"I'll bring us through this. As always. I'll carry you - kicking and screaming - and in the end you'll thank me."

I hate change. In my personal life, I crave routine and continuity- When I am knocked out of my comfort zone, I can barely continue functioning. For fuck's sake- A HUGE reason I am obsessed with the Seahawks is the thread of routine and continuity that they have provided to me since I was 8 years old.

So it is wrenching to me to see Hasselbeck basically sent away and Tatupu cut- I hate it. But do you know what I hate even more than change? Losing. Unfortunately, Tim Ruskell was a too much like me as a GM- Attached to veterans and taking half-measures in an attempt to extend the shelf life of the comfortable status quo. Like The Narrator in Fight Club, he, like myself, was a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct.

Then Mr. Allen hired Pete Carroll. In his first year one the job he made 300 roster moves, cut or traded multiple high-priced entrenched veterans, and along the way won a division title and a playoff game... To paraphrase a line from Fight Club: You had to give it to him: he had a plan. And it started to make sense, in a Pete Carroll sort of way. No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.

The team, as it previously existed, has been blown up. It hasn't been pleasant or pretty, but here we stand a year and a half into Carroll's reign with another banner waiting to be hung from the Seahawks Stadium rafters, and now better (and far younger) than we were before he came along and shook us out of our collective complacency.

I'm not thrilled that Matt Hasselbeck has been replaced by Tarvaris Jackson, but with the improved offensive talent surrounding him now, T-Jack doesn't have to be an All-Pro for the Seahawks to succeed. Really, he just needs to be as good (or a bit better) than Jon Kitna was with the Seahawks from 1997-2000. We don't have fond memories of Special K, but he WAS 18-15 as Seattle's starting QB. We just need T-Jack to be an average NFL QB- If he's any better than that, we'll certainly repeat as NFC West Champions.

I don't like seeing Lofa Tatupu leave either, but now Hawthorne gets to slide into the middle, where he excelled while Lofa was injured in 2009. We might not be done making moves at LB, but even if we are, I think we'll be alright with a starting trio of Curry/Heater/Hill.

Change is scary, but I have no doubt that at some point, we will look back and see this as the early days of a Seahawks golden age. These are exciting times to be a Twelve- Who knows what's next (hopefully a trade for Osi)? I for one can't wait to find out.

What do you think, sirs?

Matt Hasselbeck v Dave Krieg: The Post-Seattle Years

Matt Hasselbeck is now a Tennessee Titan, so I thought it would be a good time to step back and look at the post-Seattle career of the 2nd best QB in Seahawks history: Dave Krieg. There a lot of superficial parallels (like the fact that Beck went to Tennessee and that Krieg eventually landed in Tennessee as well at the very end of his career), but some key differences as well.

The biggest differences lie in how each QB left Seattle. In 1992, the Behring family was itching to get recent draft picks Kelly Stouffer and Dan McGwire out on the field. Coach Chuck Knox, particularly after lobbying hard for the Seahawks to draft Brett Favre rather than McGwire, was perfectly happy to let McGwire watch and learn behind 9-year starter Dave Krieg. When push came to shove, Knox's refusal to bench Krieg led to both being run out of Kirkland, with immediately ruinous results. The team tumbled to 2-14 and never truly recovered until Mike Holmgren came to town and acquired his franchise QB: Matthew Hasselbeck.

Hasselbeck's situation is a bit different. A new regime has ALREADY taken over, and Hasselbeck wasn't "their" guy. We aren't sure of every detail about Hasselbeck's departure- Was it a disagreement over the length of the deal? The guaranteed money? Or did Pete Carroll want to move on at the QB position no matter what terms Hasselbeck might have agreed to? The key contrast? Hasselbeck is 36 and coming off three sub-par seasons, and in 1992 Dave Krieg was only 33. Mudbone wasn't exactly tearing up the league in his last three Seahawks seasons, but his performance was clearly better than Beck's final years in Seattle.

What happened to Dave Krieg after leaving Seattle? He signed with the Chiefs, and in 1992 he started all 16 games and led KC to the playoffs (while Seattle had the worst season in franchise history. Ouch). In 1993, the Chiefs traded for Joe Montana, so by '94 Krieg was off to Detroit.

1994 was Krieg's post-Seahawks peak- He took over at QB with the Lions at 4-5 and was scorching hot for the final seven games. 14 TDs, only 3 INTs, a 101.7 rating, and he led Detroit into the playoffs. Krieg parlayed that into a starting job in Arizona, and started all 16 games at age 37 in 1995- Unfortunately he threw a league-high 21 picks and the Cardinals only won 4 games. He rebounded a bit with the Bears in 1996, going 6-6 in 12 starts with 14 TDs v 12 picks; He ended his career backing up Steve McNair in Tennessee before finally retiring after the 1998 season at age 40.

