head coach Pete Carroll had in the organization. This year, with a playoff berth and victory (not to mention about 280 transactions) behind him, Schneider seems more comfortable in his skin as the personnel leader behind an NFL franchise. He may still be sitting next to The Man, but the seats are closer, and Schneider’s chair is quite a bit nicer.

“Our scouts flew in last night, and we started first thing this morning at 8,” he said in a small media gathering at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center on Monday afternoon. “We’ll go by position, and we’ll end the week with our coaches, and we’ll continue to clean up (the process) as we go through the weekend. We’ll get through the weekend, and we’re really at a point now where we’re ‘massaging it,’ if you will.”READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 08:41AM 04/17/2011
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In a recent wide-ranging interview with Greg Bedard of the Boston Globe, veteran Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said that he is hopeful that he will return to the team, even though the Seattle front office has decided to let him test the market before making any decisions about the free-agent’s future with the franchise.

Acquired via trade before the 2001 season, Hasselbeck was the Seahawks’ quarterback through the team's most successful stretch of time, including its lone Super Bowl appearance in Febuary of 2006. But things change, and quarterbacks get older. Due in part to iffy personnel decisions on the part of former team president Tim Ruskell, Hasselbeck hasn’t enjoyed a season of above-average productivity since 2007.READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 09:25AM 04/16/2011
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Last Thursday, about 50 NFL scouts, coaches and executives (including 18 running backs coaches) were at Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, CA., to watch one player’s private workout. And if you don't follow FCS football closely, you may not even know the name of the player they came to watch.

Eastern Washington running back Taiwan Jones, the Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year, finally got to run the 40-yard dash everyone had been expecting and hoping to see. Jones suffered a broken foot late in the 2010 season, which kept him out of the FCS Championship game (which EWU still won without him) and workouts at the scouting combine. However, those in the scouting community were well-aware of Jones' raw speed, and knew that when fully healed, he could put up numbers in the range of those established by current Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson (4.24 at the combine) and Kansas City Chiefs back Jamaal Charles (4.28).READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 07:30AM 04/14/2011
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“It’s hard being in the season, when you’re moving around from position to position, but I think in the long run, to have the experience at all those positions is great,” Conte said at the 2011 scouting combine about the change under new defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast. “When you’re in the season and trying to learn four different positions it can be a little bit difficult.”READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 02:07PM 04/12/2011
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Preseason games are hardly indicative of what happens when the games actually count – one needs only to go back to the 2009 season, when the Jim Mora-led Seahawks went undefeated in the exhibition process, only to fall apart when it mattered. That said, anything resembling the 2011 NFL scheduling after months of nothing but lockout talk is a balm to any hardcore football fan. That’s what we received today when the NFL announced the 2011 preseason schedule.

Now, all they have to do is to arrange to play the games. From a logistical standpoint, the current lockout would have to be broken by early July to have everything arranged in time. Assuming that happens, here’s what things look like for the Seahawks:

Thursday, August 11 – Seattle at San Diego – 8:00 PM EDT (ESPN)
Saturday, August 20 – Minnesota at Seattle – (TBD)READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 11:22AM 04/12/2011
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1.62-second 10-yard split was just .05 of a second slower than those of Von Miller and Dontay Moch - two outside speed linebackers that Houston outweighed by 25 pounds. His 36 ½-inch vertical jump, the highest at his position, speaks to explosiveness off the snap, and his 40-yard dash, three-cone, and shuttle times were all exceptional for a bigger player. Of course, the question always stands - do these attributes show up on game tape?

Pros: Houston has great blast-and-turn speed when he sets up in a wider look past the outside shoulder of the tackle; his 10-yard split is represented in the fact that he seems to get up to full speed before his blocker can get his hands up and his first kick-step out of the way. Exhibits a natural low angle when he turns the corner. Closes in well when he has to catch up to a quarterback stepping up in the pocket. Against tackles slower to turn, he turns on the jets and exploits that lack of agility.READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 09:52AM 04/05/2011
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The Seattle Seahawks are in the second day of a two-day hosting of Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett, who is ranked by most draft experts as the third- to fifth-best quarterback in this draft class. At 6-foot-7 and 253 pounds, Mallett will enter the NFL as the tallest quarterback since … well, since a certain Dan McGwire came into the league as the 16th overall selection in the 1991 NFL draft.

The famed brother of baseball slugger Mark was the tallest quarterback in NFL history at 6-foot-8 and 240 pounds, but McGwire could never bring his figurative stature anywhere near his actual height.READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 04:50PM 03/30/2011
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SEATTLE, Wa. – The hush around the field at the Dempsey Indoor facility while Jake Locker went through 40 different throws with three receivers for the coaches, scouts, and media in attendance resembled that of a coronation.

And while Locker didn’t quite meet those figurative standards with his performance on Wednesday afternoon, he came as close as could be expected in the context of the development expected of any quarterback in the pre-draft process. And just two months after a Senior Bowl week in which he resembled a third-round draft pick much of the time, Locker most likely solidified his status as a first-round quarterback with 38 completions in those 40 throws.READ MORE»

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BY Doug Farrar 11:16AM 03/29/2011
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There are still people who will tell you that Jake Locker blew it by not declaring for the 2010 NFL draft. By sticking around for his senior season at Montlake, some will say, the Washington legend sacrificed the chance to be selected in the top 10 of that draft, if not first overall.

Here’s the problem with that theory – when Locker walked into Steve Sarkisian’s office in December of 2009 to re-up for the Huskies, it was at least a month before the season of serious tape analysis began. A sub-sport that doesn’t really start until after every Super Bowl, the game-tape marathons run by every serious draft guru – not to mention the due diligence done by every NFL team – would have almost certainly taken Locker to at least the bottom of the first round (where he seems to reside in most mock drafts these days), if not lower.READ MORE»

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