Field Gulls
It’s getting ever closer to kickoff for Mike Macdonald’s second regular season as the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. All he did in his inaugural year was set the franchise record for most wins by a rookie head coach, surpassing other iconic Seattle coaches like Mike Holmgren and Pete Carroll.
Based on that, we should be in for an even better sophomore season, propelling the Seahawks to the playoffs and beyond! A new era of Seattle greatness is upon us!
Maybe, but this year might be a bit of a speedbump on that path to championship contention. Both of the aforementioned coaches, Holmgren and Carroll, took steps back in their second seasons. (Jim Mora, of course, had no second season)
Holmgren joined the Seahawks in 1999 and immediately led them to a 9-7 record which was good enough to win the AFC West. In the following year, Seattle’s record dropped to 6-10 as they finished fourth in the division. Holmgren was one year away from finding his franchise quarterback in Matt Hasselbeck, and instead was relying mostly on Jon Kitna with Brock Huard also seeing time. The Seahawks pass defense also got absolutely shredded that season to the tune of 7.63 yards per attempt.
Carroll’s first season in Seattle was memorable due to winning the NFC West in the final week with a 7-9 record, securing a home playoff game. Of course, we all know that the Beastquake game resulted from that and a legendary Seahawks moment was born. The following season, however, Carroll failed to improve in terms of record at 7-9, and didn’t benefit from a weak division as Seattle didn’t make the playoffs. His team was in transition at QB after Carroll jettisoned Matt Hasselbeck and turned to Tarvaris Jackson instead. T-Jack suffered a pec injury in early October and played through it for the remainder of the season. Had he been healthy, the results might have been different, but if “if’s” and “but’s” were candy and nuts we’d all have a Merry Christmas!
Speaking of Christmas, we’re all hoping that around that time, the Seahawks are on a roll with the division title in sight. Yet, maybe looking at the history of Holmgren and Carroll should give us some pause? There is a similarity with the Hasselbeck/Jackson story and Geno Smith/Sam Darnold. Macdonald had to sign off on moving on from Geno and handing the reigns over to Darnold. There’s no guarantee that Darnold will perform better than Geno did.
And what if the defense isn’t quite as good as we think and is closer to the first half of 2024 than the second half where they really turned things up? Oh, and the Seahawks have an entirely new offensive system which looked great in the second preseason game. When the regular season begins, that doesn’t mean squat. Vegas certainly seems to be thinking along these lines, giving Seattle a 7.5 win total. They’ve been predicting a slip-up like this for the Seahawks pretty much...