Can we expect Matt Hasselbeck's post-Seahawks career to top Krieg's? He's got a tough challenge in the AFC South, where I see the Titans as, at best, the 3rd best team in the division. On top of that, unlike Krieg in KC, Detroit, Arizona, etc, Hasselbeck has the team's QB of the future sitting on the bench, waiting for an opportunity to get onto the field. If Matthew's level of play doesn't improve over last season, you'd have to think Titans fans will be chanting "LOCK-ER!"

Krieg played 7 more seasons after leaving Seattle, and led teams to the playoffs twice. I can't see Hasselbeck matching that, or even playing to age 40 like Krieg did. I'd love to see him play well in Tennessee, of course- I just don't see him making us rue the day we let him walk the way Dave Krieg did.

What do you think, sirs?

This guy? He's OURS now.

I'm out and about so this won't really be a proper blog post- but I'm still on a high from yesterday's signings of Robert Gallery and Sidney Rice, so I wanted to post SOMETHING. WOOOO!

I already miss Hasselbeck, but I LOVE these moves. If they can lock up Mebane, this will go down as an amazing FA period for the Seahawks (and I'll have to buy a Bane jersey, since I went on his twitter feed and promised I would if he re-signed with Seattle).

So how are you all feeling about the Seahawks today? Better than Tuesday, I hope!

3 QBs Enter, 1 QB Leaves!

"Sounds like shit. What else we gonna do, go home?" - Lt. Aldo Raine

I don't like the moves the Seahawks made today. I hate that they let Matt Hasselbeck walk, and I can't say that I love the signings of Matt Leinart OR Tavaris Jackson. I can't think of a SINGLE example of a 3-way QB battle in an NFL training camp, let alone such a battle that resulted in a team having a successful season.

Here's the thing, though- I also thought the Seahawks shouldn't have drafted Lofa Tatupu, and I thought we should have drafted Michael Crabtree. My point? I know fuck-all, when you get down to it. I HAVE TO have faith that the Seahawks front office knows better than I do, that they have a plan, and that they are competent. I have NO CHOICE if I want to maintain my sanity. So, here's my positive spin-

We still have PLENTY of money to go make big moves in free agency, and frankly, we have to spend a shit ton of money to reach our spending obligations under the new CBA. Hopefully, very soon, I'll be writing another post about the amazing free agents heading to Seattle.

I've never seen a 3-way QB derby like this before- That fact is scary, but also exciting. We are about to see perhaps the most compelling training camp in team history (Man, we REALLY should have been on Hard Knocks, huh?), and we're also about to see some of the most important preseason games in franchise history as well. The winner gets to start at San Francisco week 1, so we should see all three men giving their absolute best efforts over the next six weeks.

Pete Carroll is NOT trying to "Suck to Get Luck." I don't agree with this strategy, but I can see what he is trying to do, and hope like Hell that it works. He hopes competition will produce at least ONE QB that can keep Seattle competitive in 2011, if not 2 or 3.

I'm not happy. Frankly, I'm pretty fucking depressed right now. But I'm still in, Coach.

What do you think, sirs?

Happy V-L Day!

The lockout ends today. There will be no labor apocalypse for the NFL, and the America's most popular and successful professional sports league will now enjoy 10 years of labor peace. This is a day for celebration, my fellow Twelves.

I predicted back in March that no regular season games would get wiped out, and I've rarely ever been happier to have a prediction proven right. It's been an ugly, messy, unpleasant process, but negotiations over BILLIONS of dollars of revenue are rarely neat and tidy. I want to thank Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith for getting their constituencies to step back from the brink, put aside their egos and hammer out a deal. For both Goodell and Smith, this 10-year CBA is their legacy, and it cements both not as dunderheaded nincompoops but as Responsible Stewards of the Game.

Our falls and winters will be filled with Seahawks football until 2021, with no possibility of a strike or a lockout. How sweet is that? I still think that the owners unnecessarily created this crisis, but I hold no ill will towards them now. How can I? There is a Seahawks game in SIXTEEN DAYS! WOOOOOOO!

Obviously, news is going to come fast a furious now- My twitter feed is a constant source of info and opinion for y'all, and of course I'll post here about the BIG news as it happens.

We Kept Calm and Carried On- Now let's watch some fuckin' football!