Through a tumultuous off-season and a winless preseason, the Seahawks have tried to convince themselves and us that the 2017 season left merely scratches, not the dents, smoke and steam that seem fairly apparent. The franchise still runs, but with three away games in the first four, there's a hard road ahead for damaged goods.

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A blink heavy enough to make noise was audible around the Sound Wednesday, as well as throughout the NFL. Disgruntled FS Earl Thomas was back. He lost his staredown. His Seattle teammates, coaches, fans won back one of game's greatest defenders.

"He made me a better coach," said defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr., grinning.

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The Seahawks reached the 53-player limit on Saturday's mandatory cut-down day. They made a couple of small trades, acquiring a backup safety and a backup tight end, but didn't do anything drastic in response to their 0-4 fake-football record, such as paying FS Earl Thomas a billionty-billion dollars.

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Every school child knows that results of the NFL fake season are meaningless, except, of course, for the full price charged for tickets.  That's a real hurt.

Nevertheless . . . 0-4 is not a good look. Especially since the Seahawks have never been blanked before. Their first winless preseason, concluding with a banal 30-19 home loss to the Oakland Raiders Thursday night, will leave a stain requiring scrubbing.

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One of the more exotic charms in the often dubious world of college football is the chance to play foes from planets never previously encountered. Sort of like the long-running Star Trek franchise, where opponents vary from cute and fuzzy Tribbles (Idaho) to the omnipotent Q (Auburn).

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Tell a non-Seattle fan that you were agog at a six-yard rushing touchdown, a kicker and punter, and you will be called a football dweeb and told to freshen everyone's drinks and see when the nachos will be ready.

These are the insults that must be endured as the Seahawks raise themselves from a collective beak-plant in 2017. Prepare for additional snickers over the 0-3 exhibition record in 2018, but if you get mad about that, it's on you. No one can help you.

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Ever since the Seahawks began their rebuild/repair/revival/restoration/reset/renewal/revamp (choose one) in the pursuit of respect, coach Pete Carroll and the members of his church choir have preached the run game as their 2018 holy grail.

Brothers, it's time to deliver.

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Much in the way that scientists can derive historical climate information by studying tree rings and layers of rock, it's possible to look at a single, small statistic and learn all that one needed to know about past football seasons.

In 2016, Jon Ryan punted 71 times, following seasons of  65, 74, 61 and 68 punts. All those seasons resulted in playoff appearances.

In 2017, Ryan punted 92 times, and the Seahawks missed the playoffs.

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Remember last season how the Seahawks had trouble scoring early? How's six points in first quarter work for you in 2018?

Despite deploying QB Russell Wilson for all six possessions of the first half Saturday night in Carson, CA.,  his teammates on the first unit made just enough key mistakes to evoke a bit of the bad old days in a 24-14 loss (box) to the Los Angeles Chargers that kept the Seahawks winless in the preseason.

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The Seahawks defensive line took another hit Friday when end Marcus Smith, who had 2½ sacks and two forced fumbles in 14 games as a backup the past season, unexpectedly had his contract terminated Friday for personal reasons that coach Pete Carroll declined to specify after practice, ahead of Saturday's 7 p.m. exhibition in Los Angeles against the Chargers.

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Size matters in football, but it's relative. Offensive linemen are, by definition, large. Still, D.J. Fluker is large the way Aretha Franklin is great -- whoever is second almost doesn't count.

Asked his ideal playing weight, the 6-foot-5 Fluker estimated it was about 340 pounds.

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In the Seahawks' first possession that became a 75-yard touchdown drive, 32 yards came by the run, 43 came by the pass. If you have any urgency to derive meaning from the first exhibition game, we offer that morsel as an indication that the plan to restore dignity to the Seattle ground game has taken a toddler's step forward.

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Nowhere among the many Seahawks changes is the dropoff steeper than at free safety.  From destroyer of worlds Earl Thomas to sandcastle-building Tedric Thompson is a gap of years, experience and talent that fairly screams.

Then again, everyone thought coach Pete Carroll was nuts in 2012 when he started Russell Wilson in his rookie year.

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A moment after RB Rashaad Penny finished a full-blast breakaway run Saturday no 236-pound man should be capable of, a solo jet roared overhead in a steep acceleration, in full view of spectators watching the Seahawks' first and only scrimmage of training camp.

Thus is born Penny's nickname: Blue Angel. The only question was which was faster.

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In Earl Thomas's first-person essay for the Players' Tribune published Thursday morning -- the first public airing of his position -- the Seahawks' recalcitrant star finally exposed the fundamental disconnect driving his holdout. He thinks he's playing basketball or baseball.

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The presumption that Chris Carson, the seventh-round draft choice who as a rookie in 2017 was the Seahawks starting running back for three games, blew chunks in April when he saw his team take a running back with its first pick, misses a fairly large point.

To get from where the Seahawks were in the running game to where they have to be, is going to take a platoon, if not a village. And a corollary point for the backs: The lighter the load, the more enduring the paydays.

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A new deal for holdout FS Earl Thomas doesn't seem in the mix, but the Seahawks like them some Duane Brown. A lot.

Pro Football Talk reported that the five-time All-Pro left tackle, 33 next month, is getting a three-year extension through 2021. The Seattle Times reported the deal could pay him up to $46 million, but the amount of guaranteed money has yet to be disclosed.

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If you're a major league baseball player, it's like Mike Trout being traded to your team. If you're an NBA player, it's like LeBron James taking his talents to your side. That's how RT Germain Ifedi feels about the Seahawks' acquisition of LT Duane Brown.

Especially since Ifedi grew up in inner-city Houston, where the Texans took Brown with a first-round pick (26th overall) in 2008.

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The Seahawks are stuck with the fact that most outsiders don't care who is on the 2018 team, but rather who isn't on the team. That's because the Seahawks built a cacophony of big personalities and big talents that for several seasons were at the NFL's epicenter. That circus has left town, more or less. Welcome to the Legion of Whom.

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NFL training camp time must be near. Richard Sherman is tossing tear gas canisters into his old Seattle bunkhouse.

The 49ers cornerback (for that phrase, my spellcheck pops up with this error message: "Say what?") launched again this week, criticizing some player personnel decisions that led to the decline that dumped the Seahawks out of the playoffs last season.

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