Rams coach Sean McVay usually doesn’t need the NFL’s help to beat Seattle, but he was happy to take it. / Drew McKenzie, Sportspress Northwest file 2019 Once darlings of the NFL, the Seahawks this week find themselves outside the closed ballroom, peering through keyholes (look it up, kids) to see only flashes of color from the pre-playoff dance among the landed gentry. The shunning may seem even worse because it seems orchestrated by NFL evil-doers as some sort of punishment. For what, isn’t clear.
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.
A year ago against the New York Giants, DK Metcalf spent a lot of time airborne. / Corky Trewin, Seattle Seahawks Among the if-then propositions from another close loss to a good team that slammed the postseason door Tuesday on the fingers of the last true believers, here’s the one at the top of the list: If WR Tyler Lockett played, then the Seahawks would have beaten the Los Angeles Rams. Not only would the Seahawks have won, Lockett would have helped heal whatever is ailing Russell Wilson. After two wins over Houston and San Francisco, which included 30 or…
According to the official who had a clear view of the play, this was not pass interference by Rams LB Ernest Jones against Seahawks RB DeeJay Dallas. / Rod Mar, Seattle Seahawks Picking through the wreckage of a tumultuous week that made for the first losing season of Russell Wilson’s Seattle career, one thing stands out. The Seahawks lost three times in a calendar year to the Los Angeles Rams: 30-20 in January, 26-17 in October and 20-10 (box) Tuesday night at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA.
Photographic proof that Russell Wilson can get the ball past Aaron Donald. Where it lands is another matter. / Drew McKenzie, Sportspress Northwest If ever you contemplated not liking Aaron Donald — please use your imaginations — the Rams’ 50-foot-tall defensive tackle offered up a good reason this week in suburban Los Angeles, where he and his teammates have been occasionally practicing for the two-day-postponed, SoFi Stadium game with Seahawks at 4 p.m. Tuesday. “It was a mini-bye week,” Donald said on a video conference, via the Los Angeles Times. “You got to stay off your feet, rest up a…
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll tried to take the high road over being forced to play the Rams on Tuesday instead of Sunday. / Rod Mar, Seattle Seahawks In you’re a Seahawks fan, feel free to be resentful. Also feel free to do it quickly and quietly. The world has yet another virus fire. Disruptions to sports schedules are a trifle. How serious this global health re-wind becomes is yet unknowable. But the fact is, the NFL Friday chose to mitigate its immediate impact by postponing the Seahawks game in Los Angeles with the Rams from Sunday to Tuesday.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, on the sidelines at Houston, has a lot of players and issues to track. / Drew McKenzie, Sportspress Northwest I wanted to wait awhile this week before writing a Seahawks-Rams column. In an NFL world suddenly living minute by covid minute, any news of the moment is quickly rendered stale as last year’s Christmas fruitcake (which, by the way tastes the same as it did a year ago, undamaged by time). The main events of Thursday, in order: *Seahawks teammates WR Tyler Lockett and RB Alex Collins, both vaccinated, test positive for COVID-19 *An abrupt change…
Huskles coach Kalen DeBoer announced a five-player recruiting class Wednesday. / Art Thiel, Sportspress Northwest If you’re a Huskies football who fan enjoys immersing in the recruiting minutia of letter intent day with all the gossip of which four-star kid went where and why, Wednesday was not a good day for you. The Huskies rolled out a five-player class of business people.
As with this pass to Tyler Lockett in week five, the Rams have been out of reach for the Seahawks. / Drew McKenzie, Sportspress Northwest The Seahawks had a rare mandatory homework assignment Monday night — watch the Rams-Cardinals game. As if they would be doing anything else. But Pete Carroll is in no mood to take chances after needing three months to get the Seahawks right. “Everybody’s got to watch,” Carroll Monday afternoon via videoconference before the MNF game. “This is a really good opportunity for us to see them up close. It will help kick us into being…
Seahawks RB Rashaad Penny blasts off for a 47-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter at Houston Sunday. / Rod Mar, Seattle Seahawks The temptation was to view the game at Houston as the calm between two NFC West storms. And the 33-13 victory (box) over the woebegone Texans (2-11) doesn’t discourage that assessment. But the view fails to give credence to notable progress Sunday that portends optimism for the Seahawks in the game of the season Sunday in Los Angeles against the Rams. “We’ve been waiting for a little juice from the run game and it was really there…
NCAA president Mark Emmert’s idea of self-regulation through collegiality has taken a big hit. / biglead.com In the absence of the Trump administration, Mark Emmert apparently is making a run at the vacant title of master of the self-aggrandizing suck-up. At a sports conference this week in Las Vegas, the NCAA president said, “Being a university president is the hardest job in America.” Since Emmert once was one, at the University of Washington, and is now employed by similar people to run their sports shop, his remark comes in late but strong in the 2021 voting. I am eager to…