Pete Carroll said the run game — 87 yards on 25 carries — was OK, but it was against the NFL’s worst rushing defense. The Seahawks won, but little about it inspired confidence for the playoffs.
Author: Art Thiel
Art Thiel
Never having met a metaphor he could not twist beyond recognition, Art has been illuminating, agitating, amusing and annoying Puget Sound sports readers for a long time. Along with Steve Rudman, he co-founded Sports Press Northwest because it didnt seem right that the Google monster should aggregate daily journalism into oblivion without at least a flesh wound from somebody. Thiel and Rudman labored under the Seattle Post-Intelligencer globe until the print edition died an undeserved death in March, 2009. Art continued on at its online successor seattlepi.com while working on SPNWs creation. His radio commentaries can be heard Friday and Saturday mornings and Friday afternoon on KPLU-FM 88.9. In 2003 he wrote the definitive book about the Seattle Mariners, Out of Left Field, which became a regional bestseller. In 2009, along with Rudman and KJR 950 afternoon host Mike Gastineau, Thiel authored The Great Book of Seattle Sports Lists, a cross between historylink.org and Mad Magazine that has become mandatory reading for any sports fan who has an indoor bathroom. A graduate of Pacific Lutheran University as well as two dead papers and a live one, the News Tribune of Tacoma, he has become a fan of entrepreneurial online journalism because it allows him to continue a lifelong passion to take the English language to places it rarely visits willingly, and does not involve the cleaning of kennels or stables.
Alabama’s defense was as advertised, but three makeable plays by Washington would have at least turned the Peach Bowl into something other than another notch on the Crimson Tide’s belt.
Let’s be honest. Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide are Steinbrenner and the Yankees. Nobody outside Alabama likes them. That means that the world will be full of Huskies fans. At least, for a weekend.
DE Michael Bennett is no longer underpaid in the NFL marketplace. The Seahawks extended his contract for three more seasons, a max value of $31.5 million, with $17.5 million guaranteed.
As fans wring hands over the Seahawks’ three losses in the past five games, consider the 2-13 49ers. The NFL’s hottest rivalry faded swiftly. And spoiling a season with an upset can renew it just as fast.
CB Richard Sherman said last week’s unplanned team meeting wasn’t about his sideline rant, and more about team-building “kumbaya.” But he also passed on his usual podium session with the media.
Despite missing 10 suspended players and following an embarrassing attempted boycott of the the game, the Minnesota Gophers outwitted and outworked Washington State 17-12 in the Holiday Bowl.
The Seahawks had an unplanned team meeting last week. But it probably didn’t cover going 0-for-7 from the one-yard line. Nor the prospect of tackling their leading rusher in the playoffs.
Tyler Lockett had successful surgery to repair compound fractures of the fibula and tibia above his right ankle, said coach Pete Carroll, who figured Lockett would be fit to return to training camp in July.
Another dubious trial at the one-yard line helps blow another winnable game for the Seahawks, who lost another key player, Tyler Lockett, for the season. Are four good quarters in a row possible for these guys?