Words Of Prey, Pre-Week 1: Apologies, the cigars have all been thunk

In our Seattle Seahawks postgame space, you’ve grown to expect Cigar Thoughts, with words by Jacson Bevens. Ain’t gonna happen anymore. He walked away after 13 years and someone else got the gig. What? This is like expecting Ken Griffey Jr. but getting Mike Cameron instead. Or waiting for Russell Okung to fill Walter Jones’ cleats, while fully recognizing the impossibility of the demand.

Those two replacements were pretty damn good, even. Objectively, their biggest fault was having to follow a legend. A thankless job if there ever was one.

Well, if someone must do the same at Field Gulls, I volunteer. It’s not like the Seahawks can give up and field only four offensive linemen — even though that’s exactly how the last 15 years have felt. (Oh snap?)

Regardless of how monumental the task appears, I’m at peace. Because, come on, if the goal is to be as cool as the cigar-chomping, star-interviewing, bad-golf-playing, idiom-coining lawn care guru who roamed these halls, that goal is dumb. Not doable. No way, Charbonnet. Total change of scenery is in order. Dominican smokes are now dad jokes. Shots of whiskey? Lots of whimsy.

So, an era ends. Eras do that. And sometimes it’s welcome. Other times it kinda sucks because the predecessor left a Hall of Fame resume and John Schneider/Mookie doesn’t draft gold jackets every year anymore.

To accelerate the transition, our first Words of Prey postgame column has arrived ahead of Week 1. It recaps the Seahawks’ offseason as a whole. Think of it as an exposition of themes, which will surely be drudged back up in October when the foreseeable consequences of trading away their field-tilting skill players hit home. One side of the ball might be sitting ducks, but not all is lost: the other side has sharpened its talons into razor blades.

DEFENSE

Save for a Sharknado Armageddon of injuries hitting the V-Mac, there is no universe in which the Seattle defense takes a step back in 2025. They finished the year on a heater, gained another offseason in Mike Macdonald’s system, and lost no contributors. If anything, they will bring even more bazookas to their weekly knife fight.

1. Healthy Uchenna Nwosu alongside wily DeMarcus Lawrence (both in heavy rotation)
2. further maturation for Byron Murphy and Tyrice Knight and other front seven members
3. the continued revelations that are Josh Jobe and Coby Bryant
4. whatever level of disemboweler Nick Emmanwori is fated to become behind Julian Love’s leadership
5. plus, of course, the two W’s, Riq Woolen and Devon Witherspoon, who on their own are worth two W’s in the ledger.

Ten years ago I called the LOB a band of quarterbackivores. (A shrewd reader suggested “cubiavores.”) Macdonald’s crew is not them. Who could be? Instead he’s assembled a battalion of shapeshifters, a relentless amoebic infection that sickens its victim until you look up and see the Seahawks have won yet another 13-10 duel. Count on this: the Seahawks D is gonna...