It is great to have football back! The Thursday night game between the Packers and Saints reminded me how preseason football is nearly unwatchable in comparison to regular season football. Down by 15 with less than three minutes left in the game, the Saints were awfully close to having a chance to tie the game and send it into overtime. Let’s be thankful that the NFL knows how to kick off their season. Yes college football, take note, we are tired of watching teams like Alabama, Stanford and Virginia Tech try to put up 70 points against schools we’ve never heard of.
As great as Thursday’s game was to kick off the season, the Seahawks season opener can’t get here soon enough. Even though I really want to see the Seahawks take the field and play well, I also want to see what 49ers quarterback Alex Smith will do. Taking a midweek poll among members on Facebook and Twitter, I asked when the most likely time to get booed would be. It turns out the answers mostly ranged in the neighborhood of pregame warm-ups to the team’s first drive and a likely three-and-out pass incompletion.
Even though the quarterback situation in Seattle is a huge issue with fans, I’m going to play the role of “Seahawktomist.” Tarvaris Jackson hasn’t looked good this preseason, but the offensive line appears to deserve most of the blame and he has only been with the team for only a month. I’m not sure the offensive line deserves a whole lot of blame either. The Seahawks had rookies on the right side of the line, Max Unger (who was injured most of last year) has moved to center, Robert Gallery is new to the team, and Russell Okung is only in his second year and missed a few games last year. So after watching a few snaps this preseason, I say thank goodness T-Jack is the starter. If not for his ability to scramble, a guy like Hasselbeck may have already been sidelined for the year.
Conversely, how would you like to be a 49ers fan that somehow ends up with Alex Smith managing to be the best option year after year? As poorly as the Seahawks o-line has played, the 49ers line has played just as bad if not worse. They’ve been able to rely on a solid defense, but with some key players leaving in the offseason – even that aspect of their game will be questionable. One of the few things they have going for them is that Frank Gore is still on the team.
Getting back to the Hawks, I’m not going to let the fact that the Seahawks starting offense only managed one touchdown throughout the preseason keep me down. Instead, I’m going to hold off on any heavy criticism until I actually see the team play a regular season game. Some “fans” are calling this season over before it starts. I’ve seen a number of people on Twitter seemingly rooting for the team to lose in the #SuckForLuck campaign. Apparently one year out from taking his first snap in the NFL, people are already anointing Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck as the next Peyton Manning.
We already went over this last year when people wanted the Hawks to lose the NFC West to get a better draft pick. It just doesn’t make sense to want your team to lose for any reason, especially to draft a guy you don’t even know how he’ll react until he’s fully tested on the field in the NFL. It’s not like the competition in the NFC West has greatly improved. Going 7-9 may just win the division again, and I think that’s a goal that is achievable.
For those of you who are deployed and hoping to catch the Seahawks season opener, it’s not looking good according to the schedules for American Forces Network (AFN) and Direct to Sailor (DTS). I’m guessing we’ll have better luck next week since they’ll be on the road in Pittsburg.
I also want to send a thank you out to everyone serving today and especially those serving overseas this weekend. I can’t believe it has been 10 years since we were attacked on Sept. 11. Some of you may not have even been in high school yet, and maybe not even junior high for that matter. Having joined the military six months before the attacks, it hit me pretty hard on that day how differently my time in the military would end up being from my initial perspective. But those of you who have joined since have a much greater understanding of the threat that terrorism poses and the hatred that exists toward America in the minds of our enemies. I would like to think I would have made the same decision to join had I been faced with a different reality, but I really don’t know.
Thank you for continuing to do what you do. It makes it a lot easier to enjoy some football here this weekend knowing that you’re taking the fight to the enemy on their turf which helps us to feel a lot safer at home. Hope you all stay safe as well.
Looking forward to keeping everyone updated on the Seahawks all season long. Go Hawks!