The Seattle Seahawks front office for the most part has a good reputation based on their success over the last decade. However, there’s a case to be made that whatever faith this organization built up during its peak run has been squandered and in truth they are behind the times when it comes to team building in the modern NFL. With no Russell Wilson around to play the hero, odds are this team will get a rude awakening this coming season.
Some folks get it. A new ranking of the league’s 32 GMs by Patrick Daugherty at NBC places John Schneider low – he’s just No. 22 on the list.
“The Seahawks’ front office has made two signature moves the past three years: Trading two first-round picks for a safety and acquiring two first-round picks for the quarterback who oversaw at least one playoff victory six of his 10 years in town. I’m not sure which, but that seems like a cardinal sin. It’s definitely a team-building sin. The one thing you do not do in the modern NFL is give away a franchise quarterback.”
Nothing is more difficult to comprehend than an inconvenient truth. If you’re a Seahawks fan who gets flustered by that take odds are you know deep down that it’s true. Russell Wilson may be 33 years old, corny as hell and not worth the $50 million a year the Broncos will be forced to pay him. That doesn’t change the fact this team deliberately took a bigger step backwards at quarterback than any NFL team has in years.
Schneider definitely shouldn’t take all the blame, though. Daugherty also rightfully ripped head coach Pete Carroll for doubling down on a ball-control approach despite having one of the game’s greatest WR groups. They don’t have an elite defense to justify it anymore, either.
All will be forgiven if the Seahawks find their next franchise QB in the 2023 NFL draft. Unfortunately, it would also let Schneider and Carroll off the hook for their mistakes and ultimately set the organization up for more missed opportunities.
All is not lost, though. Seattle went into the 2022 draft with a radically different approach than they had over the previous 10 years. If that trend continues there is hope.
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